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Songs that make you feel uncomfortable


Graham

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Even though it's a great bassline, Disco Inferno is an uncomfortable song for me after seeing occasional fires in nightclubs around the world where many have died, trapped inside by locked exit doors.

Also, Police, Don't Stand So Close To Me makes me feel queasy, we don't play it, but it just doesn't seem right anymore when I hear it.

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10 minutes ago, BassedinBucks said:

Even though it's a great bassline, Disco Inferno is an uncomfortable song for me after seeing occasional fires in nightclubs around the world where many have died, trapped inside by locked exit doors.

Also, Police, Don't Stand So Close To Me makes me feel queasy, we don't play it, but it just doesn't seem right anymore when I hear it.

Didn't the Police also do that slightly creepy one about stalking? I remember we used it for an item about Princess Diana when I was working with Clive James. Part of it was played over footage of her and covers of magazines with her face on it carefully thrown into shot by myself and another researcher on the programme. Years before her death, of course.

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I seriously doubt it - some of the lyrics of songs now are very hard hitting, and possibly more so than the ones of the past. I have never heard anyone doing a cover of Raceys classic 'Some girls will' but I suspect that is the level of saccharine involved.

And in the past, we generally weren't doing covers, so people were happy with their own song.

If someone is uncomfortable doing a song, or their audience is uncomfortable hearing it, then it wont get done, it doesn't mean they are wrong just because you don't care.

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Surely the point is that many songwriters want to be thought provoking (hence Sting writing about suicide or a pretty love song that is actually about stalking), or even provocative (most songs written by Jagger). 

As mentioned by others above, Jagger goes for a clean sweep with Brown Sugar - slavery, rape, his love (lust) for a black girl and interracial relationships (a controversial topic in America  in 1971), all with a subtext of heroin use!  He did say that he would have self-censored if he was writing that song today, but those were hardier times! 

Edited by peteb
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6 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

It didn't feel right when we used for the Princess Di piece

I would have thought that it was very appropriate considering how she was hounded by the press and what happened to her later 

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2 minutes ago, peteb said:

I would have thought that it was very appropriate considering how she was hounded by the press and what happened to her later 

Well yes, and I am sure we wouldn't have used it had we been able to see about seven years into the future.

It seemed disrespectful, especially considering our presenter's friendship with her and her husband.

Edited by FinnDave
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4 minutes ago, FinnDave said:

It seemed disrespectful, especially considering our presenter's friendship with her and her husband.

Personally I would have thought that it was rather apt, rather than being disrespectful...! Of course, I don't know what your presenter's relationship was with her. 

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All the talk so far (I think) has been about covers. But I guess the same could apply to originals. If one band member writes a lyric, do the others get to comment or even veto?

I'm not in an originals band, but do write lyrics for my own songs. If that transitioned to a band setting, I'd be happy to listen to occasional concerns about my lyrics. If there were concerns all the time then we are probably in the wrong band together!

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7 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

All the talk so far (I think) has been about covers. But I guess the same could apply to originals. If one band member writes a lyric, do the others get to comment or even veto?

I assume so - then they can save it for their solo album!

I guess it depends on the band, and if they are the only songwriter or not. But words get changed because people don't like them all the time, both before recording and afterwards.

 

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6 minutes ago, Nail Soup said:

All the talk so far (I think) has been about covers. But I guess the same could apply to originals. If one band member writes a lyric, do the others get to comment or even veto?

Having been in many originals bands, and having left one because of the singers increasing far left politics and support of a specific terrorist group, yes, my veto was ta-ta, hope you’re happy with your hatred.

Many subjects I wouldn’t put up with and if the songwriter insisted on keeping them then I’d leave, no hesitation.

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I was wondering that about certain lyrics. There was a lot of controvasy about Lana Del Rays Ultraviolence lyrics, especially the line "He hit me and it felt like a kiss". I had read something saying that she doesn't sing that anymore, so I looked on youtube, and there is a gig of it from 2019 (I am guessing there wasn't much touring since), where apart from the first time, she litterally puts her hand in front of her mouth for that song. Which seemed odd as the lyric is certainly still there (and they are her own backing vocal tracks).

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6 hours ago, Rich said:

I don't know if the punters noticed 

Probably not.

 

Kirsty might have went with "maggot" but punters didn't.  Bands playing covers is a bit like karaoke, music for an audience sing-a-long.

 

If audience grew up hearing the original singer sing a certain line, that's what they'll sing.

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