# Any Song With Blatantly Homophobic or Racist Lyrics to Make the Top 40? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 18, 2005, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360 "2005-01-18T14:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/61 "2005-01-19T22:02:50Z")
> [@Mr. Blue Sky](#): > > The Stones’ “Brown Sugar” is considered racist by some Wasn’t it a song about heroine? The two that come to mind for me are “I used to love her, but I had to kill her” by Guns n Roses and “Smack da bitch up” by Prodigy. I can’t remember if the latter was a spoof or not, but I remember a bunch of controversy. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/62 "2005-01-19T23:50:03Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > Ahhhh…yeah , I’m aware of that. But what I wasn’t aware of till not to long ago is the the current English army is occasionally refered to as “Oliver’s Army”. In the sense that it is the New Model Army. The military system Cromwell came up with, which is still the current system. > > I think that was the sense that Elvis meant it as Oliver’s Army. Although I’m willing to consider the Oliver Tambo question as, to be honest I thought it was about mercenaries myself. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be snarky. I honestly thought you might have forgotten the lyrics. my bad. I didn’t know that England still referred to their army as “Oliver’s Army.” I thought the phrase “New Model Army” came and went with Cromwell. If that’s true it might cause me to re-evaluate my interpretation of the song. I still think my interpretation is correct, but I am not as sure of that as I was. Still, whatever the interpretation is, I think we can agree that the song isn’t racist, n-word notwithstanding. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d26b3c/32.png) [@Mr.Blue\_Sky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Blue_Sky)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/63 "2005-01-20T00:08:31Z")
> [@kidchameleon](#): > > Wasn’t it a song about heroine? [Not exactly.](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/BROWN-SUGAR-lyrics-The-Rolling-Stones/79CCA4F8BA9CF4274825689A001BE120) Beware of popups. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/64 "2005-01-20T00:11:28Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > I didn’t know that England still referred to their army as “Oliver’s Army.” I thought the phrase “New Model Army” came and went with Cromwell. If that’s true it might cause me to re-evaluate my interpretation of the song. I still think my interpretation is correct, but I am not as sure of that as I was. I’m pretty sure it’s about Northern Ireland. “Oliver’s Army” refers, of course, to the New Model Army, which was most famous for the Ireland campaign and their harshness against Anglo-Irish Royalists. The “Murder Mile” is the Ormeau Road in South Belfast, which has traditionally seen a lot of fighting between Loyalist and Republican groups, and the Irish got the derogatory nickname “white niggers”. The song is about a British soldier upset he’s in N. Ireland. ---
**Author:** ![Althea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eada6e/32.png) [@Althea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Althea)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/65 "2005-01-20T00:11:28Z")
> [@](#): > > The only thing that popped into my mind was the old Dire Straits hit, “Money for Nothing.” There’s a line that goes, “The little faggot with the earring and the makeup, yeah buddy, that’s his only care. The little faggot got his own jet airplane. The little faggot, he’s a millionaire.” I don’t think that’s really blatantly homophobic, but the use of the word “faggot” always makes me wince. Interestingly, that verse was removed from the track on their greatest hits album; sometime between 1985 and 1998 it must have made them (or the record label) wince as well. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/66 "2005-01-20T00:35:40Z")
[Hot Chocolate’s](http://www.superseventies.com/sw_brotherlouie.html) [_Brother Louie_](http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/219901/Hot_Chocolate/Brother_Louie/) went to number one in the USA in 1973. Although it is not racist and is, in fact, an anti-racist song about an interracial couple there are portrayals of racism as narration from the interracial couple’s Fathers. ---
**Author:** ![Jojo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecd19e/32.png) [@Jojo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jojo)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/67 "2005-01-20T00:42:43Z")
Getting back to Oliver’s Army for a minute, [this page from Songfacts.com](http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=2948) has more info. Apparently he wrote the song… > [@](#): > > in 1978 on a plane coming back from Belfast. It was the first time he went to the city, and he was shocked to see very young soldiers from the British army walking around with machine guns. The song covers Northern Ireland’s troubles, the end of the British empire and life in the army. He gave an interview to Time Out in 1994 in which he said of Oliver Cromwell: > [@](#): > > He was a devil incarnate to the Christian brothers. We used to sing very Catholic pieces, they’d be frowned on today as not being in the spirit of church unity, things like “Oh Glorious Spirit of St Patrick’s” and “Faith of Our Fathers,” lots of take on the history of England from the old-religion martyr’s perspective. And we’d sing the Latin mass without knowing what it meant but loving every line. ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/68 "2005-01-20T00:44:47Z")
Okay, then a song similar to **devilsknew** ’s posting is **Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child”** but in this case it is a white girl with a black boyfriend. (“Brother Louie” was white male / black female). ---
**Author:** ![Cabbage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Cabbage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabbage)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/69 "2005-01-20T00:56:05Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > [Hot Chocolate’s](http://www.superseventies.com/sw_brotherlouie.html) [_Brother Louie_](http://www.metrolyrics.com/lyrics/219901/Hot_Chocolate/Brother_Louie/) went to number one in the USA in 1973. > Although it is not racist and is, in fact, an anti-racist song about an interracial couple there are portrayals of racism as narration from the interracial couple’s Fathers. Actually, it was the band _Stories_ that took _Brother Louie_ to #1 in the US. Hot Chocolate’s version (which was the original) went to #7 in the UK, but didn’t chart in the US. [http://www.superseventies.com/sw\_brotherlouie.html](http://www.superseventies.com/sw_brotherlouie.html) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/70 "2005-01-20T00:59:14Z")
Thanks for the link **Jojo**! I guess that explains it, though I’d still like to see confirmation from Elvis himself. For the time being that will do, though I’m somewhat disoriented having to re-think the meaning of one of my favorite songs. I note one of the quotes on your site mentions how people ignored the lyrics because the melody was so catchy. There’s an amusing story about this. Apparently the song was on the playlist at Camden yards (The Baltimore baseball stadium). It never dawned on anyone till after it had been played a few times, that a song with a chorus of “I’d rather be anywhere else than here today,” might not be the best song for a Stadium. I’m not 100% sure if that story is true (I read it in the D.C. City Paper), but god I hope it is! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![nitroglycerine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c5a1d2/32.png) [@nitroglycerine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nitroglycerine)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/71 "2005-01-20T01:08:08Z")
> [@Crandolph](#): > > … and singer Lee Ving, if not the rest of the band, is gay. I think some of this was sarcasm. Not that it matters or nuthin’, but I’m 99.99% sure Lee Ving isn’t gay. I’m 100% sure Fear never had a top 40 hit. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MidnightRadio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@MidnightRadio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MidnightRadio)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/72 "2005-01-20T09:01:04Z")
> [@nitroglycerine](#): > > Not that it matters or nuthin’, but I’m 99.99% sure Lee Ving isn’t gay. I’m 100% sure Fear never had a top 40 hit. 😃 I was thinking the same thing. About Lee Ving, that is. Where’d you get the idea that he was gay, **Crandolph**? ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/73 "2005-01-20T10:35:13Z")
**Turning Japanese** {a slang term for masturbation} by The Vapours was pretty dodgy, if not outright racist. ---
**Author:** ![Crandolph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7cd45c/32.png) [@Crandolph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crandolph)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/74 "2005-01-20T18:06:40Z")
> [@MidnightRadio](#): > > I was thinking the same thing. About Lee Ving, that is. Where’d you get the idea that he was gay, **Crandolph**? Perhaps I was whooshed; there’s a lot of “It’s great to be here and be gay!” banter in some of their live recordings, I read as much in some '80s zines, and the cover to their first album, IIRC, features a lot of pink. _Der Fuehrer’s Face_ derives a lot of its humor from aping German stereotypes, which isn’t really necessary to attack Nazis (one wonders what Marlene Dietrich, for example, thought of it.) This sort of thing is more obvious when you listen to the anti-Japanese songs of the same period (“Slap That Jap” anyone?) which cross the line from making fun of Imperial Japan to making fun of Japanese as an ethnicity. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/75 "2005-01-20T19:07:59Z")
In **“Santeria,”** Sublime lead singer Bradley Nowell seems not too happy that his girlfriend was stolen by an hispanic dude, and also seems none too hesitant to smack his woman: \*…If I could find that Heina and that Sancho that she’s found, Well I’d pop a cap in Sancho and I’d slap her down …Tell Sanchito that If he knows what is good for him He best go run and hide Daddy’s got a new .45 And I won’t think twice to stick that barrel Straight down Sancho’s throat Believe me when I say that I got somethin for his punk ass\* I might be reading the song wrong as to the bigotry aspect, but there’s no denying the violence against women in the lyrics. ---
**Author:** ![JohnBckWLD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JohnBckWLD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnBckWLD)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/76 "2005-01-20T20:10:14Z")
See ing that the thread has strayed from Racism, et al, does anyone recall the furor over this insensitive [Rolling Stones Black & Blue](http://public.fotki.com/JohnBuckLINY/work_stuff/black_blue.html) album insert? From what I’ve heard, there was an entire billboard campaign that ended up getting pulled that revolved around the battered & bound woman saying “_I’m black and blue from the Rolling Stones…And I love it_” ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360/77 "2005-01-20T20:11:34Z")
Tim McGraw’s [Indian Outlaw](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/timmcgraw/indianoutlaw.html) was found insulting by some. I can’t judge how offensive it is (not a Native American) but it certainly plays up some Hollywood stereotypes. It seems pretty silly coming from a white guy. I don’t know where it got up to on the Country charts but it was his first big hit. _You can find me in my wigwam I’ll be beatin’ on my tom-tom Pull out the pipe and smoke you some Hey and pass it around_ and _They all gather ‘round my teepee Late at night tryin’ to catch a peek at me In nothin’ but my buffalo briefs I got ‘em standin’ in line_ Tis a silly song. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/any-song-with-blatantly-homophobic-or-racist-lyrics-to-make-the-top-40/285360.md?page=3)