# Racism in popular music



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I just heard "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" by Jim Croce, and realized that there is more than one instance of subtle racism in it.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I can't say I've ever thought of it in that light - lyrically it struck me as a kind of variant of the _Stagger Lee_ story but without anyone being shot dead. If Croce's song is to be brought into question then there probably won't be much hope for the lyrics to the Stones' _Brown Sugar_ or Viv Stanshall's cod-West Indian accent on the Bonzos' _Look Out, There's a Monster Coming_.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

[Deleted in the interests of good taste.]


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Can’t be as bad as Oh Suzannah


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Makes me think of the "work song" scene from Blazing Saddles...


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## The Deacon (Jan 14, 2018)

elgars ghost said:


> Viv Stanshall's cod-West Indian accent on the Bonzos' _Look Out, There's a Monster Coming_.


Viv did blackface before Prime Minister Trudeau did.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The Deacon said:


> Viv did blackface before Prime Minister Trudeau did.


I had to check - maybe he was spoofing the then-popular _The Black and White Minstrel Show_ but that made me wince.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Perhaps we can assert that _Brown Sugar_, and Elton's _Island Girl_ express historical/sociological truths such that at least some listeners will pause to reflect upon the implications of the lyrics. Billie Holiday singing _Strange Fruit_ also makes a powerful point, to put it mildly......


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

elgars ghost said:


> I can't say I've ever thought of it in that light - lyrically it struck me as a kind of variant of the _Stagger Lee_ story but without anyone being shot dead. If Croce's song is to be brought into question then there probably won't be much hope for the lyrics to the Stones' _Brown Sugar_ or Viv Stanshall's cod-West Indian accent on the Bonzos' _Look Out, There's a Monster Coming_.


Brown Sugar? Maybe, although it's about the slave trade, opening with "Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields, sold in the market down in New Orleans," but Jagger's obvious excitement about this "brown sugar" tasting so good is perhaps its undoing. Vivian? A drunk, so probably guilty, and the British are notorious in this regard. John Lennon in "The New Mary Jane" is another example, pi##ing on George Harrison's friendship with Ravi Shankar.
As far as Croce's lyrics, we hear "Badder than old King Kong", with the scene set on the "south side of Chicago." Other less specific references: "Leroy was a gambler," the name "Leroy" itself, and "junkyard."


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Stephen Foster*

Most of his racist lyrics have been cleaned up for decades, but the original lyrics will occasionally make your eyeballs pop out.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> Brown Sugar? Maybe, although it's about the slave trade, opening with "Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields, sold in the market down in New Orleans," but Jagger's obvious excitement about this "brown sugar" tasting so good is perhaps its undoing. Vivian? A drunk, so probably guilty, and the British are notorious in this regard. John Lennon in "The New Mary Jane" is another example, pi##ing on George Harrison's friendship with Ravi Shankar.
> As far as Croce's lyrics, we hear "Badder than old King Kong", with the scene set on the "south side of Chicago." Other less specific references: "Leroy was a gambler," the name "Leroy" itself, and "junkyard."


Croce's _Leroy Brown_ was written in 1973. That was then, this is now - you obviously have not been paying attention to the British tabloids lately.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Room2201974 said:


> Croce's _Leroy Brown_ was written in 1973. That was then, this is now - _you obviously have not been paying attention to the British tabloids lately_.


Who in their right mind would?MMMMMMMMMMMMMM


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

I think we have to separate music expressing itself in the manner of its time, versus music actively being used to denigrate a particular race. 

If we can say that society has become less and less racist over time, then by definition music selected from the past may well contain elements not as acceptable today.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't believe society has become less racist in the past 45 years. And we have more serious real world issues to deal with than parsing the lyrics of a Jim Croce song. I read stories in the news all the time about racist politicians disenfranchising black voters, cops shooting dead unarmed black citizens, realtors who have been found guilty of steering black families away from buying homes in "nice white" neighborhoods. We have a military machine that kills and maims brown people all over the planet. And on and on.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

How about Black against Asian racism?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

This one is completely cringeworthy at 2:26. A man, who sounds African-American, says, "What? A girl? A girl that plays saxophone? A -- a _white_ girl from Holland plays the saxophone?"


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Racially-mixed band Wild Cherry's _Play That Funky Music_ (White Boy!) I think shows a path that is neither mean-spirited nor preachy, and is just fun. It gives direct voice to the fact that White musicians have been intrigued by and borrowing from and copying Black sounds for many decades. Plus, it's a great song....


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## Guest (Jan 30, 2020)

Verses 4 and 5 of Rod Stewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story

[Verse 4]
I moved right out east, yeah, listen
On the Peking ferry I was feeling merry
Sailing on my way back here
I fell in love with a slit-eyed lady
By the light of an eastern moon
Shangai Lil never used the pill
She claimed that it just ain't natural
She took me up on deck and bit my neck
Oh people, I was glad I found her
Oh yeah, I was glad I found her, woohoo
Wait a minute

[Verse 5]
I firmly believe that I didn't need anyone but me
I sincerely thought I was so complete
Look how wrong you can be
The women I've known I wouldn't let tie my shoe
They wouldn't give you the time of day
But the slit-eyed lady knocked me off my feet
God I was glad I found her
And if they had the words I could tell to you
To help you on the way down the road
I couldn't quote you no Dickens, Shelley or Keats
'Cause it's all been said before
Make the best out of the bad, just laugh it off, ha
You didn't have to come here anyway


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Lyrics (Continued): Here is _Ride The Tiger_ by Jefferson Starship--

I want to ride the tiger
I want to ride the tiger
It will be black and white in the dead of night
Eyes flashing in the clear moonlight
I want to ride the tiger.
It's like a tear in the hands of a western man
Tell you about salt, carbon and water
But a tear to a chinese man
He'll tell you about sadness and sorrow or the love of a man and
A woman.
I want to ride the tiger
I want to sail through the risin' sun for you and you
We got something to learn from the other side
Something to give, we got nothing to hide
I want to ride the tiger.
Black wants out of the streets
Yellow wants the country
Red wants the country back
And white wants out of this world
Sing - sing to the sky
I want to ride the tiger
I want to ride the tiger.
Look to the summer of seventy-five
All the world is gonna come alive
Do you want to ride the tiger?
It's like a tear in the hands of a western man
Tell you about salt, carbon and water
But a tear to an oriental man
He'll tell you about sadness and sorrow or the love of a man and
A woman......

Here we are on a borderline between a mentioning of race--the Chinese or oriental man is depicted as being more in touch with his emotions than the westerners--but then we attribute overall racial differences in social/political goals, perhaps not that different from political discussions of voting blocs, etc. But I still like the song!


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

OK need some help here.

I'm trying to remember a particular popular song, that actually helped fight racism.


Background. Dr's and Scientists realised long ago that Blood is Blood, doesn't matter who it comes from, its all the same. The US Army for a long time kept two kinds of blood (as if there are only two races!) and I believe it took a change in the law to get them to accept the facts.

Many years ago the excellent Robert Cushman had a Radio series Book, Music and Lyrics on the BBC. He played this song about this and said it had helped change the law. I think the Lyrics were by Yip Harburg but 10 mins of Googling and I've come up with nothing.

Anyone help?


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Belowpar said:


> OK need some help here.
> 
> I'm trying to remember a particular popular song, that actually helped fight racism.
> 
> ...


Wouldn't surprise me. His lyrics have a strong element of social conscience. And he was one of the creators of _Finian's Rainbow_, which has a subplot where a segregationist senator is magically turned black.

I checked my copy of "Reading Lyrics" but couldn't find it.

Sometimes a songwriter feels the need to change lyrics. Two examples come to mind. Let's Do It, originally began:

****** do it
Japs do it
Up in Lapland little Lapps do it.

And "Puttin' on the Ritz was completely rewritten. The original was:

Have you seen the well to do
Up on Lenox Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare
With their noses in the air?

High hats and narrow collars
White spats and fifteen dollars
Spending every dime
For a wonderful time

If you're blue, and you don't know where to go to
Why don't you go where Harlem flits?
Puttin' on the Ritz
Spangled gowns upon the bevy of high browns
From down the levy, all misfits
Putting' on the Ritz

That's where each and every lulu-belle goes
Every Thursday evening with her swell beaus
Rubbin' elbows

Come with me and we'll attend their jubilee
And see them spend their last two bits
Puttin' on the Ritz


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Belowpar said:


> OK need some help here.
> 
> I'm trying to remember a particular popular song, that actually helped fight racism.
> 
> ...


The song is *"Free and Equal Blues"* - lyrics by E.Y. "Kip" Harburg with music by Earl Robinson -

"I went down to that St. James Infirmary
I saw some plasma there
I upped and asked that doctor man
Now was the donor dark or fair

The doctor laughed a great big laugh
And he puffed it right in my face
He says, A molecule is a molecule son,
And the damn thing has no race.

And that was news, yes that was news
That was very, very, very special news
'Cause ever since that day we've had those
Free and equal blues

I never knew that the plasma in that
Test tube there could be
White man, black man, yellow man, red,
Well, that's just what that doctor said..."

Link to complete lyrics -

https://lyrics.fandom.com/wiki/Josh_White:Free_And_Equal_Blues

It was originally recorded by Earl Robinson and Clarence Muse -






The best known version is the one by Josh White -


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

How about "Sexism in Popular Music"? That'll be _way_ easier.


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## HenryPenfold (Apr 29, 2018)

millionrainbows said:


> I just heard "Bad, Bad, Leroy Brown" by Jim Croce, and realized that there is more than one instance of subtle racism in it.


"_The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there_"

Can't believe I'm wasting my time on such a pointless thread ..............


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

HenryPenfold said:


> "_The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there_"
> 
> Can't believe I'm wasting my time on such a pointless thread ..............


In London, do y'all have the "underground" David Allan Coe tapes? I bet they'd fetch a pretty penny...You don't have skinhead bands over there, do you?


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

millionrainbows said:


> In London, do y'all have the "underground" David Allan Coe tapes? I bet they'd fetch a pretty penny...You don't have skinhead bands over there, do you?


Nope. Our skinheads get to become special advisers to HM Government. It only happens in this country, why don't the French have a term for "eminence grise"?

Or maybe he's Scots, like that MacHiavelli chap?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

CnC Bartok said:


> Nope. Our skinheads get to become special advisers to HM Government. It only happens in this country, why don't the French have a term for "eminence grise"?
> 
> View attachment 130409


It's happened here in the US as well.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

pianozach said:


> It's happened here in the US as well.


So that means the Marine Band is doing obscure punk covers? Be sure to vote for Elizabeth Warren.


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## Belowpar (Jan 14, 2015)

Duncan said:


> The song is *"Free and Equal Blues"* - lyrics by E.Y. "Kip" Harburg with music by Earl Robinson -
> 
> "I went down to that St. James Infirmary
> I saw some plasma there
> ...


I wish I could thank you in person. Glad to know I'm not halucinatin' ALL the time. If I only had a memory.

Cushman played the Josh White version but I think he oversold it, as even knowing the title doesn't pull up any links on Google..

Great to hear it again.

PS Were you making a point when you called him "Kip" Harburg? Just curious.


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## Duncan (Feb 8, 2019)

Belowpar said:


> PS Were you making a point when you called him "Kip" Harburg? Just curious.


:lol: - yeah... the point I was trying to make was "Note to self: try proofreading before posting" - it was merely a typo - I had only a vague idea that "kip" meant "sleep" or "nap" in the UK but it most definitely was not intentional.

I typed "Yip" at least half a dozen times in the thread below (most recently in the entry for February 20th - "Over the Rainbow" - Judy Garland - Number 1 song in the USA in 1939) but as mentioned previously it was merely a mistake.

Historic Popular Vocalists - 1910 - 1949 - Songs of the Day Calendar...

You're welcome and thank you for your kind and gracious words!


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