Songs that make you feel uncomfortable

[LeftyP]

15 minutes ago, Andy_L said:

Have never managed to persuade our singer to do Gary Puckett & the Union Gap's "Young Girl". There are a couple of dozen reasons in the lyrics I suspect...

I don't see anything wrong with the song.  It's about a guy who is trying to stop a young girl "coming on" to him.  Some people think it's about an older guy having lustful thoughts about an underage girl but the guy in question is trying to reject her because he knows it's wrong.  Your singer would need to have a great voice to carry that song off!

[Lozz196]

31 minutes ago, MHMSWC#03 said:

I'm intrigued...

Provisionally speaking, neighbouring green “friends” of the 70s & 80s

Edited June 23, 2021 by Lozz196

[DawnPatroller]

4 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

Provisionally speaking, neighbouring green “friends” of the 70s & 80s

It's either CND or the IRA, I can't figure out which ... 😆

[Lozz196]

3 minutes ago, MHMSWC#03 said:

It's either CND or the IRA, I can't figure out which ... 😆

‘‘Twas the IRA. I’m not big on murder so I walked.

To my shame actually as the guy had been through a terrible 3 or 4 years, I should have stuck around and been a better mate, offered support but at 23 I didn’t have the maturity to do that.

[DawnPatroller]

2 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

‘‘Twas the IRA. I’m not big on murder so I walked.

To my shame actually as the guy had been through a terrible 3 or 4 years, I should have stuck around and been a better mate, offered support but at 23 I didn’t have the maturity to do that.

Ah I'm with you now - from your original post, I inferred that it was a relatively recent association. If I'd known it was way back when, it would have been obvious. My bad.

 

[Barking Spiders]

8 hours ago, ubit said:

Am I the only one that is shocked at someones woke'ness about old songs? Brown Sugar is an anti slave song and Delilah is about someones, albeit over the top, revenge on someone who wronged him. Make believe and in the past.

+1 here. Not sure 99.99% of people listen to lyrics unless it's 'I wanna s3x you up'. Heard Brown Sugar and Delilah hundreds of times and not once have I bothered to find out what the songs are about

[Andy_L]

1 hour ago, LeftyP said:

I don't see anything wrong with the song.  It's about a guy who is trying to stop a young girl "coming on" to him.  Some people think it's about an older guy having lustful thoughts about an underage girl but the guy in question is trying to reject her because he knows it's wrong.  Your singer would need to have a great voice to carry that song off!

I certainly get where you're coming from, but it does rely on the audience to give it some thought. We have a former drummer who is now on the sex offenders' register, and the singer is a teacher, so he's very conscious of these things. 

Even then, the protagonist does seem to be tempted:

Get out of here
Before I have the time
To change my mind
'Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far

He's not ruling it out 100% perhaps 

[Count Bassy]

12 hours ago, thebrig said:

Not a song I have ever played in a band, but I always feel uncomfortable when I hear it:

I would rather, I would rather go blind
Then to see you walk away from me

How must blind people feel when they hear these lyrics?

Come on. It's just a woman or man expressing how upset he is at losing their lover, just an expression. I'm I afraid this is an example where the blind person just needs to 'get over it'.

[Bobthedog]

12 hours ago, thebrig said:

Not a song I have ever played in a band, but I always feel uncomfortable when I hear it:

I would rather, I would rather go blind
Then to see you walk away from me

How must blind people feel when they hear these lyrics?

I feel the same when hearing "Walk on By" I mean what do people in wheelchairs think. Also "Fly me to the Moon": those poor failed astronauts. "I just died in your arms" must really screw up people who have lost arms. 🙄

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, steantval said:

I can’t play "slap to save my ars*"

I don't know that track

2 hours ago, MHMSWC#03 said:

I'm intrigued...

To be fair, most terrorist groups are fairly specific.

[Count Bassy]

Ther are plenty of songs about murder and revenge, even before you go into folk songs:

I shot the sherrif

Bad like Jesse James

Hey joe,

Folsom Prison Blues.

Delilah

etc etc etc.

I don't think any of those are actually glorifying or condoning murder. They are simply telling a story.

 

IMHO making a big fuss about some song lyrics  just detracts from the real issues in the world.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Count Bassy

[Count Bassy]

1 minute ago, Bobthedog said:

"I just died in your arms" must really screw up people who have lost arms. 🙄

or those who have died!!!

[40hz]

Turning Japanese by the Vapors. Always makes me cringe a bit.

[MacDaddy]

11 minutes ago, 40hz said:

Turning Japanese by the Vapors. Always makes me cringe a bit.

Because you know what it is really about?

[40hz]

14 minutes ago, MacDaddy said:

Because you know what it is really about?

I know what it's about! It's the comparison in the song title.

[Phil Starr]

On 22/06/2021 at 20:32, Graham said:

There's two songs in our set at the moment that I really don't enjoy playing as the lyrics make me feel uncomfortable.

I'm not the singer, so has less of an impact on me, but I don't feel good playing them, which also makes me not want to practice them, I will of course, though.

The first is Brown Sugar and whilst the lyrics do strike me as more than a little racist, I'm less uncomfortable with that one. The other is Delilah and I really don't like it. It's a song about domestic violence and murder that's sympathetic to the killer and I feel bad every time I play it.

What's the best route here? We've got a dep guitarist this weekend so are a bit limited on set list, but I think I might have a chat with the singer/band leader and say that going forward I'd really rather not play Delilah at least.

Or should I just suck it up and ignore it, particularly as I'm not singing them?

I'm with you on this, I'm into lyrics in the songs I listen to and the ones I play and get very uncomfortable about those lyrics sometimes. For each of us it is something different; I have no problem with Delilah which for me is just telling a story but i have huge problems with a lot of rap which is frequently misogynistic as others have said. Don't Stand So Close? Well I used to be a teacher when it was released and I find that deeply disturbing, things went on then that we rightly see as a disgrace now. Every Step you Take is pretty out there too, though you could make an argument that Sting is not holding this up as something to be proud of.

A lot of old blues songs are pretty suspect in the attitudes to women, somehow because it's not my generation I respond to that as just being historic and a reflection of how things have changed.

Brown Sugar is an interesting one. Whether it was written about Claudia Linnear or Marsha Hunt it's pretty clear that with a couple of successive girlfriends Jagger had a thing about Brown Sugar. Remember that as late as 1967 mixed race marriage was illegal in most US states. There would probably have been a big element of forbidden fruit about all this for a South London middle class boy like Jagger. Black people were seen as being defined in large part by their sexuality and we know from interviews that Jagger knew a lot about the history of slavery. I remember when it came out I just thought 'you lucky B*****d'.  So is this a positive song about his black partner(s) from somebody quite liberated by the standards of 1970 or is the lazy association of black women with sex and slavery deeply racist?

The trouble is that you know it's wrong. Once you've seen that and asked yourself the question you know the answer. I don't judge the people who just sing it without asking the question, it is a great pop song but I couldn't play it. Is it racist? i think probably unintentionally but it is.

[ubit]

12 hours ago, LeftyP said:

Your singer would need to have a great voice to carry that song off!

Maybe that's the real reason he said he didn't want to do it!

[ubit]

9 hours ago, 40hz said:

Turning Japanese by the Vapors. Always makes me cringe a bit.

Great song. We used to do it. In fact we used to do songs with dodgy lyrics quite a lot. We didn't give a flying f**k!

[Bolo]

37 minutes ago, ubit said:

Great song. We used to do it. In fact we used to do songs with dodgy lyrics quite a lot. We didn't give a flying f**k!

Wow so cool 🙄

[tegs07]

On a side note why is it that historically the overly Pious, morally outraged people tend to blow a fuse and go on killing sprees?

Personally I think humans are just another animal which given the right conditions are capable of great empathy and creativity and the reverse is also true. Not condoning uncomfortable songs but I would rather the beast was expressed metaphorically in art.

[Barking Spiders]

I actually finding myself cringing a lot more at lyrics that try to be philosophical or deep in some way but come across as pretentious (to me anyway). For me Rush are one of the worst offenders. Planet Rock played Limelight ten mins ago.  Check out

Living on a lighted stage approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role, ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers to keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight, the universal dream
For those who wish to see
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation, the underlying theme

Living in a fish eye lens, caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend

All the world's indeed a stage and we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each anothers audience outside the gilded cage...(blah blah)

 

The Shakespeare allusion is particularly toe-curling. On the subject of Shakespeare, there's much for the more sensitive among us to get upset over. There's murder, rape, mutilation, incest, cannibalism, misogyny, racism and wife abuse. Titus Andronicus is particularly hardcore. Are theatre directors/producers going to edit out the more 'distasteful' stuff to cater for modern times?

[tegs07]

11 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

The Shakespeare allusion is particularly toe-curling. On the subject of Shakespeare, there's much for the more sensitive among us to get upset over. There's murder, rape, mutilation, incest, cannibalism, misogyny, racism and wife abuse. Titus Andronicus is particularly hardcore. Are theatre directors/producers going to edit out the more 'distasteful' stuff to cater for modern times?

I think you have expressed what I was trying to do far better. Art should reflect the human condition in its beauty and depravity. To ignore this or gloss over it is dishonest and potentially damaging.

[ubit]

1 hour ago, Bolo said:

Wow so cool 🙄

Yeah we were thanks.

[ubit]

20 minutes ago, Barking Spiders said:

I actually finding myself cringing a lot more at lyrics that try to be philosophical or deep in some way but come across as pretentious (to me anyway). For me Rush are one of the worst offenders. Planet Rock played Limelight ten mins ago.  Check out

Living on a lighted stage approaches the unreal
For those who think and feel
In touch with some reality beyond the gilded cage

Cast in this unlikely role, ill-equipped to act
With insufficient tact
One must put up barriers to keep oneself intact

Living in the limelight, the universal dream
For those who wish to see
Those who wish to be
Must put aside the alienation
Get on with the fascination
The real relation, the underlying theme

Living in a fish eye lens, caught in the camera eye
I have no heart to lie
I can't pretend a stranger is a long-awaited friend

All the world's indeed a stage and we are merely players
Performers and portrayers
Each anothers audience outside the gilded cage...(blah blah)

 

The Shakespeare allusion is particularly toe-curling. On the subject of Shakespeare, there's much for the more sensitive among us to get upset over. There's murder, rape, mutilation, incest, cannibalism, misogyny, racism and wife abuse. Titus Andronicus is particularly hardcore. Are theatre directors/producers going to edit out the more 'distasteful' stuff to cater for modern times?

😂

Edited June 24, 2021 by ubit

[neilp]

20 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

This. Songs, films, paintings, sculpture - in fact, all art - reflect the time and the culture they were created in. If they don't please or suit you, don't sing, play, look at or listen to them. But please don't whinge about or attempt to "cancel" them. I don't like the great majority of films. The gratuitous violence, covert (and overt) political agenda they promote and the manipulative appeal to base emotions in most irritate me. So I don't watch them (don't even have a telly). However, I recognise that others are free to make their own choices.

I don't think anyone has raised the idea of "cancelling" anyone or anything, the discussion has all been about personal feelings and personal decisions. And if songs, films, paintings or sculptures reflect attitudes from the time and culture they were created in, and those attitudes (racism, approval of slave trade, misogyny for example) are generally deemed by modern society to be unacceptable, what is wrong with refusing to play, listen to or look at them? Or should we just allow these toxic attitudes to hang around?