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Are these lyrics offensive?

Are these lyrics offensive?


  • Total voters
    26
YouSir said:
Is there a roaming mob around here who chase Tobyjug with pitchforks and burning torches? He may be a miserable right wing sod at times but as far as this thread goes he hasn't actually contributed anything that's at all offensive, not as far as I can see anyway.
Aside from the fact that he has derailed from the original purpose of the thread :(
 
well why don't you try and get it back on track by telling us what you think of the lyrics instead of just posing the question and buggering off?
 
Hehe... Good point Milesy....

I was recently listening to Viva Hate and was shocked when I heard this track, the lyrics as below seem a bit much...
It's the touchy march of time that binds you
Don't blame me
Don't hate me
Just because I'm the one to tell you
That life is hard enough when you belong here


So in Morrissey's opinion is it his race/culture/colour that mean that said Bengali 'doesn't belong here', because I'm offended by that suggestion...

As for the question of whether Morrissey is racist- I think I'll sit on my answer to that for a little while longer though I've had that argument on U75 before ;)
 
I think everything the Smiths and/or Morrisey have ever done is without any exception a load of stinky poopyplops, and there's nothing anybody can do to change my mind. :p
 
silentNate said:
Hehe... Good point Milesy....

I was recently listening to Viva Hate and was shocked when I heard this track, the lyrics as below seem a bit much...
It's the touchy march of time that binds you
Don't blame me
Don't hate me
Just because I'm the one to tell you
That life is hard enough when you belong here


So in Morrissey's opinion is it his race/culture/colour that mean that said Bengali 'doesn't belong here', because I'm offended by that suggestion...

As for the question of whether Morrissey is racist- I think I'll sit on my answer to that for a little while longer though I've had that argument on U75 before ;)

morrisey does get a lot of leeway cos he is so fucking good, noone wants to believe someone so clever could also be a racist cunt

he is sarcastic/ironic about everything in his lyrics, even when he is deadly serious

does it matter if he is racist? he's made some of my favourite songs ever, and i won't stop liking them (i've never heard that bengali song before, some of his songs are pap as well)
 
silentNate said:
Hehe... Good point Milesy....

I was recently listening to Viva Hate and was shocked when I heard this track, the lyrics as below seem a bit much...
It's the touchy march of time that binds you
Don't blame me
Don't hate me
Just because I'm the one to tell you
That life is hard enough when you belong here


So in Morrissey's opinion is it his race/culture/colour that mean that said Bengali 'doesn't belong here', because I'm offended by that suggestion...

As for the question of whether Morrissey is racist- I think I'll sit on my answer to that for a little while longer though I've had that argument on U75 before ;)

Doesn't Morrissey come from an Irish family? I bet his family had the same kind of attitudes when they came over. Which makes me think he's being a bit tongue in cheek. And it's true, isn't it? Life is hard enough when you belong here.
 
goldenecitrone said:
Doesn't Morrissey come from an Irish family? I bet his family had the same kind of attitudes when they came over. Which makes me think he's being a bit tongue in cheek. And it's true, isn't it? Life is hard enough when you belong here.
My Da was an immigrant- do I 'belong' here or is it to do with the colour of my skin? :confused:
 
goldenecitrone said:
I think the question is, do any of us really belong anywhere?
Nope, I don't hear that in the lyrics- Morrissey may have a point but it didn't come across to me and surely those lyrics just promote racist opinions no matter what the intention...
People from other nations shouldn't whine about their rights as they don't belong here, right? :confused:
 
My opinion on Morrisey is reserved, as I don't think I could possibly leave if I let everyone know :p

And toby's getting too much stick on this thread. I'm sure he'd buy you a pint in the pub. Love thy neighbour and all that.
 
silentNate said:
Nope, I don't hear that in the lyrics- Morrissey may have a point but it didn't come across to me and surely those lyrics just promote racist opinions no matter what the intention...
People from other nations shouldn't whine about their rights as they don't belong here, right? :confused:

No they don't. You've just chosen to interpret them in a very literal sense.
 
silentNate said:
Nope, I don't hear that in the lyrics- Morrissey may have a point but it didn't come across to me and surely those lyrics just promote racist opinions no matter what the intention...
People from other nations shouldn't whine about their rights as they don't belong here, right? :confused:

How about if you went to live with the Tuareg and one of them said to you "Life's hard enough when you belong here". And then one of his mates put it to music and started playing it to you all day. Yeah, I suppose it might get a bit irritating.
 
Hollis said:
No they don't. You've just chosen to interpret them in a very literal sense.
Can anyone find me a quote from Morrissey on the songs actual meaning then, otherwise I'm left to make up my own mind :confused:
 
Hollis said:
No they don't. You've just chosen to interpret them in a very literal sense.

if the lryics to "bengali..." were said by a character in a film or book that was about immigration i think people would be more open to them just being a character's point of view rather than the author's POV, but cos it's a singer/songwriter singing the words people automatically tend to assume that they are neccessarily the singer's point of view, and not just a point of view of a character that the singer is chosing to take for the song. IYKWIM.
 
milesy said:
if the lryics to "bengali..." were said by a character in a film or book that was about immigration i think people would be more open to them just being a character's point of view rather than the author's POV, but cos it's a singer/songwriter singing the words people automatically tend to assume that they are neccessarily the singer's point of view, and not just a point of view of a character that the singer is chosing to take for the song. IYKWIM.
Wasn't that Axl's defense of One in a Million, which fell on deaf ears as G'n'R had a haemorraging of fans following that effort...
its only in character said:
Immigrants and fagg*ts
They make no sense to me
They come to our country
And think they'll do as they please
Like start some mini Iran,
Or spread some f**kin' disease
They talk so many goddamn ways
It's all Greek to me
Well some say I'm lazy
And others say that's just me
Some say I'm crazy
I guess I'll always be
But it's been such a long time
Since I knew right from wrong
It's all the means to an end, I
I keep it movin' along
:mad:
 
milesy said:
if the lryics to "bengali..." were said by a character in a film or book that was about immigration i think people would be more open to them just being a character's point of view rather than the author's POV, but cos it's a singer/songwriter singing the words people automatically tend to assume that they are neccessarily the singer's point of view, and not just a point of view of a character that the singer is chosing to take for the song. IYKWIM.

Some people do.. Though I doubt most people would take Mozzer (..or Nate) totally at face value.
 
goldenecitrone said:
Did he really put his girlfriend in a coma? And hang all those djs? What a rotter.
Those DJ's deserved hanging- 'tis a fact...

He never said he put her in the coma though perhaps she heard some of the track that didn't make his third solo album :D
 
kyser_soze said:
Usual drivel from the whiny, overgrown adolescent. Only offensive to those who aren't part of his cult IMO.

Pah!!! We have a philistine in our midst!!

:mad: :mad:

ETA: Clarification required:

Who's the 'whiny, overgrown adolescent'? - Mozzer or Nate.

:confused:

:cool:
 
Morrisey - never liked him when I was a whiny teen myself, like him even less now.

Accept that some of his/The Smiths songs and lyrics are well written and catchy, and that he does carry at least part of the mantle of people like Wilde, Greene, Coward etc in capturing a certain feel of 'Englishness', its just he annoys the fuck out of me.
 
B000002LDQ.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

'Bengali In Platforms' is featured on 'Viva Hate', which is my favourite album of all time. What that album did for a legion of pale, disaffected, luckless teenagers like me - mortified and inconsolable at the sudden demise of The Smiths - is beyond words. :cool: :o And in my humble opinion, morbid Mobber has never quite scaled those heights again since.

I have worried about Mozzer's intentions regarding the race issue at points in the past - mostly fuelled by adverse hype and wrongheaded speculation in the NME on the part of otherwise sound journalists like Steven Wells (who at the time of the Madstock debacle seemed to be on a personal seek-and-destroy mission). However, in retrospect I feel that, whereas these particular lyrics were at worst rather condescending and not altogether with the plot regarding the subject matter, they were several giant steps from being offensive.

Extraneous trivial fact: 'Viva Hate' was also home to 'The Ordinary Boys'. :)
 
silentNate said:
Aside from the fact that he has derailed from the original purpose of the thread :(

NO HE HASN'T .

All he said was that the lyrics he posted were more offensive than the lyrics in the opening post , it's not Tobys fault people decided to hound him about this bike rally , and if he hadn't of replied to peoples comments about what he'd posted he be accused of avoiding the issue , so either way it looks like he can't win which seems like bullying to me !
 
Savage Henry said:
NO HE HASN'T .

All he said was that the lyrics he posted were more offensive than the lyrics in the opening post , it's not Tobys fault people decided to hound him about this bike rally , and if he hadn't of replied to peoples comments about what he'd posted he be accused of avoiding the issue , so either way it looks like he can't win which seems like bullying to me !
This whole page is about the lrics quoted...

You have brought up the topic of tobyjug again, which makes you look like the bully I'm afraid :p
 
silentNate said:
My Da was an immigrant- do I 'belong' here or is it to do with the colour of my skin? :confused:
I think the word "belong" in the song is ambigious. He could be using the phrase as shorthand for "live is hard enough even when you are someone who people think belongs here, when you are a slightly 'different' white person in a white society, let alone a non-white, non-english person". With poetry and song lyrics you always have to fill in a lot of the meanings, they aren't usually meant to be precise or taken literally.
 
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