Entertainment For Lively Minds
Killing Another
Posted by Skuds on 13 December 2011 - 12:01am.
I was just looking at the track list on the Cure's new live album (Bestival Live 2011 - on Spotify now) and notice that the set finishes with two of their oldest songs; 10:15 Saturday Night and Killing an Arab, except... it is now called Killing Another.
When did that happen? I'm a bit out of touch with the Cure, haven't bought anything of theirs since the 1990 Mixed Up album and haven't seen them live since 1979 so maybe this is something they have been doing for ages and I can see why they might have changed it to something less fatwah-inducing.
Have any other artists been forced to do re-writes of old hits (apart from Reg and his Diana song)?
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The Stones
left out the line about black girls and their sexual preferences when they performed the song Some Girls for the Shine A Light live DVD & CD.
not sure Lou reed can do much with this one
I wanna be black
Manic Street Preachers - Motown Junk
They don't sing the line "I laughed when Lennon got shot" anymore and haven't for years. It tends to be either "I laughed when baby got shot" or just "I laughed.".
I find all this a bit cringeworthy, if they're embarrassed by the song they should just play something else. Both the Manics and The Cure have LOADS of songs and I'm sure plenty of their audience know the originals. Sometimes changing something actually drawes more attention to it.
Michael Franks
On his superb album The Art of Tea, the song Monkey See, Monkey Do goes: "Every night we fuss and fight like Arabs and like Jews", but when he sings it live nowadays he sings, "...we fuss and fight like crazy people do." Eurgh.
"Killing An Arab"
is taken from Albert Camus (as you all knew). Why they've changed it baffles me. Who's likely to take offence and why?
Incidentally, no-one's forcing this to happen, are they? It's self-censorship caused either by (exaggerated) fear or (misguided) attempts to avoid giving (possibly imaginary) offence. Most actual Arabs almost certainly couldn't give a flying fatwa.
A mad world, my masters...
(PS. "10.15 Saturday Night" is a Choon and a half)