I've never really given Randy Newman much thought before, but as is my way I recently had an arbitrary browse through his work using Spotify. The first song I listened to, Rednecks had an instant effect on me; the chords and the earnestness and conversational style of his lyrics made me instantly intrigued, despite not knowing what he was on about. About a minute later I began thinking "hang on, is the refrain of each verse "...and we're keeping the n**gers down?? Wtf Randy??"""
I googled the song and its concept and it took me a while to get my head round properly, hes singing in character as a redneck, and the song is meant to illuminate the hypocrisy of the redneck people getting frustrated at being discriminated against while also simultaneously maintaining an anti-black mentality. Problem is it's still very hard to swallow though; its sang in such a straight and earnest tone. Calling it 'parodical' would be the wrong word. It's not hard to see how it could either be taken at face value and become an anthem for racists (and rednecks) or at the least be understood to be sung in character but reappropriated regardless. I cannot enjoy the song as I would like, despite it being an amazing tune and it not being Newmans actual opinion. It definitely wouldn't fly today? He says the word n**ger about 12 times in the song or something. It's a weird one.
Same goes for Short People, which is laugh out loud funny in just how harsh the lyrics are at face value "short people got no reason to live" and They got little baby legs
And they stand so low
You got to pick 'em up
Just to say hello
They got little cars
That got beep, beep, beep
They got little voices
Goin' peep, peep, peep
They got grubby little fingers
And dirty little minds
They're gonna get you every time
It's apparently a joke song again written in character as a prejudiced twat, but it's how straight its delivered that makes it weird. Reading further Newman seemed genuinely surprised that people got upset with it. I think the thing is because (despite the cheeky chords etc) its put across so earnestly it's not hard to see why others might just perceive it in a detrimental way even if Randy didn't actually mean it to be.
Listening to more songs he seems to have a Gervais/Pilkington esque obsession with "little fat men" who appear prominently in his lyrics.
Sorry for prattling on; I guess what I'm getting at is despite clearly being sang from viewpoints that are intentionally challenging and sung in sarcasm/parody, it definitely tarnished the songs for me and makes them hard to fully enjoy. Are there other artists who have done likewise and has had anyone felt the same reaction? Or examples of songs being misunderstood and thence appropriated as anthems for idiots or bigots?
Lemme kno