I recently played the song “Rock & Roll Nigger” for a friend of mine who had never heard it before. He was immediately upset by the lyrics claiming that they were racist. I can understand where he was coming from but then I explained that as far as I knew, the song was using the word nigger as a term for an outsider. Hence the line “outside of society”. He saw it my way and agreed.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard this reaction from people about this song. Even people who say they like Patti Smith who have never heard this song have the same reaction from time to time.
Just for the record, I am not racist at all. I had the advantage of reading about the history of the Patti Smith Group before I ever heard the song so I already knew the subject matter. It was a bit shocking to hear the first time, but I grew to enjoy it as a raw, rockin’ song.
Yeah using the term “nigger” for an outsider by artists wasn’t too outside the pale in the seventies. John Lennon released in 1972 a single called “Woman Is The Nigger Of the World”. I was browsing through old issues of Billboard this weekend, and I found an advertisement by Lennon for the song. It quoted Congressman Ron Dellums that anyone who was used by the powerful was a nigger and thus “most American are niggers”. (I remember Randy Newman and Bob Dylan using the term, but that was used by unsympathetic characters and thus really doesn’t count.) That said it’s dated really badly. I can’t even imagine a white artist even using nigger these days in any sense.
I think it’s just a product of the times. I never thought of it as racist at all. I knew they menant “nigger” as someone who was looked dow upon and treated badly.