BANNED AID – A guide to the banning of music – RACISM

This is the first in a series of five posts on the banning of music. Future posts:

  • Part 2 – POLITICS
  • Part 3 – ILLEGAL SUBSTANCES
  • Part 4 – GENDER
  • Part 5 – RELIGION

These posts will include lyrics containing strong language so that we are all aware of exactly how vile some songs are.

Would you ban this song? –

What about this song?

The first song contains the n-word, the second one doesn’t. Which song is more offensive? I know which one I find more offensive and it’s not the first one.

Beyoncé, much to her credit, voluntarily changed the line “Spazzin’ on that ass” from her song HEATED when she discovered that it referred to people suffering from Spastic Cerebral Palsy. But if one thinks it’s acceptable to mock the disabled (I’m looking at you Trump) then one would be fine with Beyoncé leaving her lyrics unchanged. John Lennon and Yoko Ono wrote WOMAN IS THE NIGGER OF THE WORLD but before they recorded and released it they went to several African-American political activists first and said that if the activists objected John and Yoko would re-write the lyric leaving out the n-word. You can hate John and Yoko and / or their music all you like but give credit where credit is due. Here are a dozen thoughts about lyric banning to keep in mind as one works through these five posts:

  1. On what grounds should a lyric be banned?
  2. Can a hateful lyric, perhaps combined with other factors, provoke violence against people? There is a great deal of both antisemitism and Islamophobia violence going on presently (December 2023) surrounding the Gaza-Israeli War. What might happen if Taylor Swift were to release an anti-Israel or an anti-Hamas song tomorrow?
  3. Who decides? A Nazi isn’t about to ban a song lyric praising the Holocaust.
  4. Consider context. The 1939 song Ding, Dong, The Witch is Dead from The Wizard of Oz contains nothing intrinsically offensive (set aside its misogynist misrepresentation of witches for a moment) but when the song was sung relentlessly at street celebrations and a recording of the song made it to the Number Two position in the charts when former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher died in 2013, it was banned by the BBC.
  5. Consider time and place. In the 1960’s many songs advocating the use of illegal drugs, including cannabis, were banned. Today cannabis use is legal (I’m a Canadian).
  6. Banning a lyric is an attempt to suppress its message but banning it calls attention to it, increasing the number of people who hear the song as people are curious about why the song was banned.
  7. Therefore is it more effective to educate rather than ban, that is, point out the negative ramifications of harmful song lyrics, some of which might go unnoticed at first glance?
  8. If someone is brought up in a healthy, diverse environment and they hear a racist song then they’ll denounce it, or ignore it, right? So is banning unnecessary?
  9. Should racist songs be kept from minors rather than being universally banned? But there are some minors who could responsibly handle hearing racist lyrics, and some adults who are racist or prone to racism.
  10. Offence varies with culture and demographic. Should we let someone from a racist or sexist culture or background decide which lyrics are offensive?
  11. Banning lyrics often raises cries of suppression of free speech. How can we tell when those cries are justified?
  12. Would it be all right to approve of a song lyric in which a character who is portrayed as villainous and nasty used a racist epithet? What do you think of this song in which the singer uses the n-word –https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVyhQ4qnWeY&ab_channel=RandyNewman-Topic .

Here is sheet music for the 1924 song THE BRIGHT FIERY CROSS by Alvia O. DeRee published in the US and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan – note the hooded figures gathered around the cross –

Any decision about how to use a racist term can only ethically be made by the group the racist term targets. Some African-American bands or singers include the n-word in their lyrics, e.g. DON’T CALL ME NIGGER, WHITEY (Sly and the Family Stone), LIVING IN THE CITY (Stevie Wonder), and ANTI-NIGGER MACHINE (Public Enemy). But there are other people who perceive this as a double standard. Such people may also display a sign reading ‘All Lives Matter’ in response to the Black Lives Matter movement thus missing the point completely. But things are not always simple. What if a songwriter creates a character in a song who is racist but the songwriter makes it clear that the character is someone to be condemned? If the songwriter has that character use the N-word is that acceptable if the songwriter is Caucasian? Some examples of songs which use the n-word in this way:

  • The Rolling Stones – Sweet Black Angel
  • Patti Smith – Rock-N-Roll N*****
  • Bob Dylan – Hurricane
  • Eyehategod – White N*****
  • Dead Kennedys – Holiday in Cambodia
  • Clawfinger – N*****
  • Elvis Costello – Oliver’s Army – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrjHz5hrupA&ab_channel=ElvisCostelloVEVO
  • Randy Newman – Rednecks (linked to above)
  • Randy Newman – Christmas in Capetown (linked to above)

At least there have also been songs which are anti-racist. One that comes to mind is Gordon Lightfoot’s BLACK DAY IN JULY. It was released soon after the 1967 race riots in Detroit which lasted five days. 43 people died, 467 were injured, there were about 7200 arrests and more than 2000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. Lightfoot’s song was played quite a bit in Canada (Lightfoot is Canadian) but it was banned in the US. Here it is – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L07TKGjseyg&ab_channel=CrystalDawne . More than fifty years later George Floyd was murdered and Donald Trump called the Black Lives Matter movement a terror organization. Some examples of race-related lyric changes:

  1. In 1955 Emmett Till, an African-American teenager visiting Mississippi, was alleged to have flirted with a white woman and as a result he was abducted, savagely tortured, and executed by white racists. At his funeral his mother insisted on an open casket so everyone could see how his face had been badly mutilated and his right eye had been dislodged from its socket. In 2013 African-American artists Future (Nayvadius Wilburn) and Lil Wayne (Dwayne Carter Jr.) released the song KARATE CHOP (REMIX) which contains these lines: “Bout to put rims on my skateboard wheels / Beat the pussy up like Emmett Till”. Later Lil Wayne apologized for trivializing a horrible event and changed the line. As far as I know, however, he was still fine with this use of the word ‘pussy’.
  2. PUTTIN’ ON THE RITZ, written by Irving Berlin in 1927, is about poor blacks in Harlem dressing up and parading up and down Lenox Avenue to mock the rich whites elsewhere in New York City showing off their wealth. The lyrics express approval and admiration for the creative way in which poor New York blacks are making fun of rich New York whites. In 1946 Berlin rewrote the lyrics so that they meant the opposite of what they originally meant. The amended song is about how great the wealthy white socialites are and how envious everyone should be of them. Here is Fred Astaire’s rendition of the updated version – Astaire, and all of the dancers behind him, are white – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKPMk5_gStk&ab_channel=fredl and here is Tommy Tune’s version using the original lyrics. Tune is white but all of the dancers behind him are black. By the way, the song, meant to be rhythmically interesting, is in 8 / 8 time but see if you can spot the 7 / 8 bars cleverly thrown in to throw off the listener even further – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-xmVjr570k&ab_channel=jsnwse
  3. In the original version of African-American Chuck Berry’s hit JOHNNY B. GOODE Johnny is described as a “little coloured boy” but Berry, under pressure, changed that to “little country boy”.
  4. In 2011 Lady Gaga released BORN THIS WAY containing the lyric “No matter black, white or beige, chola, or Orient made”. But ‘chola’ is a variation of ‘cholo’, a derogatory term for people of mixed blood heritage in Latin America. When Orville Pick recorded his version of the song he changed the line to “No matter black, white or beige, Asian or Latinx made”, with Lady Gaga’s approval.
  5. The Guns N Roses song ONE IN A MILLION on the CD ‘Appetite For Destruction’ contains the N-word as well as the word ‘faggot’, used in hate-filled ways, and the lyrics are also xenophobic. The words were written by Axel Rose, and Slash, the band’s lead guitarist, tried to stop Axel from releasing the track because of the lyrics but Slash was unsuccessful (Slash’s mother is African-American). Axel Rose was damned and determined to release the track.

Then there have been the times when the lyrics remained unchanged when perhaps they should have been banned. Many openly racist songs have been deemed quite acceptable when they first appeared in early twentieth century America, for example:

  • N***** BOYS – by Eugene Engel
  • UNDERNEATH THE HARLEM MOON – by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel
  • NEVER TRUST A N***** WITH A GUN – by C.S. Livingston and J.G. Lewis
  • YOU’SE JUST A LITTLE N***** STILL YOUSE MINE ALL MINE – by Paul Dresser
  • THE BRIGHT FIERY CROSS – by Alvia O. DeRee
  • AN AWFUL WICKED N***** – by S.B. Alexander and Summit L. Hecht
  • DAR’LL BE A N***** MISSIN’ – by Lew Bloom
  • RUN, MISTER N***** – by Frank J. Kent and Henry E. Lower
  • DANGEROUS BLACK MAN – by Irving Jones
  • PICCANINNY’S TEARS by Cesare Celani
  • SAMBO’S HUNTING SONG by Richard Coerdeler
  • ALL COONS LOOK ALIKE TO ME by Ernest Hogan and Richard Morton

Stephen Foster’s song OH! SUSANNA has been covered by many people (e.g. James Taylor – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J63ZQqa-VCQ&ab_channel=GaryLarson ), however in the second verse there is a description of an industrial accident that “killed five hundred n****** ” by electrocution”. In the 1960’s, as a reaction to the Civil Rights Movement, Clifford Trahan, using the name Johnny Rebel, recorded songs full of the n-word, songs that voiced support for racial segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and the Confederacy. Here are the titles of some of Trahan’s recordings:

  • KAJUN KU KLUX KLAN
  • N*****, N*****
  • COON TOWN
  • WHO LIKES A N*****?
  • N*****-HATIN’ ME
  • SOME N****** NEVER DIE (THEY JUST SMELL THAT WAY)
  • MOVE THEM N****** NORTH

The German neo-Nazi band Landser covered Trahan’s song Coon Town under the title Kreuzberg in 1997. The word ‘Kreuz’ means ‘cross’ in German.

Uncle Dave Macon (1870 – 1952) was a popular country singer known as the Grandfather of Country Music. He was a banjo player, comedian, singer, songwriter, Vaudevillian and star of the Grand Old Opry. Two of the pallbearers at his funeral were Roy Acuff and Bill Monroe. Many of Macon’s songs were pretty uncontroversial, but he also released a song called RUN, N*****, RUN. David Allan Coe is a country singer born back in 1939 who has had a checkered career, including run-ins with the Internal Revenue Service over unpaid taxes. He has recorded many songs and one of them was titled N***** LOVER. Musical racism is not restricted to the United States either. The 1932 British song THE SUN HAS GOT HIS HAT ON by Noel Gay and Ralph Butler, Caucasian both, also uses the n-word.

The abduction of black Africans during the Slave Trade is trivialized and romanticized in the song BROWN SUGAR (by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards) released by The Rolling Stones with these lyrics: “Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields . . . Skydog slaver knows he’s doin’ all right / hear him whip the women just around midnight . . . Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good / Brown Sugar, just like a young girl should” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxXV2UftL7Q&ab_channel=Sound%26Vision .

Finally, in the song SOME GIRLS, again released by The Rolling Stones and written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the band generalizes unflatteringly about French, Italian, American, Chinese and English ‘girls’, and Jagger sings: “Black girls just wanna get fucked all night, I just don’t have that much jam”. This song was released on the album Some Girls released in 1978. One would have thought that by then the Stones would have known better. Some people at the time noticed the racism but most people did not. It’s like reading old James Bond novels and being embarrassed that one didn’t notice the blatant racism when they first read the novels when they first came out. Then there is the antisemitism in old Ngaio Marsh novels, and Agatha Christie’s murder mystery ‘Ten Little Niggers’ whose title was changed to ‘Then There Were None’ for the American market. Don’t talk to me about the good old days.