Brown Sugar

Really interesting discussion going on at Stuff White People Do (found via Kristen Tsetsi) about the lyrics to the Rolling Stones song “Brown Sugar” – something I’d never really paid attention to. Pretty shocking:

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in a market down in New Orleans
Scarred old slaver knows he's doing alright
Hear him with the women just around midnight

Brown sugar how come you taste so good?
Brown sugar just like a young girl should

Drums beating, cold English blood runs hot
Lady of the house wonderin' where it's gonna stop
House boy knows that he's doing alright
You shoulda heard him just around midnight

Brown sugar how come you taste so good, now?
Brown sugar just like a young girl should, now

Ah, get along, brown sugar how come you taste so good, baby?
Ah, got me feelin' now, brown sugar just like a black girl should

I bet your mama was a tent show queen
Had all the boyfriends at sweet sixteen
I'm no schoolboy but I know what I like
You shoulda heard me just around midnight

Brown sugar how come you taste so good, baby?
Ah, brown sugar just like a young girl should, yeah

I said yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
How come you...how come you taste so good?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo
Just like a...just like a black girl should
Yeah, yeah, yeah, woo



Some claim this is outright racism, some say it’s literary license – just because you write from the point of view of fictional character doesn’t mean you endorse that character. Only this song is sung with no melancholy at all, it’s a celebration. Most people hear the song and think it’s a song about loving black women. That’s all I thought it was about. It’s sort of like finding out that Nabokov literally had a thing for 12-year-old girls. No, Mick Jagger never enslaved anyone, but he certainly had his way with many teenage girls, with a kind of unfettered freedom. Yeah, rock n roll’s supposed to be shocking, and in the 70’s Elvis’s swiveling hips wasn’t doing it anymore, but this may cross the line into being actually dumbly offensive.

Someone there also brings up that “Brown Sugar” is a euphemism for heroin. The Stones were junkies and heroin enslaves its addicts, so that has to be thrown in there as well. Another poster brings up "Sail Away" by Randy Newman, which does a much better job with the satire. Though you could also get offended.



In America you'll get food to eat
Won't have to run through the jungle
And scuff up your feet
You'll just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day
It's great to be an American

Ain't no lions or tigers
Ain't no mamba snake
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake
Ev'rybody is as happy as a man can be
Climb aboard, little wog
Sail away with me

Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

In America every man is free
To take care of his home and his family
You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree
You're all gonna be an American

Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay
Sail away
Sail away
We will cross the mighty ocean into Charleston Bay

The difference? Sung with melancholy, unlike “Brown Sugar.”

The other day I was listening to the best of ZZ Top. My car only has a tape player and recently I uncovered all these tapes from high school and I listened to ZZ Top then – pre-MTV ZZ Top. I was pretty startled by the song, “Francine,” which when I was 15 meant nothing to me. It starts:

Got a girl, her name's Francine,
finest thing you ever seen.
And I love her, she's all that I want.
And I need her, she's all that I need.

That’s fine, no problem with that. But it ends:

My Francine just turned thirteen,
she's my angelic teenage queen.
And I love her, she's all that I want.
And I need her, she's all that I need.

These are guys who sing songs like “Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers” so it’s not quite surprising. But I dunno, since I’ve had a daughter I’ve become more and more PC with little tolerance for stuff like this. Keep ZZ Top the hell away from my daughter.