Feeling sprauncy this afternoon I sang most of the Kinks lyric 'Apeman' to herself while she was gardening. She likes songs and so smiled, but then pointed out that it, and by association I, was racist quite frankly.
True enough I suppose. The Kinks were hip white boys singing in cod-Caribbean accents.
Still, the whole thing is good-natured in that sour sixties-hipster manner, so I can't feel very bad about it, coarse old brute that I am. I'm no racist and I doubt that the Kinks were.
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 4 Jul 16 at 20:51
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Why do you see it as racist? Just because of the accents?
Its difficult to see how it could be, it sings of the entire human race I guess. But there's no value judgements distinguishing between races other than man and not-man.
Or am I just missing something?
Last edited by: No FM2R on Mon 4 Jul 16 at 17:44
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But now you've set me off on a nostalgic YouTube journey - there goes the day.
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>> there goes the
>> dayS.
>>
Thank you for the...
Amazing how many Kinks songs were made famous by others.
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I'm an apeman I'm an ape apeman oh I'm an apeman;
I'm a King Kong man I'm a Voodoo man oh I'm an apeman;
The only time that I feel at ease
Is swinging up and down in the coconut trees,
Oh what a life of luxury
To live like an apeman...
Herself thought it a bit racist. Perhaps, but I think it's charming, with that sixties patina.
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But he was talking of the entire human race;
Where do you see a comparison?
Really, if you can see racism in this............. Well, I don't know, but you shouldn't.
I think I'm sophisticated 'cause I'm living my life
Like a good homo sapien
But all around me everybody's multiplying and
They're walking round like flies man
So I'm no better than the animals sitting
In the cages in the zoo
Cause compared to the flowers and the birds and the trees
I am an apeman.
I think I'm so educated and I'm so civilized
I'm a strict vegetarian
But with the over-population and inflation and starvation
And the crazy politicians
I don't feel safe in this world no more,
I don't want to die in a nuclear war.
I want to sail away to a distant shore and make like an apeman.
I'm an apeman, I'm an ape, apeman, oh I'm an apeman
I'm a king kong man, I'm a voodo man, oh I'm an apeman
Cause compared to the sun that sits in the sky,
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FMR, it's white guys singing in cod black accents. So you can see what the pofaced people mean.
Personally I think it's fine. But it makes Herself squirm a bit. Nothing worse than that.
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cod black accents.
I tried searching for it, but no luck. Never heard it before what does it mean?
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>> cod black accents.
>>
>> I tried searching for it, but no luck. Never heard it before what does it
>> mean?
>>
Not real, but intended to look or sound real - often used humorously
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>> cod black accents.
>> I tried searching for it, but no luck. Never heard it before what does it mean?
Oh dear.
Cod = simulated, phoney
Black accents = a range of accents normally associated with people of African extraction
OK?
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>> Cod = simulated, phoney
>>
>>
it was that one that threw me. Cheers, don't worry its just me, I often find people use words on here I've never heard of.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Mon 4 Jul 16 at 19:49
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I flew up from Cape Town to JHB a few years back, with a work colleague, and packed a few CDs in the bag to play in the hire car whilst doing a week's worth of work.
Needless to say, baggage was rifled, and I was left with Never Mind the B*****ks and the Best of the Kinks.
Interesting week.
Now I'm off to listen to The Who.
Loud
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".. and packed a few CDs in the bag to play in the hire car whilst doing a week's worth of work."
Perhaps you were lucky that there were still one or two Des O'Connor fans around...:-)
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Went to a live concert once, Chuck Berry and The Who. Albert Hall, Hammersmith Odeon, can't remember where.
Chuck Berry won the Big Star contest and went on last.
The Who fans shoved up to the front and showered poor old Chuck and his Soho pickup backing group (he was notoriously stingy) with bottles, lighted cigarettes, condoms full of God knows what and other projectiles. I can't remember whether they were driven from the stage or toughed it out. The latter perhaps. Chuck was a rich black man from the deep South after all. A pretty resistant cat under pressure, from long experience.
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I seem to remember that the Who were exceptionally loud.
We must all have been deaf half the time. Who were those cats, 'Moonshine washing line...'?
Pink Floyd, that's the one. They were the Roundhouse house band for a while.
Loud mo'fos, I mean loud, knowImean? You probably don't in this wimpish age. It's a sin nowadays to leave someone's ears singing. Against the regs.
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I'd like to have singing ears.
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Arnold Layne had a strange hobby
Collecting clothes moonshine washing line
They suit him fine
On the wall hung a tall mirror
Distorted view, see through baby blue
He dug it
Oh, Arnold Layne
It's not the same, takes two to know
Two to know, two to know, two to know
Why can't you see?
Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne
Arnold Layne, Arnold Layne
Now he's caught
A nasty sort of person
They gave him time
Doors bang, chain gang he hates it
Oh, Arnold Layne
It's not the same, takes two to know
Two to know, two to know, two to know
=> Why can't you see?
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Isn't Arnold Lane a closet knicker fetishist?
I remember some such interpretation. People were dead innalectual in the sixties when they thought they could get away with it. It was so, so tiresome.
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>>Isn't Arnold Lane a closet knicker fetishist?
Yoos take your pick: songmeanings.com/songs/view/2847/
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>>Another lapse of taste....
More like a momentary lapse of reason!
:-)
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>>Went to a live concert once, Chuck Berry and The Who. Albert Hall, Hammersmith Odeon, can't remember where. >>
Saw Chuck Berry at the Liverpool Empire around 1961 and still have the four LPs I own of his many hits which he readily signed for me. Terrific singer and far better than many of his time.
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>> I'm an apeman I'm an ape apeman oh I'm an apeman;
>>
Tarzan was a white apeman.
I think swinging about in trees is an equal opportunities activity, and applications are welcome from people of any colour, race, religion or orientation.
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All very strange, because Caribbean accents are not necessarily confined to black people. One guy at Uni from Barbados was quite a celebrity, as he spoke, seemingly genuinely, in an accent which threw quite a few. Assumptions are risky!
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>> All very strange, because Caribbean accents are not necessarily confined to black people.
Neither are 'Seth Efrican' accents limited to whites. As I found when an IT technician who'd been unable to sort my problems remotely attended the office.
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>> All very strange, because Caribbean accents are not necessarily confined to black people.
Indeed tony crozier springs to mind.
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>> >> Caribbean accents are not necessarily confined to black people.
Why would they be? All colours in the Caribbean for a very long time.
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Another lapse of taste - No FM2R
