Mix Tapes Not Races

As far as I’m concerned, lyrics are basically just the fat lining the musical meat and should be taken as seriously as singers take enunciation, which often is not very much. When I listen to the song “Suffragette City” and Bowie sings that a “mellow-thighed chick just put my spine out of place,” all I hear is “the smell of fat chicks puts a smile on my face.” Or in Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Bad Moon Rising,” when instead of hearing that “there’s a bad moon on the rise,” anyone with working ears will swear they heard “there`s a bathroom on the right.” In fact, there’s an entire website dedicated to this phenomenon. But just because a song has really idiotic, nonsensical, or semi-retarded lyrics, does that automatically make it not good?

To take the idea further, recently my friend got excited over an old mid-80’s punk record he’d stumbled upon, it was chock full of awesome riffs, and catchy sing-songy choruses, and had it blaring on repeat on his iPod for months. Only later did he realize that the record was actually Skrewdriver’s first explicitly racist 1984 release, Hail the New Dawn. Being of Native American descent, he had no idea that he was headbanging to white power rock because he never pays any attention to lyrics or album covers or anything besides the music itself. While it’s easy to dismiss a lot of terrible racist music as being borderline retarded, the biggest controversy surrounding Skrewdriver boils down to the fact that, while they were totally racist, their songs are super catchy. Here are a bunch of songs that are kind of awesome despite their hateful and ignorant lyrics.

Hail the New Dawn — Skrewdriver

Chanting on top of simple punk riffs gets me wet in my swimsuit area. Wait. Are they Sieg Heiling? I know it might be hard to appreciate how charmingly guttural these vocals are through the bigoted lyrics, but may I suggest tricking your brain into forgetting the English language, like when you say the same word over and over until it loses all meaning. Or instead of “Triumphant standards of a race reborn!” imagine they’re singing, “Try ‘em and stand up, erase the porn!”

Love in a Void — Siouxsie and the Banshees

Reverberating female vocals over grinding guitars are another foolproof musical combination. A huge favourite among crowds at their early shows, “Love in a Void” was also a major reason why they had so much trouble landing a record deal. Siouxsie later defended the instigating lyric, “Too many Jews for my liking,” explaining that it was about “too many fat businessman” in the music industry—which is less of a defense, and more of a shovel digging her deeper into an anti-Semitic hole. What ultimately separates her from neo-Nazis who believe that Zionists conspiratorially control the economy is the fact that she is Jewish herself —that is, if self-hatred isn’t considered racist.

Get Back (No Pakistanis version) – The Beatles

Even though the Beatles suck, this song is so sloppy that it rules. Paul McCartney sounds like he got hammered and called his producer at four in the morning, pleading with him to “fuggin’ commeeerr to the studi-[hiccup]-oh, maaaan.” This apparent drunkenness may have contributed to the fact that he opens with, “Don’t all dig all those Pakistanis stealing all the people’s jobs.” As it turns out, these free-loving hippies were just good ol’ boys at heart, ready to spray the garden hose on anyone who dared step foot on their front lawn, advising them to “get back to where they once belonged.”

Kill Whitey — Menace Clan

Rap’s testicles were their plumpest in the ‘90s. Remember when Ol’ Dirty Bastard did that interview on a sidewalk in Brooklyn without any shoes on? ‘Nuff said. My favourite line in this song is, “You wanna know where I’m from? I’m from fuck your hood.” If I directed the music video, it would be of the actor who played Carlton Banks rolling blunts and lifting weights in his trailer behind the set of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

The Day the Niggaz Took Over — Dr. Dre

Snoop Dogg is the Forest Gump of hip hop—not in the borderline autistic way, but in respect to him stumbling into a bazillion movie roles and television appearances through a haze of marijuana smoke, chilling with political figures, getting mad scrilla through entrepreneurship, and coining culturally infectious slogans and mannerisms. If a secret celebrity society exists, I bet he drinks from a pimping gold-studded chalice at their top secret meetings. And like Forest Gump, he usually gets a free pass—including the fact that I don’t mind him telling me that “it's time to rob and mob and break the white man off something lovely. I don’t love them so they can’t love me."

Brown Sugar — Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones have gotten away with a lot of bullshit over the years: decades-long drug addiction, poor parenting, snorting deceased family member’s ashes, and the list goes on. But racism? Whereas James Bond has a license to kill, these guys have a license to do whatever they fucking feel like. Mick Jagger croons about a“gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields” while asking questions like, “Ah brown sugar how come you taste so good? Brown sugar, just like a young girl should.”

Skinhead Boy — Prussian Blue

I like how “oi” and “boy” repeat until my ears get dizzy. Is there anything more cutesy and terrifying simultaneously than a duo of innocent-looking Aryan tweens professing their love for a skinhead boy standing up proud for his race?

88 Rock ‘n’ Roll Band — Landser

Never mind the fact that Landser was the first band to be deemed illegal in Germany. And forget that the singer, Michael Regener, the proud grandson of a former SS officer, was recently released from a three-year prison sentence for inciting hatred. In fact, ignore every single lyric and pretend that these guys aren’t just clueless angry Germans, just enjoy the sweet fist-pumping jams.

Hong Kong—Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

To be fair, Hawkins gets his racist stereotyping out on pretty much everybody in his song I Love Paris, making him an equal-opportunity racist, but here he had me at “bling blang bung bling bing bla blu blub.”