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.
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.
Beware of popups.
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.
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.
Hot Chocolate’s 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.
Getting back to Oliver’s Army for a minute, this page from Songfacts.com has more info. Apparently he wrote the song…
He gave an interview to Time Out in 1994 in which he said of Oliver Cromwell:
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).
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.
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! 
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?
Turning Japanese {a slang term for masturbation} by The Vapours was pretty dodgy, if not outright racist.
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.
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.
See ing that the thread has strayed from Racism, et al, does anyone recall the furor over this insensitive Rolling Stones Black & Blue 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”
Tim McGraw’s Indian Outlaw 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.