Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Ribbit
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 09:17 AM

Joe, it's a good thing you didn't sing "Squid jigging ground". They would have probably been up in arms! *bg*Thom

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Bernard
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 02:57 PM

Never let a Dago by...

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 06:12 PM

How we laugh today at the Bowdlerisation of classic works including Shakespeare......

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 06:27 PM

For the record, I don't believe Cicely Fox-Smith wrote Home, Lads, Home. From the DT notes: "The original words to "Home Lands Home" were written by a Hampshire soldier during the First World War. Sarah [Morgan] found them in a magazine, edited them, and wrote a tune."

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 06:38 PM

I don't have Landlocked - I have a CD from a group called Pinch O' Salt. The whole CD consists of Fox Smith (whoops - no hyphen) poems set to music by Alan Fitzsimmons, one of the group's members. I believe the tune people know for Lee Fore Brace is his. Website here.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Deckman
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 09:45 PM

... about the term "WOP." There was a period of time, at Ellis Island, when they ran into a lot of immegrants from Italy, by chance, that arrived without the proper paperwork. The immegration workers, to save time, would pin a label on their clothing saying W.O.P. (without papers). This allowed them to be sifted easily. Maggie Dwyer, of the "John Dwyer - song and stories" thread was a National Parks Docent at Ellis Island. I'll bet she could add to this story. CHEERS

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: StillyRiverSage (inactive)
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 09:59 PM

Bob, I wasn't a "docent," I was a ranger...

There are a lot of stories attributed to Ellis Island but I haven't seen the documentation to prove or disprove them. This one makes more sense than some of the jokes spun off of the slang. Maggie

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: sophocleese
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 10:35 PM

Butch, I like that introduction.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: StillyRiverSage (inactive)
Date: 06 Jan 01 - 10:56 PM

I've taken time to read the entire thread, and there are some very good answers here. Balancing cultural sensitivity (with or without a political correctness component) against historical accuracy is difficult. Humming the line is one possibility, explaining the context to the audience is another. Educating the audience isn't a bad thing. And the suggestion to just not sing them if you feel compelled to change them is also a good answer. Ours is no longer a culture that will lose songs in one generation if they aren't sung. They're written down and recorded.

Objectifying an entire race or culture by applying a slang name to them is part of the human condition. It wasn't invented by anyone in this generation of humans on the planet, and it won't be discontinued by this generation. Places like Ellis Island were where the rubber hit the road in Euramerican cultural biases. Some very powerful Social Darwinists influenced immigration legislation in the few decades after the turn of the last century. If anyone really wants to examine this end of the question, look at Donna Haraway's essay "Teddybear Patriarchy" in _Primate Visions_. Bigotry knows no boundaries, this is just one example. My family dropped the "O" in O'Dwyer around the mid-1800's when a general cultural attitude was "no Irish need apply."

Enough preaching to the choir. In public, if you can't sing it comfortably, if you are a purist but don't feel you have the moral authority to sing it without modification, then leave it to someone else. If you feel comfortable being part of the folk process, and changing meets your needs, then sing it. Either way, someone will be unhappy.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: GUEST,Mark. West Sussex. UK
Date: 07 Jan 01 - 01:59 PM

The reference is undoubtedly to a Spanish Sailor. Remember, they sent the Armada, they colonised a lot of the New World by sea. The Italians, as a Mediterranean Coastal Nation never really had a Ocean Navy for the British Sailors to have to fight. Sailors from shanty times were a hardbitten, rough old lot. Many of the references to "Niggers" stem from the Plantation Owners habit of signing slave labour onto merchant ships out of planting and harvest season. Quite a number of great shantymen came out of these black crews and many of the songs referring to "Niggers" were innocently authored by black seamen themselves. The fact is that Shanties are just about the most politically incorrect art form on the planet. If you sing enough of them you will probably end up offending pretty well every nation in the world. You either adapt them or leave them well alone. I just use my common sense. References to "Brown" or "Darky" girls easily translate to "young" or "pretty" and "Dego" or "Dago" fiddler can become simply "shanty" fiddler. Unless there is some historical provenance that specifically connects the shanty to some inter-nation event or conflict I cannot see the problem. As long as the original is preserved and recorded for the serious musicologist to note attitudes and prejudices historically reflected in the words, you can do what you like with them. In Britain we've been changing words for thousands of years. Its called the "tradition". The Americans have been adapting our songs for at least two centuries, and when Dylan does it they call it "genius".

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Jan 01 - 05:37 PM

words themselves are innocent....but when people who hate and discriminate choose words to use against those they are trying to denigrate, THOSE words become 'charged', even if the subjects use the words themselves. Some words have been taken over and ruined..like 'queer', others were mostly created in order to be offensive.

It can be delicate, but most sane people can tell when the words are being used AT someone, and when they are just being quoted, as in most songs. I am thoroughly fed up with those who wish to 'clean up' all historical songs and literature (Huck Finn) in order to be PC.....if you want to know how I mean a term, I'll tell you!....

as to Joe's problem with ladies & whaling songs....issue them little ear plugs!! Where will history BE in 500 years if we don't remember what really WAS?

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: chordstrangler
Date: 07 Jan 01 - 08:34 PM

I remember a few years back when I recorded a concert in Belfast that was to be transmitted by the BBC. I sang a song I had written about Enid Blyton. When the programme was transmitted the song was omitted. I got a letter from the producer saying that the song had managed to offend children, the coloured community, gays and lesbians, the British Army, people with mental handicap, alcoholics, animal lovers, South Africans, transvestites,and the population in general. I honestly thought that the song was harmless. Could this be a record?

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Snuffy
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 08:13 AM

Could it be a tape as well?

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Grab
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 08:52 AM

Chordstrangler, that's one song you've got to pass on!

Grab.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 09:36 AM

Chordstrangler,

You can't just leave it there, probably the most offensive song on planet Earth *GRIN*. You HAVE to post it.

Mike

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Jan 01 - 11:55 AM

no, the most offensive song ever is a parody of "King of the Road" called "King of the Pimps" which 2 friends of mine wrote 30 years ago...it is funny, clever, and TRULY has something to offend almost anyone...and before you ask, I will NOT post it in open forum..*grin*

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Gervase
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 10:33 AM

Nah, the most offensive song is the gay parody of Byker Hill.
For what it's worth, the full version of God Save the Queen is pretty damned offensive too.

Subject: Lyr Add: ENID BLYTON (Mickey MacConnell)
From: chordstrangler
Date: 09 Jan 01 - 03:59 PM

OK lads, but remember that it was your idea to post this

ENID BLYTON

Dear old Enid Blyton, I thought of you today
as I helped my eldest kid to put her books and toys away.
For there upon the bookshelf, I could scarce believe my eyes
were dozens of adventure books about your Famous Five.
And it swept me backwards through the years for I had read them too
and marvelled at their bravery and deeds of derring-do
But nowadays its just as well that your'e not still alive
to see what time and life have done unto your Famous Five.

Now Julian was the leader with a good staunch British heart
he got a scholarship to Oxford where he studied rather hard.
He took law and criminology until one fateful day
he suddenly discovered that crime does really pay.
So he opened massage parlours in Bradford, York and Leeds
where fat old men and Swedish girls do foul and filthy deeds.
Now he peddles dirty movies, plastic macs and whips and chains
Oh Enid love I'm not surprised you hang your head in shame.


(alternate first verse to be sung with great caution)

Now Julian was the leader with a good staunch British heart
He got a scholarship to Sandhurst where he studied mighty hard
When he joined the British Army it wasn't hard to guess
that he'd end up being commissioned into the SAS.
When they sent him down to South Armagh, poor Julian was fooled
for he didn't know the Paddies don't play Enid Blyton's rules.
And when the smoke had cleared away, few remains were to be seen
so they buried him in Amsterdam, New York and Aberdeen.


Georgina hated being a girl and that's why, I suppose
she told everyone to call her "George" and dressed up in men's clothes.
But in our youthful innocence in those far-off distant days
we never realised that brave Georgina was a Gay.
She came out of the closet when she met a girl named Jill
who is now her live-in lover in a flat in Notting Hill
And she says she's very happy, says its great to be alive
the odds seemed much against it when she joined the Famous Five.


Now Anne, she was the quiet one who lived in mortal dread
of smugglers and jewel thieves and foreigners with beards.
Her nerves got taut as fiddle strings from all the stress and strain
so they put her in a madhouse for the criminally insane.
And Tim, the faithful terrier at last ran out of luck
when he bared his teeth and argued with a forty-three-ton truck.
Poor Tim found out the hard way what is meant by overdrive
Farewell four-footed, furry, faithful, foolish,flattened, F........k'd up Phantom Famous Five.


Poor Dick could never settle after all the things he'd seen
he was into booze and Evostick by the time he was thirteen.
He had been dried out three dozen times when he reached twenty-two
so he went off to South Africa like all the losers do.
And I'm not surprised he's happy there, in fact it is his right.
don't all the bad guys dress in black and the good guys dress in white.
If he stays away from black wimmen and white rum, he might survive
in that spirit of peace and freedom much beloved by Famous Five.

outro...
For the Five stood for integrity, the Five fought the good fight
in the days the bad guys dressed in black and the good guys dressed in white
So Enid love its just as well that your'e not still alive
to see what time and life has done unto your Famous Five.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: GUEST,Blind desert Pete
Date: 17 Jan 01 - 05:27 PM

I just watched the movie Lenny, with Dustin Hoffman as Lenny Bruce. I think everyone should listen to the bit "are there any niggers here tonight" by making these terms taboo we give them MORE power.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jan 01 - 05:52 PM

It occurs to me, reading through this that in America anyway you'd better sing it changing Dago to Spanish.

Nothing to do with censoring it - but if Dago means Italian in America, keeping it just distorts what the author meant, which was clearly Spanish. (Or what Americans would call Hispanic - but I think you'd best not use that. I can't imagine any sailor of the time using the word - and it wouldn't scan.)

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 18 Jan 01 - 04:38 AM

from an online dictionary:

Dago:

Interestingly, much like Guinea, this derogatory term for Italians did not originally refer to Italians. Dago comes from the Spanish given name Diego. It nautical in origin and originally referred to Spanish or Portuguese sailors on English or American ships. This usage dates to the 1830s. The meaning eventually broadened to include anyone from southern Europe, before narrowing again and restricting usage to Italians. The sense meaning Italian dates to at least the 1870s.

from the same site:

Wop:

Similar to wog, wop is often thought to be an acronym for With Out Passport, supposedly used on Ellis Island to designate immigrants without proper papers. This pejorative term for an Italian was probably first used in America, but its roots are in the Romance languages.

Like many other etymologies contained in these pages, this one is not certain, although most authorities agree on the likely origin. It probably derives from the Italian dialectal guappo, or thug. This in turn derives from the Spanish guapo, meaning a dashing braggart or bully, and which eventually derives from the Latin vappa, meaning flat wine or scoundrel. A related word is the French wape, meaning rogue.

The earliest usage in the OED2 dates to 1912 and is spelled wap, which supports the derivation from guappo. The next usage cite, from 1914, uses the more familiar spelling of wop.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From:
Date: 28 Feb 01 - 04:43 AM

After my rather anti-PC remarks, perhaps I should put my hand up to the fact that I HAVE changed the words of one of my songs to make it more acceptable. I used to sing the song "I touched her on the toe" with the final chorus line of "The more I love, my nigger draw near". Being a lecherous sort of fellow, (is that non-PC ?) I usually try to select a suitable shapely female from the audience to enable me to illustrate the song somewhat. On one ocasion I selected a very attractive girl from the audience and it was only as I reached the last line that the fact that she was black sank in. Since then I have substituted the word "darling". - Mind you most feminists still find the song offensive - Ho - Hum.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From:
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 08:28 AM

JERI, if you read further on the notes given for "Home Lads, Home" you will find it WAS written by FOX-SMITH. Given her Kiplingesque ability to enter into the language of her narrators, (which started this whole thread in the first place) it's no wonder that the person who wrote the note was fooled into thinking that she was a he.

I do know Sarah Morgan and there is no doubt about the origin of the lyrics.

I and many of my friends are looking for any poetry by Cicely Fox-Smith that might by worth setting.

And finally I'm still looking for the tune to "Lee Forebrace". I

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: GUEST,SharonA
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 12:53 PM

Long ago, LRMole sez: "My motto would be ENFORCED HUMMING OF ALL POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE LYRICS."

I vaguely remember a Martin Mull song on that subject, where most of the song was hummed. The only line I remember clearly is: "Whips and chains, mmhmm, Great Danes, mmhmm, mmhmm, mmhmm."

There's also a wonderful Lou and Peter Berryman song, "A Chat with Your Mother", on the subject of the f-word.

I'm with BillD (Jan 7 '01) on the subject of censorship of lyrics. I'm frustrated by "cleaned-up" versions of old songs that have lost the flavor of the original, especially songs with derogatory terms that are now obsolete. A sensitively phrased introduction/warning about the history of the lyric should be sufficient in most contexts. For especially offensive songs in especially emotionally charged situations, I'd say the song should not be sung at all, rather than altered, since the meaning is likely to come across anyway.

We should not "clean up" history for individuals or groups who judge it to be "bad"; instead we should use it as an object lesson (those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it... whose quote is that?). We're already struggling to educate young people who don't know the Holocaust ever happened.

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 01:16 PM

Hell, a good story is just that---a good story. Changing historical documents like this, even knowing the author, is the same as burning books to my mind. Even at the risk of offending a few good folks, I'd never quit singing any song---or ban any book.

30% of the people are against everything all the time. (Bobby Kennedy)

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 01:22 PM

And with the above said, if I was playing in Italy or an Italian restaurant, I'd probably change it.

Art again

Subject: RE: Help: Advice Please?
From: Jacob B
Date: 26 Jun 01 - 05:07 PM

I think it's important to realize that these words become offensive under two circumstances:

1. When someone deliberately uses them to offend you.

2. When someone uses them casually, without bothering to think about the fact that they are likely to offend you.

It seems to me to make a lot of sense to give an introduction, explain what you are about to do and why, and ask if anybody minds.

I know, it's not possible under all circumstances, but it will help avoid offense.

Jacob

Subject: RE: Advice Please?
From: Michael in Swansea
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 07:35 PM

Hiyah all,
I've brought this back because we're releasing a new cd, (those who don't know me, I sing with Baggyrinkle Swansea Shantymen), anyway I've sung "Leefore Brace" with the double "Dago" many times, in singarounds, since I first posted this question and have always said that this song contains the word "dago" and that if anyone thinks that the word is derogatory, in the song, to speak to me afterwards. No-one has.
The other Baggies think it a good song. My question now is - do YOU think should it be included on the cd, with double "dago"? I have until about Jan 5th to decide. If the general concencus of opinion is no the I shall request its removal.
Reason for asking is that our first recording contained the "N" word, which is unacceptable under any circumstances, and have since mourned the fact
If I call someone a "f*****g dago" then that's an insult, but if I sing about "Dago Pete" is that an insult to Pete?
Those of you who have heard Danny sing it, do you think he's insulting anyone? The way he does it is more like a prayer.
I will be interested in your replies, and please don't repeat anything that's been said before.
Bed now,
Nite,
Mike

Subject: RE: Advice Please?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:58 PM

Why did they murder Jack?

There are pictures

do you have songs.

WHY?

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Mo the caller
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:17 AM

If you sing it with an intro maybe put it in with a sleeve note?

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: melodeonboy
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 06:34 AM

I'm usually reluctant to change lyrics, unless they are actually designed to be offensive, in which case I probably wouldn't be doing the song anyway!

Up until last year I sang with a (mainly unaccompanied) folk band. When we did "Johnny comes down the Hilo", one of the other singers changed the word "nigger" to "rigger". I was in favour of keeping the original word as I could see no intention to offend.

I'd keep the word, and risk the unlikely but possible oversensitivity on the part of some people.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 07:53 AM

"the unlikely but possible oversensitivity" - I guess it depends where you play. I can't think of a place I'd be playing where people wouldn't be offended - or at least, disturbed - by the use of "the n-word".

As far as the "Leefore Brace" song goes - you would want to consider whether people of Italian/Spanish/Portuguese, etc., background, and outside of the "folk music community" are likely to hear the CD. And, you need to get opinions from people of those backgrounds; I'm not sure this forum is the place to get them; it seems to be comprised largely of Anglo/Celts. If there are Latins out there, make yourselves and your opinions known!

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 08:35 AM

Personally , IF I decide to perform a traditional song which has any 'dubious' content in the lyric , and any one in the audience takes exception , that is THEIR problem , not mine . I can see NO good reason to change ANY traditional lyric because 'modern' thought
puts a different meaning to any part of the lyric . Its just the same as someone objecting to Hunting or Whaling songs because Hunting and Whaling are not approved of . The fact that hunting and whaling are not the sort of activities that SHOULD be approved of doesnt stop the songs being worth singing .

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:01 AM

...This is yet another example of 'political correctness' going too far, I'm afraid I wouldn't even waste my time in thinking about a question like this, some people are just FAR TOO sensitive these days. I mean 'FLAGO' for christs sake, what a stupid suggestion! ...tell you what, lets not bother singing, telling jokes, being religious or doing anything in case we might remotely offend anyones modernised highly weakened sensibilities.
I'm not saying go out of your way to offend (for instance singing 'When Johnny come down to Hilo', in a West Indian Club...
"Well I neber seen de like since I bin born when a big buck nigger wid de seaboots on sez Johnny come down to Hilo...etc")
but just use common sense PLEASE!!!

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:50 AM

Hear, hear Leadfingers.
Political incorrectness is in the ear (or the mind) of the beholder, not the intent of the singer.
Otherwise we'd stop singing about skivvies, or songs in praise of drinking, or that lovely medieval song about "toubacco", or songs about war, or...

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in son
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 12:48 PM

I don't think there was much tobacco about in the Middle Ages, George, not outside America anyway.
............................

I don't like the term political correctness, and profer talking about avoiding term that are likely to be taken by people as insulting to them. But the crucial thing isn't the intent, it's also what you know people will take to be our intent. Which most of the time in the context of folk music means in practice, no need to worry much about self-censorship.

I don't think it is ever right to pretend the past was nicer than it was, even when it was pretty nasty.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: GUEST,Scoville
Date: 17 Dec 06 - 09:48 PM

As far as recording it on a CD, I'd say it's your call.

As far as performing live, my personal feeling is that it depends on the audience. There are no circumstances under which I'd use the N-word in a song. Sorry--I don't care about the historical context or my own intent, it's way too charged (especially in this part of the country). I might explain before hand that that was originally in the song and that I had changed it, but I wouldn't sing it. And I wouldn't use any ethnic epithets in front of children because I don't want to be part of making them accustomed to hearing them before they're old enough and educated enough to know the context.

I don't mind singing about alcohol, tobacco, drug use, or most of the sex references. I avoid some of those songs in front of certain audiences all together rather than change the lyrics, but I don't do ethnic epithets. Yes, I agree that it's at least partly the "fault" of the audience if they're offended, but it's not like I cannot anticipate that somebody might be, in fact, very deeply offended. I'm not a part of any ethnic group for which really offensive epithets exist so I don't think I can fairly say I understand how it feels to hear the N-word used for entertainment.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:41 AM

...Chordstrangler, the song about Enid Blyton, bloody excellent... even I've never managed to offend so many people at once, although my parody of Kenny Rogers 'Coward of the County' did once make someone vomit (it's a version which contains the old Tramp/spittoon joke)

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Bert
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 01:31 AM

Scoville says ...There are no circumstances under which I'd use the N-word in a song...

It is a problem if a song contains that word. My Dad used to sing an old Cockney song which began "I works just like a Nigger"

I have sung it as written but, my sister changes it to "I works just like a Navvy". I'll probably do the same in future until the Navvies object.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Scrump
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 04:23 AM

If I'm singing an old song that has content that might be perceived by some of the audience as "non-PC", I usually preface it with a remark that it was written some time ago when things were different, and explain the historical and/or social context if necessary, to pre-empt any outraged reaction from any "PC brigade" types who might be present. I find that usually works.

I guess if I was recording such a song I would just put something in the sleeve notes to similar effect, but what I wouldn't do is change the words to appease the PC brigade.

(But then I hate the term "PC" anyway, as it presupposes the views expressed in PC terms are "correct" - I don't always agree that's the case.)

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:21 AM

I just hate PC anyway, it is the language of cowards, and it is so bloody stupid, for example a peron hole is a man hole because a man goes do it and does things underground, until a woman goes down and does the same as a man then I'll call it a pesron hole until then I'll call it a manhole.

and another one is chalkboard, no its a blackboard, the reason is it is black and it is made out of board, black is just a colour that's all.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Tim theTwangler
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 05:32 AM

Would I be wrong in thinking that words like Dago had soem origin in people of a different culture making a tab at proniouncing a word they misheard in a foreign (to them) tongue?
Also as with lots of other peoples on the planet British sailors would have been singing of Dago's in a derogative way as one of the many enemy nations that our glorious country has had from time to time.
Any chance one of the clever folks could fill me in re the meaning of any word in Spanish or Italian or Mexican that could be the source word for Dago in this context.
Maby the name of a king or admiral or some such?

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:29 AM

Shantymen.....you sexist bastard!

Surely Shantyperson - show a little sensitivity to us wot is easily offended.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in son
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 06:59 AM

But then I hate the term "PC" anyway, as it presupposes the views expressed in PC terms are "correct"

Actually, as it's used these days, the assumption tends to be that the PC term is incorrect. And I strongly suspect that the expression "PC" was coined, or at least popularised by people with that end in view.
................

Why not read what's already been said in the thread, Tim?

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:43 AM

being very petty arn't we .

shantyman is a man that sings shanties what is wrong with that

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 07:44 AM

this is why I don't like the poltical Correctness so much because it's so stupid,

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in son
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 08:56 AM

Irony: an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: Scoville
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 11:44 AM

Bert, believe me--I'd find a way around it. (In that case, "navvy" seems to work just fine.)

I don't know if this is a UK/USA difference, but there is pretty much no way a pasty-white girl in the South can sing that without causing problems.

I'm actually not a complete PC whore, but my thought is that a lot of very offensive terms were used much more casually in the past than they are now because the people to whom they applied were "less than human". It's not a case of "calling it as it is"; using the term "black" or "Italian" can be considered descriptive. Using the N-word or "dago" has an implied value judgment. People who know me know I don't think that way, but most of the time, my audience doesn't know me well.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in son
From: Melani
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:02 PM

It's easy enough to change lyrics to sound right and also become non-offensive to most people. "Sailor" conveniently has the same number of syllables as the n-word, and will scan fine anywhere. I've actually never heard "Johnny Come Down To Hilo" with line line qupted above; I've heard it as "an Arkansas farmer with his sea boots on." Now that MIGHT offend some Arkansas farmers, but not very likely--it simply points out the incongruity of a farmer wearing seaboots. The nature of chanteys is to change the words anyway.

Subject: RE: Advice Please? - use of offensive words in songs
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Dec 06 - 12:39 PM

Don't intentionally hurt someones feelings. Do the song intact if you can. Explain it is historical if it is. Don't be gratuitous and say %#$@ because you can.

Don