'Offensive' words in song lyrics

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 04:47 PM

Where have you guys been in all the latest discussions on PC and offensive/terms songs? We have had a plethora of then of late (One started by me I must admit!)

I reckon if the terms wop, dago, polak(me), nigger, rooskie(me again), spic, kraut, taff(another grandparent...), frog, mick(dim and distant past) yankee or brit(yep - you've guessed it!) turn up in a traditional song we need to be aware of the pain it can cause some people.

Then again the songs were generaly written not to cause offense but to describe an event of the time, in the language of the time. Remember that the terms man and woman are becoming non-pc and, eventualy, the term 'human' may become speciesist! Don't be afraid to use the old terms but don't be suprised if someone who makes a career out of being offended takes you to task on it!

Cheers

Dave the Gnome (or should I say person the verticaly challenged...;-)

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Doctor John
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 04:58 PM

How silly it can all get. Bert: with regard to the N word (which does come from the Latin word for black after all) there's a discussion similar to yours in Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory which seems realistic. Does anyone remember the colour "N...Brown", certainly commonly used as late as the 50's, if not later. Greyeyes: bastard was used quite without offence in medieval wills: " and I leave whatever to my dear bastard John...", neither an Australian term of endearment nor an offensive word... just a word. Skipjack: I'm told by them that know that the word istan means the land of. So , Kurds come from Kurdistan, Afghans come from Afghanistan, so what wrong with the word for the people that come from Pakistan? There's some pretty offensive stuff in early blues like the term monkey men . As one word becomes offensive it's replaced by another pc word which, in due course, itself becomes offensive; eventually we'll run out of words. Of course it depends how you use it but I'm totally against any form of censorship but that's another thread. Dr John (a limey scouse brit}

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Bert
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 05:27 PM

A Limey and a Brit is OK. but a - Scouse - I'm not too sure about.
Now Dr. John knows that I'm only kidding but I suppose someone is going to be offended.

The thing is that the term 'chink' was not a derogatory term in England when the Mr Wu songs were written. There was no offense intended, and while it was part of the culture to tease people about their origins, even that was not the intent of the song. It was just a normal part of the language and carried no more harmful intent than 'Geordy' or 'Cockney' (which was originally a derogatory term but is now acceptable) or 'Scouse' or 'Taffy'.
It might be wise to explain that, if you sing the song nowadays.

Bert (Cockney)

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Doctor John
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 05:39 PM

A good point there, Bert, words go the other way too and what starts off as a derogatory term becomes an accepted one, even one to be proud of. (I'll try and get it right this time!) Quaker is one that come to mind but there are lots of them. Dr John

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 07:18 PM

Tory is an interesting one. Started out as an insult, got adopted by the people it was used against as a label of choice. Still used with pride by their political descendants. And still used as an insult by everyone else.

Out in the States I gather it's never got taken up again. And yet anyone in England with the kind of view expressed by most American politicians from both parties would unhesitatingly be described as Tories.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Haruo
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 07:30 PM

Applied to Americans by Americans, "Tory" is still under the taint of its use in the War of Independence as a somewhat pejorative synonym of "Loyalist", i.e. "one who advocates remaining under the King of England". Other connotations are not unheard of (e.g. when I was at Yale there was a "Tory Party" in the Political Union, and while ultraconservative, it wasn't pro-British particularly), but rare.
Liland

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 06 Oct 00 - 07:31 PM

All you guys who are dredging up the history of various epithets: Are you trying to argue that, if a word was acceptable at some time in the past, then it's OK to use it now?

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Doctor John
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 05:33 PM

Not at all Jim; they're just words and it's interesting how their meaning and accepatability changes over the years. In Through The Looking Glass it says (something like) "words mean what I want them to mean." Which is just about true - to whom said, from whom said, how said etc. If we remove or change words in a traditional folksong because we happen not to like them at the moment then the song becomes non sensical: it's rewriting history which the very people who are so sensitive about objectionable words would probably strongly object to. There again some postgrad student in a couple of generations could get a PhD on what the song is really about. Dr John

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 05:53 PM

Depends why you're singing the song - if you're singing it as a historical record set in a historical period, changing the words is dodgy, because you are in danger of falsifying history.

But if you're singing it in the first person, so to speak, rather than in character, and it's a song through which you are expressing yourself, there's no reason you shouldn't change it so that it says what you are trying to say. Words change, and songs change with them.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Ely
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 06:50 PM

I don't think the song always becomes nonsensical. "Year of Jubilo" would become nonsensical, but "Rose of Alabama", which perpetuates a stereotype that I find unsavory, could just as easily be sung with its words adapted. It would not have the same historical context, of course, but for purposes of everyday singing, it's just a matter of whether one is singing of one's girlfriend, or whether one is singing of one's girlfriend in an 1840's 'pickaninny' caricature.

Besides, I can control what I want words to mean to me, but I cannot so much control what they mean to my audience.

And yes, I can see preserving original words in cases of historical song collections, movies, etc, (although I personally might choose not to participate in them, given the opportunity), but I would not perform them on my own behalf. Depending on the audience, I might explain that I had changed the words. Kind of like sex ed--it can be worse if people find it on their own.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 07 Oct 00 - 09:02 PM

Eeny meeny miney mo, (spelling?)
Catch a nigger by the toe..."

What place these days for a couplet such as that, except as a museum piece to remind us how crass we can be? If a kid came out with that in the street, people of any colour would be entitled to be offended, and no good saying the kid really meant no harm.

Not sure I'm on the same planet as you Bert. I just don't seem to bump into these many blacks who go around calling each other niggers. And if these words are OK in context, what's the context where it's OK to call a black African "kaffir"?

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Oct 00 - 07:28 PM

Of course, here the word's being used specifically for shock effect

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: MartinRyan
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 04:37 AM

McGrath

"Tory" is indeed an interesting one. I think you need to go a further step back in the derivation - almost certainly to the Gaelic (Irish) word "tóir" - hunt.

Regards

p.s. I still think your analysis of "Brit" is disingenuous at best - much as I despise the "little Englander" syndrome you disguise (there's an irony in that term, also/)

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: MartinRyan
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 05:05 AM

Whoops! For "disguise" in the p.s. read "describe"! Sorry about that. Too much assonance!

Regards

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Bert
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 12:24 PM

If the environment is such that the singer intends no offence and the audience are not offended then why should there be a problem, whatever the word?

Having said that, there are many songs that I don't sing because they would cause offence.
Here's one that nowadays seems incredible. How could anyone write such a song?

There's a mighty heap of trouble brewing down in Tennesee,
and it's all about a little yellow coon.
Now this little pickaninny was as black as he could be
on the morn that he was born the first of June.
Now the cause of this commotion was the fact the other night,
exactly in the fullness of the moon,
this little pickaninny changed his color from black to white,
and in the morn they found a little yellow coon.

Sitting by the fire in his Mammy's arms
as she sings to him this tune
Honey don't you cry, wipe your shiny eye,
There's going to be a little yellow coon.
Never mind your color if your heart ain't black,
better days are coming soon,
Honey don't you cry, wipe your shiny eye,
There's going to be a little yellow coon.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 06:51 PM

All the ethnic slang terms can be offensive, epecially when preceded by the word "fuckin'." Seamus

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 07:02 PM

So can all the non-slang labels. For anything. "Look - another ***king bodhran-player" (Putting in the stars somehow makes it even more offensive, because it sets you thinking how to fill them. And you have a choice.)

The offence always lies in the intent of the speaker, as interpreted by the recipient...

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: GUEST,John Nolan
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 07:23 PM

The last verse of The Unreconstructed Rebel goes:

And when the war was over I joined the Ku Klux Klan,
And for the glorious Union, I still don't give a damn,
I love to see a nigger hanging from a tree,
But if it was a Yankee, it's all the same to me. Of course these words are enormously offensive, but of historical importance as a measure of the hate and bitterness that existed in the South after, in fact long after, the Civil War. To soften or omit the lyrics would be to deny part of the whole unpleasant truth.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: GUEST,Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 07:44 PM

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: GUEST,Murray MacLeod
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 07:48 PM

Mcgrath, I have always found your contributions to be the most lucid and restrained on the Forum. Congratulations on keeping your cool in the midst of provocation.

Murray

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: jofield
Date: 09 Oct 00 - 11:22 PM

I am continually amazed by some people's indignant claim to a right to use offensive, racist language to demonstrate their steadfastness in the face of "over-zealous PCers" or in the guise of "historical accuracy". Neither excuse sticks -- there is no good reason to use racially or ethnically derogatory language before an audience -- none. As a bluegrasser, I've changed "pickaninny" to "little children", and the song is in fact better for it ("Mississippi Shore"). The ridiculous "coon" song Bert quotes was almost certainly written by white Tin Pan Alley practitioners looking for a lucrative hit song. You could dump all such tunes from the 1890-1920 era into the Charles River and the world would be none the worse, morally -- or musically.

James, in Bristol, RI

PS -- Up here in New England, a Yankee is a white, Protestant blue-blood.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: GUEST,John Hill
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 06:46 AM

I note that Steve Parkes mentioned "Showboat". Has anyone ever heard the original (1929?) recording that Paul Robeson made of "Ol' man river"?..
The original first line is "Niggers all work on the mississippi". Most people will know Robeson's history in black civil rights. He obviously felt that in the context of the period that the story is set that these words wore appropriate or he would have refused to have sung it.
For the film in 1933(?) Robeson re-recorded the song with the words "Black man works on the Mississippi" but I have to say that the original, to me at least, is more effective in reminding me of attitudes to black people at that time.
To say that there are no times when you can use these words is just not true.

Subject: RE: 'Offensive' words in song lyrics
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 10 Oct 00 - 07:19 AM

"Congratulations on keeping your cool in the midst of provocation." Thanks Murray - but any provocation really didn't register. I'm just too thick-skinned. Probably comes from being a social worker for all those years, and a journaliust before that.