Dated Casual Racism In Popular Music

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Here's another good one, Black Messiah by The Kinks. Probably well-intentioned but fucking hell Ray.

Popular topic of mine to wind up Americans who like to think of the Kinks as the clever or conscious band as compared to the Stones and Beatle and the 'Oo.

They were always hugely fucking racist and their entire gimmick is "weren't things better in the olden days before the [slurs] came over?"

Check out the lyrics to "When I Turn Off the Living Room Light"

Lawrence Fox could have written "20th Century Man"

[Egyptian Feast]

Ha! Try Oh Effendi, or even worse, Hotel

See also: The Second Sitting For The Last Supper. First time I ever encountered that nasty expression (last time was that thick Tory cunt who got suspended briefly for using it in the Commons). A lot of 10cc lyrics have not aged well at all.

[Kankurette]

I do agree with you about Holiday In Cambodia, but it'd still seem a bit weird hearing him singing it now.

What the fuck is Patti Smith on about? That's painful.

Look I redefined the word n***** to mean it applies to rich white men who grew up in Dartford okay? Jeez.

I hate that song. I get Elvis Costello singing 'one less white n*****', because he's of Irish descent and Irish people were viewed as pretty low down the food chain, but Patti Smith's idea that 'n*****' = 'marginalised person' makes no sense and hearing a field full of white people singing that word repeatedly at Primavera made me uncomfortable. And I'm white myself.

[BeardFaceMan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ng1ovEr46c

This anti-racism (I think?) song by Clawfinger wasn't a good idea at the time, let alone now. Make sure you make it to the chorus that has to be heard to be believed, really. Hard to take an anti-racism song seriously when the chorus is a skinny white Swedish bloke screaming the n-word over and over. Bless.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I never understand "White Riot" - a song about white complacency and being a middle class londoner during black protests, routinely getting the chop but "Rock The Casbah" - lyrics like a rejected idea for a late 1970s Speight/Milligan joint, is an acceptable '80s rock classic. 

"Rock the Casbah" is 'orrible surely. 

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Iggy Pop - African Man
Lou Reed - I Wanna Be Black

[An tSaoi]

Take pinch of white man...

[thecuriousorange]

"Screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hair-do, like some cat from Japan "

[Pauline Walnuts]

Variations of Queen's "No Synths Were Used In The Making Of This Record" boast appearing during times when rocks radio dominance was threatened by trends like funk, disco, hiphop, etc. Taking pride in no drum machines.

I think that was more Brian May showing off that he made all those noises on a guitar, and not cheated and used a newfangled keyboard thingy.

They also did Dragon Attack and Another One Bites the Dust, they so weren't that non-funk. Even if they did apologise to the crowd on the Hot Space tour for playing 'another disco, black one'.

And, before I forget, they also drop a very well hidden N bomb on March of the Black Queen, Which still rocks. fight me.

[Pauline Walnuts]

Think about it, yeah?

[Chedney Honks]

Black Korea off some Ice Cube album is remarkably racist, listened to that recently. On the other hand, it was in response to racism.

Does that cancel it out?

NO!

Two wrongs don't make a right, as Woody Allen said in a racist film.

[Peru]

Take a journey back in time
Leave the western world behind
Cross the mountains to Peking
Where the paper lanterns gently swing
[...]
The Chinese way
Who knows what they know?
The Chinese legend grows
[...]
Standing at the master's side
There with patience he confides
Secret knowledge, sacred ways
Pearls of wisdom from the dragon days
😬

[Corduroy Castle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ng1ovEr46c

This anti-racism (I think?) song by Clawfinger wasn't a good idea at the time, let alone now. Make sure you make it to the chorus that has to be heard to be believed, really. Hard to take an anti-racism song seriously when the chorus is a skinny white Swedish bloke screaming the n-word over and over. Bless.

I'm surprised Mike Patton hasn't covered this.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Beefheart does alright with all kinds of heavy themes on Trout Mask then shits the bed completely with the chorus of "Hobo Chang Ba"

[Video Game Fan 2000]

"Sweet Black Angel" can go fuck itself.

[Pauline Walnuts]

I'm surprised Mike Patton hasn't covered this.

Ironically.


That really does sound like the sort of thing Chris Morris would have done back in the day as a Rage Against the Machine parody.

[Mr Banlon]

Mott the Hoople's All the Way From Memphis :
"Some spade said rock 'n' rollers, you're all the same
Man that's your instrument, I felt so ashamed"

[Pauline Walnuts]

Who would have thought Steve Albini, err..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCeipaA8KCg

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Speaking of Jagger...

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him whip the women just around midnight

Brown sugar
How come you taste so good?
Brown sugar
Just like a young girl should

Drums beating, cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doing alright
You shoulda heard him just around midnight

Brown sugar
How come you taste so good, now?
Brown sugar
Just like a young girl should

Ah, get along, brown sugar
How come you taste so good
Ah, got me feelin' now, brown sugar
Just like a black girl should

[Video Game Fan 2000]

"Passing Complexion" is fine.
The band he had with the Urge Overkill guy, however...

[Mr Banlon]

Barbados (Whoa, I'm Going To) by Typically Tropical
'Jim Davidson as Chalkie' singing style, and a reference to Coconut Airways. It was also No1 in South Africa in 1975.

Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc.

Nick Nack Paddy Whack

[Glebe]

Shaddap You Face - Joe Dolce.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Shaddap You Face - Joe Dolce.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBAwUTO1fNs

[The Mollusk]

Speaking of dodgy N-word appropriation, Crass did themselves no favours with "White Punks on Hope":

They said that we were trash
Well the name is Crass, not Clash
They can stuff their punk credentials
Cause it's them that take the cash
They won't change nothing with their fashionable talk
All their RAR badges and their protest walk
Thousands of white men standing in a park
Objecting to racism's like a candle in the dark
Black man's got his problems and his way to deal with it
So don't fool yourself you're helping with your white liberal shit
If you care to take a closer look at the way things really stand
You'd see we're all just n****** to the rulers of this land

Mmm, not so sure about that, Steve. Kind of grimly amusing that the gender-exclusivity of the line about black people men is the least problematic, messy and poorly considered thing about those lyrics.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I don't mind having a chance to put the boot into anti-marxist anarchists, but "black man's got his problems" is delivered scathingly, sounds like he's making fun of Strummer.

The sentiment is still shit though. There is a lot of garbage on that record, lyrically despite being some of their most skin-crawlingly effective music. "Heard Too Much About" slags off working class people for caring about "people in the ghetto" and working to change things at their jobs instead of dropping out of the system maaaaaan...  "The Gasman Cometh" and "Fun in the Oven" too. I admire Crass a lot and they recorded a shit load of great stuff, frequently hilarious too, but I think they get buy on how forward Penis Envy seemed overshadowing how awful the message of their other albums could be. "Where Next Columbus?" is so good, lyrics and all.

Then there is the fucking intolerable "Nagasaki Nightmare" single which has cymbal crashes and the "oriental riff" and stupid racist voices - what would it be like if Jim Davidson covered a track from This Heats self titled? This. Reminds me of the yellow face bullshit Godard kept putting in his films.

But at least they're not class crazy Marxists eh.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

To ashes at Auschwitz it's just a small leap,
From coshes at Southall, life is cheap.
Don't think that they won't do it, 'cause they already do,
But this time 'round the pawns are me and you.

Blergh

[SullySullivan85]

Dear diary,
Jackpot.

https://youtu.be/YyTruRHZsFQ

[Dusty Substance]

The Lone Ranger by Quantum Jump is down there with what I consider to be the worst songs ever recorded. It's a fucking appalling, tuneless single but it's made even worse by these rather dated lyrics:

Taumatawhakatangihangakoayauo-
Tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoro-
Nukypokaiwhenuakitanatahu

Me Tonto Kimosabi
Me go and catchee baddy
Find him by the shady water
Deep within Apache forest
Find him scalp him eat him up for breakfast.....

And it continues from there, obviously with a mention of a peace pipe.

Banned by the Beeb at the time of release, not for racism but for a reference to homosexuality and drugs.

[chveik]

Black Korea off some Ice Cube album is remarkably racist, listened to that recently. On the other hand, it was in response to racism.

Does that cancel it out?

NO!

Two wrongs don't make a right, as Woody Allen said in a racist film.

love that album but it's a pure expression of hatred from start to finish

[lazyhour]

Randy Newman gets away with it in songs like Rednecks and Sail Away because they are amazing songs with a crystal clear satirical intent, but I'd still feel very uncomfortable if I was listen to them in my record shop and a BAME person came in Android heard them without knowing about their context or Randy's ouvre.

The punchline at the end of Rednecks is just phenomenal, where he suddenly lays as much blame on metropolitan cities (ie, his self congratulatory listeners) as he does on Deep Southerners for keeping black Americans down.