# Pink Floyd: what are "swollen hand blues?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [July 2, 2014, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-what-are-swollen-hand-blues/692216 "2014-07-02T20:03:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2021, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-what-are-swollen-hand-blues/692216/41 "2021-02-10T20:21:04Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > I think you’re right. The use of that scene was no accident. It also resonates with the racism of Pink’s fascist alter-ego (“That one looks Jewish! And that one’s a coon!”). I was reading something the other day that included a racist rant given by Eric Clapton at a concert in Birmingham in 1976. I was struck by the similarity to _In the Flesh (reprise)_ - the language, the statements, the entire feel. > Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands … So where are you? Well wherever you all are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country … I don’t want you here, in the room or in my country. Listen to me, man! I think we should send them all back. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the wogs out. Get the coons out. Keep Britain white … The black wogs and coons and Arabs and f_cking Jamaicans don’t belong here, we don’t want them here. This is England, this is a white country, we don’t want any black wogs and coons living here. We need to make clear to them they are not welcome. England is for white people, man … This is Great Britain, a white country, what is happening to us, for f_ck’s sake? … Throw the wogs out! Keep Britain white! I know that a number of white British rock artists (Clapton and Bowie) among them expressed attitudes like the above that supported groups like the **National Front** at the time, and other artists were in opposition (Rock against Racism). Given Roger Waters’ political positions, I can’t really imagine him leaning to the far right. So that fascist alter-ego is a fictional representation of Pink’s internal conflict (and maybe a desire for control that escapes him in real life), but I just wondered if it had a more “real-world” inspiration … ---
**Author:** ![si\_blakely](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@si\_blakely](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/si_blakely)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-what-are-swollen-hand-blues/692216/42 "2021-02-10T20:30:41Z")
Too late to edit, but I see [alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem) ninjaed me on that comparison … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pink-floyd-what-are-swollen-hand-blues/692216.md?page=2)