Politically incorrect songs

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: ollaimh
Date: 11 Jan 13 - 10:57 PM

yeah the vancouver folk song ss had a different view than ahem, THE REST OF THE WORLD.

the other one that used to pisss off the nice middle class anglos was the old new foundland song "thank you very much "(tune red haired boy)


when i was just a young man at the start of married life
i asked me loving father to how to treat me darling wife
never hit a woman me little darling man
never hit a woman with a hatchet in her hand

thank you very much for the very nice advice
i used it once or twice when i was on thin ice


and
never steal a nickel my little darling man
never steal a nickel lunless its over fifty grand

etc

they went balistic to the cape breton song "the heavy water plant"
(to a tune almost what do you do with a drunken sailor)
(the heavy water plant was a make work project that failed)

i left me home at quarter to ten
i headed for the heavy water plant
haven't worked since heaven knows when
singing a song of cape breton

i picked me poggie up on george street(poggie is our dole)
i headed for the bank on the corner
new life seems to come to me feet
singing a song of cape breton

the poggie cashed right into my hand
i headed for the nearest tavern
jesus by christ i'm the king of the land
singing a song of capre breton

i found a table down at the back
i ordered two by christ i was thirsty
finished them off at the very first crack
singing a song of cape breton

in comes macneil from margaree
he must have got his poggie yesterday
he's so drunk he can hardly see
singing a song of cape breton

its four o'clock and much to my sorrow
i shoulda tried the heavy water plant
ah ta hell i'll go tommorrow
singing a song of cape breton

i think the old band kiltarlity wrote that gem

the nice bourgeoise were stunned that working class guy drink when they should be looking for work. it is horrifying.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: PHJim
Date: 11 Jan 13 - 08:59 PM

Sorry, that's not The Man I Love, but Ain't Nobody's Business If I Do that the Billie Holiday quote came from. It also contained the lines,
"I swear I won't call no copper,
If I'm beat up by my papa
Ain't nobody's business if I do."

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: PHJim
Date: 11 Jan 13 - 08:50 PM

It's A Shame To Whip Your Wife On A Sunday (When you've got Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday...

Sal's Got A Meatskin            

These I learned from the New Lost City Ramblers and once thought they were funny, but would never sing them today.

A song I still love to listen to is Billie Holiday's version of The Man I Love, but wince every time I come to the line,"I'd rather my man would hit me, Than for him to up and quit me."

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 11 Jan 13 - 04:46 AM

Quite a few from the pen of the late Jake Thackray!

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Don Wise
Date: 11 Jan 13 - 03:32 AM

Bogies Bonny Belle and rape??

"Down by the falls of Cairnie
So many's the time we've been
And there we've told our tales of love
Upon that mossy green"

.......sounds more like mutual consent to me.......but then again, some people are very quick to see offence etc. where none exists.

On the other hand:

Earl Brand (Child #?) featuring a scarcely 15 years old 'Lolita' is not necessarily 'pc'for some people.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: ollaimh
Date: 10 Jan 13 - 09:32 PM

ps when i was foolish enough to attend the vancpouver folk ss, they were all upset by rape songs.

under the rubric of rape songs were:

bogies bonny belle,(no one asks her opinion)
the blacksmith,(she's been lied to by a cad to have sex)
lilly of the west(stalking and murder of a f rival)

and don't ever dare sing delia's gone by johnny cash.

much as i love ytah phillips i hate his song "rock salt and nails", even i get offended that he's loading his shotgun to shoot his ex and her new beau,but i mostly think traditional songs should be preserved and sung--within reason

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: ollaimh
Date: 10 Jan 13 - 09:21 PM

dear al whitle, i can't imagine any one being offended by "the day davey delaney's mule had sex with the pope". just good clean fun. after all the pope can't have sex with a human.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jan 13 - 02:27 PM

Don't forget Tom Lehrer's "Folk Song Army".

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Graham
Date: 10 Jan 13 - 01:06 PM

Huggin' & Chalkin' is by Hoagie Charmichael, & Lydia the Tattoed Lady is Groucho Marx. Viva political incorrectness. As Bette Midler said after singing 'Hitler has only got one ball ...'etc to a Berlin audience: Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke!

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Musket
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 06:04 AM

I had another rattling in my head earlier but couldn't pin it down. I remember it now, but don't get too excited, it isn't that bad, although I would love to sing it when the ethnic skirt brigade are out in force.. (Politically incorrect thought too....)

As a lad I had "Big Bad John" by Jimmy Dean as a single. I used to play the B side a lot too.. "I won't go hunting with you Jake, but I'll go chasing women."

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 05:15 AM

[Please disregard the apeshit underlining

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 05:14 AM

Possibly also worth noting that in US that ballad, Child #73, is usually called The Brown Girl, rather than Lord Thomas And Fair Annet/Elinor, even though this can cause great confusion as there is another Child Ballad, #295, which is called The Brown Girl. Why, I have often wondered, will they do that?

~M~

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 04:38 AM

In any case BROWN in the context of the Fair Eleander ballad is a reference to COLOURING and not ETHNICITY. How Americans choose interpret that is another matter; and a lot of right-wing red-neck racists are also passionate Christians...

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 08 Jun 11 - 04:06 AM

I especially like to hear a crowd of Scottish football/rugby players singing in an English pub 'And send them homewards, tae think again'.
Hi Tich, did you know I sent the master of The Bitter Withy LP to Lesley about a year before she passed away. She never ackowledged receipt.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 09:19 PM

GUEST,Suibhne Astray says:

> I recently sang Lord Thomas and Fair Eleander in a folk club and was
> questioned by an Asian couple as to what was meant by The Brown
> Girl. For non-racial precedence I sang them a verse from Buy Broom
> Buzzems : "..be she green or grey, be she brown or fair, let her be
> a woman and I shall seek nar mair.."

It would be anachronistic to call it racism, but clearly, in the sexual esthetic of the Child ballads, pale skin is highly prized in both sexes. When transplanted to racially mixed societies, such songs inevitably take on a racial tinge. Within my lifetime, in America, the phrase "lily-white", which occurs often in the ballads, was commonly applied to occupations, organizations, etc., to mean "rigidly excluding blacks".

In Chapter Two of Jean Ritchie's marvelous autobiography _Singing Family of the Cumberlands_, we hear her family singing "Fair Ellender" and seducing little Jean into fantasy. Then in Chapter Ten we see her, on Christmas Day, lose her temper at her grandmother for putting a brown doll in her stocking & thus giving her mean brother Willmer a chance to tease her for getting a "nigger doll". Get the book & read the rest of the story; I can't even think of it without crying. It is a good reminder, to us non- & anti-Christians, that Christianity, particularly in America, has done a Godly service in helping to demoralize racism.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: The business of politicians is not leadership but    :||
||: compromise. Leadership is the business of martyrs. :||

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: HuwG
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 09:10 PM

A favourite at a session I regularly attend: Big Bill Broonzy's "She's a heavy, heavy woman!"

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Tich
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 08:35 PM

Then there was the time I was playing in a lovely wee Civic Theatre in Spain. In the front row were local dignitaries, fiesta queen etc. On came the local ex-pat choir who proceeded to sing "The Spaniard Who Blighted My Life". Hi Jim Howzitgaun. Tich

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 12:26 PM

Here are words to remind you, Dave.


The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

The rottenest bits of these islands of ours
We've left in the hands of three unfriendly powers
Examine the Irishman, Welshman or Scot
You'll find he's a stinker, as likely as not.

Och aye, awa' wi' yon Edinburgh Festival

The Scotsman is mean, as we're all well aware
And bony and blotchy and covered with hair
He eats salty porridge, he works all the day
And he hasn't got bishops to show him the way!

The English, the English, the English are best
I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest.

Ah hit me old mother over the head with a shillelagh

The Irishman now out contempt is beneath
He sleeps in his boots and he lies through his teeth
He blows up policemen, or so I have heard
And blames it on Cromwell and William the Third!

The English are noble, the English are nice,
And worth any other at double the price

Ah, iechyd da

The Welshman's dishonest and cheats when he can
And little and dark, more like monkey than man
He works underground with a lamp in his hat
And he sings far too loud, far too often, and flat!

And crossing the Channel, one cannot say much
Of French and the Spanish, the Danish or Dutch
The Germans are German, the Russians are red,
And the Greeks and Italians eat garlic in bed!

The English are moral, the English are good
And clever and modest and misunderstood.

And all the world over, each nation's the same
They've simply no notion of playing the game
They argue with umpires, they cheer when they've won
And they practice beforehand which ruins the fun!

The English, the English, the English are best
So up with the English and down with the rest.

It's not that they're wicked or natuarally bad
It's knowing they're foreign that makes them so mad!

For the English are all that a nation should be,
And the flower of the English are Donald (Michael)
Donald (Michael) and Me!

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 12:02 PM

Jom (McLean) -

Yes, I know the difference - I just can't remember (and don't sing) the song :-)

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 07:56 AM

Hadn't even thought about this song since school, but it occurs to me that - if memory serves - its entire theme is to ridicule the banjo player for his fine clothes, which the narrator doesn't think he deserves. Not a word about his music, though that's the only thing actually happening in this song, and he's probably a far more skillful player than whoever's listening (if anyone is).

It's all the more pernicious because it's told in a first-person present-tense style ("See the mulatto playing the banjo, doesn't he put on airs?") which invites "us" to join in the denigration of "him". A real alienation tactic. And devaluing or denying what he has to offer - his music - by not mentioning it. Probably not even noticing it. This sort of subtletly can pack more of a wallop that outright insults and nasty names because it can sneak past the brain-censors the first time around.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 04:48 AM

There's an old American song called "Mr. Banjo" which used to get anthologised in those your-favourite-golden-fireside-songs sort of books, with a nice bouncy melody but truly regrettable words. All about an uppity mulatto who is criticised for getting above himself by dressing in fashionable clothes.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 04:46 AM

The Levellers' "Another Man's Cause" has twice, to my knowledge, caused people to either walk out of a pub or heckle the singer:

Gunshots shatter in the peace of night
It's just another fire fight
For the people of this little town
But for the dying soldier
Well he's feeling ten years older
As he's lying face down on the ground
All the words that are in his head
And all the words his mother said
As she would put him to bed back home

Your daddy well he died in the Falklands
Fighting for another man's cause
And your brother he was killed in the Last War
And your mother well she's lying home alone

Every day she sees your face
On the picture on the fireplace
With your brother as he was leaving school
Then a day came five years ago
You said, "Mother, I need to know"
And you spoke the words your brother spoke before
"I seen the things my Daddy done
And I've seen the medals that he won
And I know that this is what he would have wanted for me."

But, your daddy well he died in the Falklands
Fighting for another man's cause
And your brother he was killed in the Last War
And your mother well she's lying home alone

Now she wonders at it all
Just in his name to be brave and heroes fall
And how many more are going to answer that call
They're going to fight and die in another country's war
They're going die for a religion they don't believe in at all
They're die in a place they should never been at all
Oh, never been at all

Cos, your daddy well he died in the Falklands
Fighting for another man's cause
And your brother he was killed in the Last War
And your mother well she's lying home alone

And your daddy well he died in the Falklands
Fighting for another man's cause
And your brother he was killed in the Last War
And your mother well she's lying home alone

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 04:16 AM

I recently sang Lord Thomas and Fair Eleander in a folk club and was questioned by an Asian couple as to what was meant by The Brown Girl. For non-racial precedence I sang them a verse from Buy Broom Buzzems : "..be she green or grey, be she brown or fair, let her be a woman and I shall seek nar mair.."

Rude songs I have no problem with at all; I have a book of Bawdy Music Hall ballads some of which are so deliciously fithy I could never imagine singing them to any Folk Audience no matter now proudly non-PC they might proclaim themselves. Enough, indeed, to make even a Blacked-Up Morris Dancer blush.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 07 Jun 11 - 03:37 AM

Don't recall any mentions above of The Old Maid In A Garret; the only song BTW directly mentioned in her mature work by that greatest, but probably least folky, of novelists Jane Austen, who has a character in Northanger Abbey mention "the old song about one wedding bringing on another".

~Michael~

Much greater by the way than that boring fool V S Naipaul who recently had the gall vaingloriously to exalt himself above her as a novelist. Cheeky ass!

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Coyote Breath, no cookie
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 10:36 PM

Roy Berkeley is purported to be responsible for a very funny broadside (of sorts) Called "The Bosses' Songbook - songs to stifle the flames of discontent" Which has Fight for Liberation in it as well as a nasty swipe at a fellow called 'Pete'. Its a parody of course, of the IWW's "Little Red Songbook - songs to fan the flames of discontent" which has a great anit-war poem (song) called 'The Red Feast'. I sang it at anti-war and anti-nuke rallies back in the 60's. It is uncompromising and people are usually surprised that it was written to protest Labor's involvement in WWI!

"Prohibition is a Failure" had racist elements in it. The verse; "I'm going down to Georgia to join the drinking clan" was actually "I'm going down to Georgia to join the Ku Klux Klan" and it wasn't "a man's killed every night" in that same verse either.

But the purpose of such music usually isn't to promote racism. The music is a reflection of the racism of the times.

We think that we are evolving away from such attitudes but I don't think it is anywhere as fast as it could be much less as it should be.

Here in the St.Louis area, the local media dwell long on crimes committed in the black community. Yes it IS news and it is important that the people of that community be made aware of events that might jeopardize their safety and security but outside of St. Louis, where I live, a mere 65 - 70 miles the effect is to frighten people whose local culture doesn't include drive-by mayhem. I hear people say they wouldn't go to St. Louis because it is too dangerous.

The other day I made a comment about something that had gone well by saying "just like downtown" and one fellow said "yeah but not as many XXXXXXs"

While I fear that we are never going to abandon our racist attitudes, I hope that we can at least repress the urge to utter them.

Your program idea is a good one. The best of luck producing it. I would like to hear it, or at least bits if not all of it. Would you be able to provide a link?

CB

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 06:02 PM

Gabe, someone already posted "Slap Her Down Again, Paw". There is also a thread on that song.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Jim McLean
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 03:15 PM

Dave in Michigan, the Flanders and Swan song is "The English, the English, the English are the best", do you know the difference?

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 02:39 PM

[Aargh! Mustn't hit Enter in From: box, or it posts an empty message!]

I imagine that the line in Dick Darby the Cobbler:

My wife, she's the Devil, she's black

is nowadays taken to refer to a historically-disadvantage minority group :-) instead of to the black (-haired) Irish ...

[How do I know that this really refers to hair color? Well, I don't for certain, but it seems a close analog of expressions like "The Yellow Tinker" (a tune title), which I don't think refers to tinkers of Eastern Ancestry, because of phrases like "the yellow- headed tinkers with their wares" in Tommy Makem's "Rambles of Spring". Of course both the words "tinker" and "oriental" (my original choice to describe the tinkers' non-ancestry) are themselves considered politically incorrect.]

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Elmore
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:49 PM

I really like " Dublin, in the Rare Old Times" but cringe when I hear the verse, " I lost her to a student chap with skin as black as coal, When he took her off to Birmingham, He took away my soul. I've read some convincing justifications for the verse, but it still troubles me.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Tich
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:27 PM

The song which has caused me most trouble over the last few years is certainly Crawford Howard's parody on Bogle's "No Man's Land". Some folk don't see that it's a hit at bad singers and take it at face value.
I gave up singing it after several threats of violence. I don't know if anyone has been brave enough to record it. Of course, if you want to upset some people in parts of Ireland or Scotland "God Save The Queen" is a sure thing.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Dave in Michigan
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:22 PM

"The British, the British, the British are Best! I wouldn't give tuppence for all of the rest" - Flanders and Swann

but at least, that was intended as a joke.

More disturbing, in several senses of the word is the song "Fanny Blair", which states that it's about a man condemned to death because of a false accusation of rape. I'm mostly interested in it for its tune, which is very unusual. In the past decade, I've had several people tell me that they consider it too politically incorrect to be sung (and FWIW, I was asking them about the song, not singing it myself). Funny, but the young woman I learned it from several decades ago considered herself very progressive, and had no problem with it.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Gabe
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 11:18 AM

How About "Slap Her Down Again Paw". This tune was performed by Arthur Godfrey and I believe, Tennessee Ernie Ford.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: SammySkillet
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 10:39 AM

Sing Song Girl

my sing song girl
my little yellow cinderella
could there ever be a chinamans chance for me...

my sing song girl
all though i know you'd pull a feller
you wouldnt do a thing like that to young sam lee..

sometimes sing song lady
puff a little smoke and sleep
i come fetch her up lately
and to my shop well creep

and youll be mine
ill bet you all the tea in china
sing a little love song sing song girl for me...

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 06 Jun 11 - 01:56 AM

Fred, here it is: http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=137757.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Joe_F
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 08:20 PM

A fair number of bawdy songs are overtly sadistic -- e.g., The (Big Red) Wheel & a lot of the versions in the rugby tradition.

I suppose Stan Rogers's "The Idiot" might be taken as politically incorrect, or at least right-wing (man forsakes God's country to get a job rather than go on the dole at home).

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 07:11 PM

Re the Cat O' Nine. Sorry folks. I hadn't seen the earlier correspondence relating to this song.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 07:05 PM

Actually, the tune is that old favourite Abdul the Bul Bul Emir.

I've never actually had a complaint from any audience member when I've sung that, though I have to admit I can't recall anybody who sounded or appeared French on those occasions.

Don T.

Subject: Lyr Add: TRUE BRIT
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 06:47 PM

If I may put forward something of my own, the following is my totally unPC upset the whole audience song.

If it is of interest, I will record it and supply an MP3 of the words and music.

TRUE BRIT.

The almighty set out with the best of goodwill,
Mankind, in his image, to make,
And, with the result, he'd be satisfied still,
Had he not made one minor mistake.
        
Four races there were, with peculiar traits,
They're the reason why God rarely smiles,
He put them together, well out of the way,
In a place that he called British Isles.

Now, complete isolation has had it's effect,
If you look at them now, you will find,
That, apart from the fact that they all walk erect,
They're different from most of mankind.

The Welsh all have voices, most certain to please,
At song, the perennial purists,
At Chapel, on Sunday, they pray on their knees,
And on weekdays, they prey on the tourists.

The Scots all wear skirts, and their knees turn bright blue,
In cold weather, their lives must be drab,
But they all keep the Sabbath, they keep the faith too,
And anything else they can grab.

The Irish back horses, drink Guinness and such,
Till they're drunk, and they never regret it,
They don't know what they want, but that don't matter much,
They'll still fight like the devil to get it.

The Englishman, always, must lead the parade,
His self confidence beggars belief,
When he says "I'm successful because I'm self made",
God heaves a great sigh of relief.

Now you might think that God had a very bad day,
And after this lapse of attention
it seems that the whole thing went further downhill,
'Cos next he created the Frenchman.



Ó Don Thompson   Oct 1988

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MorwenEdhelwen1
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 05:32 PM

I am the OP of the "Cat O'Nine Tails" thread, and i hate to admit it but whenever I so much as listen to that song, I start singing along. A classic case of "you don't have to believe what you sing."

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 04:05 PM

Re ~ Old Cat o'Nine: I don't think the later version was exactly a cover, Fred, but a reworking by the original singer Lord Invader. You will find it already on this thread about 9 before your last post, repro'd from her previous thread by the young Chinese-Australian woman who recently OP'd & maintained a thread on the song, its history, the seriousness or ambivalence of its attitudes, &c. Did you not follow that?

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 03:56 PM

Glancing again thru this thread, I am reminded that when I was at school in N London in the mid-1940s, the school choir was invited to sing on the BBC Home Service's programme for schools, Singing Together [about which I seem to remember a thread running not long since]. They sang folksongs like Turpin Hero & so on ~~ & among them, I recall, without any sort of comment or self-consciousness, Johnny Go Down To Hilo, in precisely that version about who was wearing the seaboots which I quoted above from DT, as first response on this thread to the OP...

Couldn't happen now, I daresay,

~M~

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 03:46 PM

Here's another one. The calypso singer Lord Invader recorded a song called Old Time Cat o' Nine, in 1945 (I think) about an upsurge of violent gangs which had proliferated in Trinidad some years earlier.

Another calypso singer, I can't remember who, recorded a cover version of the same song in 1950s' London, this time about the teddy boys and flick knife gangs of that period of British history.

Both recordings had the same theme. Bring back the cat of nine tails and order will be restored (I don't think!). But both were sung in typical upbeat calypso style, so that the effect is not just bizarre. It's positively weird.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 03:45 PM

Lydia The Tattooed Lady in fact 1st appeared in At The Circus, 1939, sung by Groucho Marx. See Wikipedia entry. A witty song by Yip Harburg & Harold Arlen, not particularly un-PC to my recollection.

~M~

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 03:30 PM

There's an anti-racist song from the 1920s (I think) which, by modern standards at any rate has an unintentionally non-pc title. It's called Picaninny Rose.

There's also a song from a somewhat earlier era called Lydia The Tattooed Lady.

Again, there's a song, the title of which I can't bring to mind at the moment, about a bloke who courted a very fat woman. She was so fat in fact that when they had sex he had to take a tape measure and leave chalkmarks so that he could find his way back. It had something along the lines of "one day while I was a-chalking and a-measuring, I met a guy with a piece of chalk coming around the other side".

Those three are non-malicious and to me are still reasonably acceptable, with a pinch of salt. However, the American country music industry had a very distasteful arm which peddled all kinds of racist muck, and which stretched way back to the earliest days of country music recording. For instance, there was a character who called himself Johnny Rebel who had quite a career in the 1960s with songs like "Nigger Hating Me" and "Some Niggers Never Die (They Just Smell That Way)". I am also reliably informed, although I've never come across it, that there was one from a bit further back called "All Coons Look The Same To Me".

Finally, there was an appalling stinker, which originated in 1950s/60s Britain, which parodied Island In The Sun, and which consisted of attacks on black immigrants.

If you're thinking of using anything like those, for God's sake hang a big disclaimer over it.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: Musket
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 01:35 PM

A couple of Bernard Wrigley songs spring to mind as fitting this thread. I used to sing them both, although for the life of me I can't remember all the words now.

You're the Teabag in my Coffee

My Dear Own Yorkshire Lass

Both are from the album featuring "Robin Hood and the Bogey Rolling Contest."

"Her bust is a good hundred inches, the same as her lovely round hips,
But if she gets on top when we get into bed, I'll come through the mattress like chips."

etc

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 12:56 PM

That's right, Marianne - a non-existent piece of fakeloric fantasising by which such noxious endeavours are first revived, re-invented, perpetuated and justified (excused) thereafter as being Traditional in the sort of terms you use above. Replace Tradition with fakeloric folk fashion and you're nearer the mark.

I love Morris Dancing, but it's not a Tradition - it's a re-invented minority hobbyist past-time like Folk Singing which comes complete with its own mythology and orthodoxy. I see blokes (and women) with blacked up faces and I realise why the BNP love folk so much.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Marianne S.
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 09:13 AM

Non-existant tradition? You mean the long established tradition of disguising your identity with the only substances at hand - burnt cork or boot polish?

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 08:22 AM

I've got no problem with old songs of poaching, whaling etc. BUT any racism, sexual violence, or homophobia I will not sing, sing along with or tolerate in any context. Murder Ballads - for sure, but it's the insidious nature of racism and homophobia in folk that particularly that annoy me, likewise the anti-PC line. And still you get random Morris Dancers backening their faces in the name of some non-existent Tradition, as if that's any excuse.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,Paul Burke
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 08:04 AM

Leon Rosselson's "Vile Violation", written about the Russians squealing about the U-2 incident in 1960, is not sung much these days, pehaps because of its sustained metaphor of rape:

As I flew out one morning on a trip to reconnointre
Through wind and weather carelessly I flew,
I spied a pleasing prospect that tempted me to loiter,
And moved in closer for a better view.

It's a vile violation of my airspace,
And I warn the intruder to withdraw,
It's a vile violation of my airspace,
Such aggrssive acts can only lead to war.

Subject: RE: Politically incorrect songs
From: GUEST,MC Fat
Date: 05 Jun 11 - 06:41 AM

No one has mentioned the great Kinky Friedman with such classics as 'They Aint Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore' or 'Get Your Bicuits in the Oven and Your Buns in my Bed'