To what degree will you support musicians who (openly, possibly or jokingly) include racist, sexist, homophobic, or bigoted messages in their music, or who privately hold such beliefs?

if anything, this grappling speaks to how strange it looks to me when somebody digs through songs for autobiographical parallels. If you listen that way, fine! But it's alien to me -- these songs are fictional, and I'm parsing a language which may not surrender its mixed motives, subtleties, and contradictions on first or hundredth listen.

you niggas better fall back, 'fore i grab a 'ball bat
take it to ya skull, that's gon be the end of all that
insist on having problems? bet this revolver'll solve that
hit 'em in the temple then i leave 'em where they fall at

Dimebag guitar solo

not gonna lie—this had me on the floor in fuckin tears for at least 5 minutes

wow BIG thread -- my own thoughts:

I will absolutely not listen to stuff that promotes racism/fascism/misogyny in the lyrics as that basially ruins all music IMO. When it comes to stuff that is itself clean of such messages but made by abhorrent people - if its stuff I like, sure I'll download it or get it from the used bins. I'm not gonna give money to bigots, even if they make good music.

Lyrics by themselves aren't enough. To quote one famous lyricist, it's in how you inflect.

I mean, I have bought and I like Gospel music, so I guess pretty much everything is ok with me.

If I find out someone – even someone I like – has said some ignorant shit, it kind of ruins them for me forever, unless they make some big to-do about recanting (I can't think of any examples of anyone who has made a big fussy apology though).

I don't have to agree with what someone is saying or what someone does to enjoy their work. I do have issues with people who let that get in the way.

If I find out someone – even someone I like – has said some ignorant shit, it kind of ruins them for me forever, unless they make some big to-do about recanting (I can't think of any examples of anyone who has made a big fussy apology though).

Unless they actually change their minds, apologizing about own opinions is a bit pathetic, because, obviously, even though they realize that said opinion may not be so wise for the career, they will usually keep that opinion.
I have more respect for the fact that some may feel misinterpreted, and interpreted to be more racist/homophobe/sexist/etc. than they really were.

I guess apologising for your own opinions at least reinforces the public idea that those opinions are not ok. If a number of major dancehall acts came along and said sorry for their violent homophobia, it wouldn't necessarily make them any less violently homophobic on a personal level but it might stop them actively contributing to a culture that helps to entrench bigotry. It's probably better than nothing.

not gonna lie—this had me on the floor in fuckin tears for at least 5 minutes

― ilxor you've listened to one odd future album once (ilxor), Tuesday, 22 March 2011 01:52 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

if it actually did I would recommend lying in the future, tbqf

MSUIC and/or their labels, or will purchase these thin

otm

I find Eugene Chadbourne offensive but still happily buy his records.

I tend to disagree with Alfred re: the importance of authorial intent and don't treat songs as just "fictions" but he's OTM here - for me the noxious beliefs have to be in the music, and usually they are to some degree. That's why Death Certificate is about the most problematic masterpiece I own, because Ice Cube's voice is so belligerent and certain that there's no ducking or glossing over the lines you don't like. Bot not only is it a great record - it leads you to ask useful questions and dig into why he thinks what he does. The Death Certificate chapter in Jeff Chang's book is fascinating on how these ideas evolved and a reminder that "good" beliefs (anti-racism) and "bad" ones (homophobia) can coexist. At the age I first heard Death Certificate these were important ideas to grapple with - it's a great record because it's problematic, not in spite of it. The reason I want to skip certain tracks is a visceral reaction more than a principled one.

Fortunately Skrewdriver are terrible so we need not listen to them. How can you know what someone's beliefs are in private? I'm sure lots of racists listen to innocuous religious or orchestral music.

I take the lazy route, I judge by the number of idiots in the audience.

"Welcome back to Chipping and Sodbury
You can have another chance
It must all seem like second nature
Chopping down the people where they stand
According to the latest score
Mr. Enoch Powell is a falling star"

I cannot understand how anyone could read these lines as "John Cale approves of Enoch Powell" - he's describing people who are very, very clearly not avant garde welsh musicians

Uh, deliberately or not, you missed out the next two lines:

"So in future please bear in mind
Don't see clear don't see far"

... which suggests to me the narrator of the song does indeed approve of Enoch Powell. Whether you see John Cale and the song's narrator as one in the same is a different matter, obv. it's more comfortable for us nice liberal people to believe they aren't.

How do those lines indicate the narrators approval?

"So in the future, don't see, don't see far"

... that's obv. a reference to Enoch Powell "prophetic" 1968 "rivers of blood" speech

Not trying to be a troublemaker or a troll, just trying to parse this out, because the lyrics seem pretty dense to me, but those words don't appear to be in that speech?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html

They don't appear in the speech, but Powell's whole thing was being an (almost biblical) prophet foretelling of racial dischord, the man who dares to speak the truth, seeing clear and seeing far. So, in this part of the song anyway, the narrator seems to me to be a follower of Powell, dismayed at his political decline

Here's an interesting question : do you find songs about racism inspiring, or would you prefer to consume something more positive?

Fits with the bit about the "C of E looking down on you and me". Lyric is all over the place anyway, it's John Cale after all. (xp)

Hmmmm...the only google result for "Enoch Powell" and see clear see far are the lyrics for the song. But to just accept what you're saying as fact (because obvs British nationalist history isn't my strong suit), it seems to me that Cale is saying "don't see clear, don't see far" - don't do the things that Powell has been advocating.

Why would you tell somebody not to see clear and far except in a bitter tone of "because the unthinking mob will punish you for it"?

... don't see clear, don't see far because it won't get you anywhere... a prophet without honour in his own land... isn't that obvious?

Exactly

When you are trying to tell somebody not to do those things because those things are what Enoch Powell has been advocating?

... getting even more biblical.. Enoch would certainly have approved

But I don't really care about John Cale or Enoch Powell, so I'll just step on out of this having offered my subjective interpretation.

It's possible that you have to know a bit about the cult around Powell, the great Lost Prophet of post-war Conservatism (and English Nationalism), to recognise this echo in the lyric. But it seems fairly explicit to me - in the context of those lines.

Fair enough.

I would read it as Tom D and NV have done as well. I would assume the protagonist was sympathetic to Powell.As Tom said however that's not the same as Cale being sympathetic.

But well done to Johnny for writing a song about Little England attitudes, calling it "Graham Greene", for no apparent reason, and delivering it in a kind of Welsh Jamaican dialect

I wonder about Greene as a putative narrator of the song, or as the observer behind the narrator, depressed and bored by an England he's turned his back on.

Enoch Powell and John Cale....sounds like party time to me!

attacking disco, or other rhythm based music, for being brainless, tuneless, cynical or whatever has nothing to do with racism and cannot possibly by seen as racism unless said attack explicitely says that "I hate nigger music because I hate niggers" or something like that.

The amount of special pleading and question begging going on here is simply staggering.

I hate niggeir music

on this thread & on others, can people stop proving the oft-made point that typing racist epithets or punning variants of same is still creepy & NAGL in the extreme even if you're being "funny"?

yeah i almost immediately regretted making that pun

I hate nagl music

I always interpreted those lyrics as part of the next passage:

So in future please bear in mind
Don't see clear don't see far
When the average social director
Mistook a passenger for the conductor
So shocking see the old church of e
Looking down on you and me

which is all about seeing/looking

Eh?

When the average social director
Mistook a passenger for the conductor

No idea what this means tbh. Last two lines are exactly what you'd expect the narrator of the song to think of the C of E.

That would have to be some delicious racist pizza!

― Philip Nunez, Monday, 21 March 2011 22:05 (Yesterday)

can I just point out that lol

I wanted to say something on this thread but somehow it became all kinds of off-putting.

w/ cale I just think you have to give him the benefit of the doubt - the 'racist' interpretation requires a very selective not entirely obvious reading. I mean unless he's actually said conservative things that I haven't heard.. this is the same guy who released 'dr. mudd' years later - song is clearly far-left imo!

Has it been mentioned itt yet that Cale is a huge goon?

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2006/12/okay-as-were-trawling-music-mags-how.html

(I mean, that was four years ago, maybe things have changed...)

the 'racist' interpretation requires a very selective not entirely obvious reading

It is pretty obvious if you're British and certainly would have been in 1973! Cale's done his fair share of liberal-baiting in his time.

a) attacking disco, or other rhythm based music, for being brainless, tuneless, cynical or whatever has nothing to do with racism and cannot possibly by seen as racism unless said attack explicitely says that "I hate nigger music because I hate niggers" or something like that.

did you ever take a sociology class and learn how institutionalized racism works, because you sound like a 15 year old libertarian kid right now