Acts Who Could Be Cancelled for Racially Dodgy Lyrics or Videos

[Dr Rock]

Elvis first 'got together' with Priscilla when she was fourteen. He was 24. But that's apparently okay because Elvis is sexy and cool.

Priscilla's story is she was a virgin when she married Elvis, aged 21.

[kngen]

I don't think he can be criticised for being racist at all, and stuff like Thing Fish and Nig Biz is all satirical and is obviously an attack on the people who hold those views (ditto Bobby Brown, although I'll acknowledge it's a fucking dreadful song).  I mean a huge chunk of Thing Fish was co-written by Ike Willis for fuck's sake (in fact ORSICR, terrible though it is, I suggest you have another listen to Thing Fish and pay close attention to the lyrics), and also holding the mirror up to the entertainment industry.  Also note that Zappa had black and minority and female musicians in his bands since 1967.  That being the case, I think his "sexism" was coming from the same angle as well.  Certainly Ruth Underwood (who was a Mother on and off from 1967 to 1977) thought so.

'Casual racism' like Sheik Yerbouti or blacking up for the cover of Joe's Garage (which, lest we forget, is hardly progressive in its views regarding homosexuality or female sexuality, either). I'm well aware of Thing Fish and the lofty goals of its premise. Doesn't mean that, like Curry and Chips, it wasn't misjudged. You know, the sort of thing a white person might happy to put their name to because they think to themselves, 'Hey, I've got black friends and bandmates. I can't possibly be racist.'

[Janie Jones]

Apeman by the Kinks is pretty dodgy, unless you want to attempt the Danny Baker defence and pretend you'd no idea that people exist with diseased minds who compare Black people to apes. The steel drum sound, the cringey Caribbean accent, for the avoidance of doubt there's even a repeated reference to voodoo. Still gets airplay, heard it on BBC Radio 6 Music this year.

https://youtu.be/A-5I3gbmvlM

[Dr Rock]

Nah. It's a desire to be simple and primitive, a harkening back to a supposedly better time, like many Kinks songs. And I don't think there are any steel drums on it.

Or I'm wrong and you can also put the The Stones 'Monkey Man' and The Beatles 'Everybody's Got Something To Hide )'Cept For Me And My Monkey.' in the dumper. And also 'Hey Hey We're The Monkees' by The Monkees.

[Dr Rock]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cklpO4kYZKs

[thecuriousorange]

Half Breed by Cher.

https://youtu.be/Z6E98ZRaU1s

Is this cool?

[Dr Rock]

Lyrics
My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother's people were ashamed of me
The Indians said I was white by law
The White Man always called me "Indian Squaw"
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
We never settled, went from town to town
When you're not welcome you don't hang around
The other children always laughed at me
"Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee"
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
We weren't accepted and I felt ashamed
Nineteen I left them, tell me who's to blame
My life since then has been from man to man
But I can't run away from what I am
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born



Dr Rock says NOT RACIST. It's clearly pro-tolerance.

[Dr Rock]

Who will I defend next? The Bangles?! You'll have to wait and see.

[thecuriousorange]

Not sure a white person wearing that outfit (or singing those lyrics) would fly today. It's only a few notches away from blacking up. But nobody seems to mind that "The Indian" in The Village People is Puerto Rican. Maybe he'll be cancelled eventually.



EDIT: I just read that Cher claims to one sixteenth Cherokee. Fine, I guess. Still, it's not verified and hardly "Half".

[Shit Good Nose]

Not sure a white person wearing that outfit (or singing those lyrics) would fly today. It's only a few notches away from blacking up. But nobody seems to mind that "The Indian" in The Village People is Puerto Rican. Maybe he'll be cancelled eventually.

That's the least of their problems - none of them had ever actually stayed in a YMCA.

[Dr Rock]

Not sure a white person wearing that outfit (or singing those lyrics) would fly today. It's only a few notches away from blacking up. 

Hmmm, I dunno really.

Meanwhile, what about Bob Dylan (again!) and also Mannfredd Mannnn, doing Jockice's favourite song, The Mighty Quinn? Because you're not supposed to say 'Eskimo' any more are you? It's offensive. Although I have no idea what the Inuit term for 'British' is, it might be really bad.

[thecuriousorange]

Pop stars wearing Native American Headdresses is broadly considered a no-no.

https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/rock-stars-who-ve-worn-native-headdresses-and-probably-shouldn-t-have-nvvktz2msUK_NFoQA9Ro0g

Though none of the singers in that article have been cancelled (for this, anyway).

[Rich Uncle Skeleton]

Fuck, was playing White Women by Sparks and my Korg A3 had other ideas

[pupshaw]

I'm going to stick my neck out a bit here and suggest that David Allan Coe might er....

I'm not even going to post a link, nothing could be more NSFW

[jobotic]

Pop stars wearing Native American Headdresses is broadly considered a no-no.

https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/rock-stars-who-ve-worn-native-headdresses-and-probably-shouldn-t-have-nvvktz2msUK_NFoQA9Ro0g

Though none of the singers in that article have been cancelled (for this, anyway).

I always thought Stevie Ray Vaughan had some heritage that he was referencing, although I don't remember Jimmie Vaughan mentioning it.

[Dr Rock]

Is Cher any percent gypsy?

[Keebleman]

Is Cher any percent gypsy?

Dunno.  She's a right fucking tramp, mind.

[rue the polywhirl]

Pop stars wearing Native American Headdresses is broadly considered a no-no.

https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/rock-stars-who-ve-worn-native-headdresses-and-probably-shouldn-t-have-nvvktz2msUK_NFoQA9Ro0g

Though none of the singers in that article have been cancelled (for this, anyway).

Chaka Khan a strange omission from that list. Because she has native Americian heritage or tacit confirmation that she should be wearing headdresses?

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Dunno.  She's a right fucking tramp, mind.

She's a thief, too: she stole that song, It's in His Kiss.

[Brundle-Fly]

Joe Jackson had some grief even at the time for the opening line of 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?'

'Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street'

Wiki

Jackson recalled an incident where the lyrics to the song were misinterpreted. He explained that he was accused of racism by a black man because of the song's opening lyric "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street", which the man had thought was about black men dating white women. Jackson concluded, "And no matter what I said he wouldn't believe me, and as far as he was concerned that was what it was. So, I mean, really, what can you do? (Laughs) I always feel like my lyrics are very clear, but what can I say?"

That same year, The Specials had recorded Toots & the Maytals 'Monkey Man' which I always thought was about scary bouncers because on a live version, Neville Staple dedicates it to the venue's security staff.

Toots said in an interview, "Well Monkeyman is all about a girl, a very good looking girl like you! I fell in love with her and then a monkey-looking man took her away from me but I thought she was in love with me. The guy was ugly and not good looking like me, ha ha!"

[Egyptian Feast]

Joe Jackson had some grief even at the time for the opening line of 'Is She Really Going Out With Him?'

'Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street'

That reminds me of being given a Joe Jackson album my older brother could no longer be arsed with when I was about six or seven. I was showing a worrying interest in his record collection (I'd previously smashed his no longer required Saturday Night Fever OST to smithereens, but I was now past that stage of development), so he gave me his cast offs. Anyway, the Joe Jackson album had a song called 'Battleground' with repeated usage of the n-word ("black n*, white n* living in a battleground", or something like that) and I had to ask my mother what it meant and what was the difference. I can't remember what she said, but I'll never forget her explanation for 'wanker' a few years later - "Oh, it's a man who plays with his wee wee" - which I took completely the wrong way and proceeded to misinform all my friends immediately.

I can't remember what happened to Joe, but I still have some of the other ones so I must have fucked him up.

[Brundle-Fly]

Nice story, but I don't understand the final sentence.

[Egyptian Feast]

I meant that Joe may have suffered a similar fate to the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack as I can't remember having the record a few years later. I may still have had destructive tendencies.

[Brundle-Fly]

Ah. The only record I've ever destroyed was a 12' single that got warped because I'd left it in the sun. I think it might have been Stan Ridgeway's Walkin' Home Alone.

[Egyptian Feast]

I warped a 7" of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" with a fan heater around that time too, but that was accidental. I still can't dredge up a memory of destroying Joe Jackson and my other inherited records are in good nick, so my new theory is my brother reclaimed it and it's in a box in the attic back home with all the shite records he nicked from the local radio station.

[Noodle Lizard]

He was always pretty socially conservative and, even by his own admission, would have been more vocally supportive of the Republicans if they weren't in thrall to the evangelical lobby. I think his sexism, homophobia, casual racism and generally snide attitudes to progressive politics (and his lifelong criticism of drug use) are pretty unsurprising when you look at who he targeted on We're Only In It For The Money. There is still quite a surprising amount of people that think he's some kind of freak-scene flower power ambassador (albeit a wryly witty one), when he laid it all out there in 1968. He fucking hated hippies, probably even more than he hated 'the man'.

So it wouldn't surprise me if he was tucked up in bed while the rest of the Mothers were doing unspeakable things with jars of groupie shite.

He was pretty "sex-positive", mind you (in the sense that he openly shared groupies with his wife and was often known to wander around naked at home), and he didn't think drugs should be illegal - he just didn't personally like them, and forbade his band members to use them while on the road precisely because they were illegal and might mean a vital band member ends up in jail in Arkansas when they've got a show to play. His distaste for the 60s/hippie bands and culture seemed more to do with him thinking they were full of shit rather than anything strictly political - and in many ways, he wasn't wrong, it did essentially becoming a marketing ploy.

He was also one of the biggest spokespeople against the PMRC and spent a good chunk of his 80s career speaking out against organised religion and how it infests politics. I don't know if "socially conservative" is really the way to describe him - perhaps closer to what we might call "libertarian" or "classical liberal" today. He was certainly fiscally conservative and very "business-like", but that was probably precisely why he was able to make so much content in those eras and still retain the rights to all of them. He was very, very smart for his time - in this regard at least.

Personally, I think any dodgy stuff in his lyrics is more than excused by the deadpan humour and of it all, as well as the fact that he targeted almost everyone at some point or another. I think Bobby Brown Goes Down is a great and very funny (if puerile) song, mind you, so I may be out of step with a few of you here.

[evilcommiedictator]

Are we cancelling The Village People until they defund their police officer?

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Priscilla's story is she was a virgin when she married Elvis, aged 21.

It's still dodgy as fuck, though. He literally and figuratively groomed her.

[kngen]

He was pretty "sex-positive", mind you (in the sense that he openly shared groupies with his wife and was often known to wander around naked at home), and he didn't think drugs should be illegal - he just didn't personally like them, and forbade his band members to use them while on the road precisely because they were illegal and might mean a vital band member ends up in jail in Arkansas when they've got a show to play. His distaste for the 60s/hippie bands and culture seemed more to do with him thinking they were full of shit rather than anything strictly political - and in many ways, he wasn't wrong, it did essentially becoming a marketing ploy.

He was also one of the biggest spokespeople against the PMRC and spent a good chunk of his 80s career speaking out against organised religion and how it infests politics. I don't know if "socially conservative" is really the way to describe him - perhaps closer to what we might call "libertarian" or "classical liberal" today. He was certainly fiscally conservative and very "business-like", but that was probably precisely why he was able to make so much content in those eras and still retain the rights to all of them. He was very, very smart for his time - in this regard at least.

Personally, I think any dodgy stuff in his lyrics is more than excused by the deadpan humour and of it all, as well as the fact that he targeted almost everyone at some point or another. I think Bobby Brown Goes Down is a great and very funny (if puerile) song, mind you, so I may be out of step with a few of you here.

Yeah, I suppose the thing with him is that there so much open to interpretation that people can project or detract as much as they want. I think it's the live version of Honey, Don't You Want a Man Like Me (which is a pretty grim Ha! Ha! Rape! song, even if the male protagonist is main focus of the ire[nb]Yet they take time out to update the lyrics so that her favourite music is Twisted Sister not Helen Reddy because: Haha! What a dumb bitch![/nb]) on You Can't Do That On Stage Anymore that did it for me, though. Loved it when I was 16. Went back a couple of years later, and felt a bit 'Eh, this is not remotely cool at all.'

And you could extrapolate that to my feelings on Zappa in general. I can't help but feel that, when you strip away the ironic distance and superciliousness, there is a streak of cruelty that makes it all considerably less enjoyable, especially when he's punching down.

[kngen]

It's still dodgy as fuck, though. He literally and figuratively groomed her.

Makes me think of Celine Dion's manager. Brrrr ... what a fucking creep.