It's because lyrics are written from the perspective of a moron.
From Wikipedia:
According to Knopfler, he was in New York City and had visited an appliance store. At the back of the store was a wall of televisions which were all tuned to MTV. Knopfler said that standing next to him, watching the TVs, there was a male employee, dressed in a baseball cap, work boots, and a checkered shirt, who was delivering boxes. As they were watching MTV, as Knopfler recalled, the man came out with lines such as, "What are those, Hawaiian noises?... That ain't workin'," etc. Knopfler then requested a pen to write some of these lines down, and eventually put them to music.
Radio be recoiling at 'little faggot' then drop a 'Hawaiian Noises' @1.2x speed with the DJ talking over any intro like it's not the same crime! who speeds up a song!?
Whew, you'd better stay away from "one in a million" by guns n roses then!
Of course, the two songs are very different, but if you have ever only heard the "radio" version of OIAM (which still doesn't get played on radio) and then hear the original, you'll shit yourself.
They're completely opposite in intent and usage. Dire straits are poking fun at an idiot saying the things in the song. Axl Rose was saying what he thought in the worst possible way. Dude is batshit, and a homophobe. Well, was for sure, I guess even someone that much of an asshole could have changed by now.
Kinda sucks because the song itself isn't bad, just really nasty. Like, as a slice of life from a person that's full of anger and hate and wants to run away from his self generated fears, the song is successful. It paints a realistic picture of not only the person that wrote it, but of people that think like that. It's just really hard to listen to because of that accurate slice of hate.
oh shit! never heard this song before. Gotta give credit when credit is due, he managed to offend everyone equally
It's amazing that he was able to make such a controversial song so boring.
This comment is NOT AT ALL intended to excuse anything that Axl has said, sung, or thought. But in the late 80s and early 90s it wasn't just the cultural norm to saw insanely offensive things about gay people, but they were actively demonized in huge swaths of daily life. I can not imagine how it felt being gay, bi, or otherwise queer but I have to imagine it was petrifying. If something happened to you, the cops were unlikely to investigate. Songs, TV, even news papers made fun of and offensive comments about gay people.
The cultural shift that's happened over the past 40 years is pretty incredible. Not saying we don't have further to go, not saying things are good now, just noting where we've come from just in my own lifetime. Axl might still be a POS, and he's absolutely out of his mind. But shit like that was so pervasive.
Absolutely! It wasn't at all unusual, even for other slurs. But gay slurs were outright common. Ffs, even in 91, my high school had a gym class playing "smear the queer" and that was the gym teacher calling it that. It wasn't a secret, it was right out in the open. And that really was about the mildest kind of bullshit gay people had to deal with.
My best friend in high school was/is gay (still my best friend, still gay lol). He was mean as a snake, so nobody was dumb enough to directly attack him, but it was a real fear that it could happen, or that it could end up a planned attack by enough people when he was alone that his willingness to fuck people up wasn't a deterrent.
By about 93, I had been going to the closer gay bars with him, and ended up bouncing at a few when I moved to the city for a while. It could get ugly fast at those places. Here in the south, the acceptance of gay folks still isn't where it should be, but back then,, we would have assholes showing up specifically to beat gay people. I've got a few scars from trying to keep our patrons safe and alive. All of us at the big drag club ended up with scars.
The sheer ease with which some of those sociopaths would drive into the city specifically to try and hurt someone they didn't even know was disgusting. The police response was utter bullshit. A couple of times, people damn near died while we tried to keep things under control because the cops didn't care. At least the ambulance people were fast, those folks were incredible, and always got there before the cops, despite being located farther away.
It's one of the reasons I can't bring myself to hate Axl. I'm amazed I didn't end up thinking that way too, if I'm being honest. My family were mostly cool with gaydom (that's an actual thing my aunt said once), but they still looked at it with pity and condescension. "Those poor people". I have to laugh at it a little or it would make me sad.
My understanding was both Mark Knophler and Axl Rose were doing the same thing, writing a song from a dumbass bigots perspective, it's just that people hate Axl and automatically ascribe the worst motives (despite a literal black man playing guitar on that GNR track).
Ehhh, Axl has gone on record about when and why he wrote the song, and why he used the words he used. He outright said that he didn't like gay people unless it was lesbians he could watch because that's his fetish. He did say that he was only using the slurs to point at part of the groups, but the way he said it was still both racist and homophobic.
Slash has said on the record that he objected to the song, and wished it hadn't been made, but that (at the time) the band didn't interfere with each other creatively. He also didn't play much on the track, btw. Afaik, Axl wrote all the acoustic guitar on it, because he's stated on the record that he sucked at the guitar and was essentially just strumming two strings. I've never seen any breakdown of who played what on the recording though, so I can't say who is playing on the track.
However, Slash has also said that while he didn't like the song, he wasn't pissed at Axl because of it. But you can't use that as a guideline for the song being acceptable or not because a shit ton of other musicians were quite vocal in their objections at the time (including the band that toured with them during that era, Living Color).
It isn't anyone ascribing anything to him (axl), it's what he himself has said in interviews, and on stage.
In later interviews he's outright said that he as a person was a rage junkie (abridged version lol, he did a lot of interviews), and absolutely had hatred for gay people as a whole. He's given multiple reasons for that, and none of those are self-contradictory. However, none of them excuse his behavior towards gay people.
As far as other things he's said about his racial beliefs, I don't know if it's fair to say he's full on racist, as in hating black people or any given ethnic group. What is fair to say is that his excuses for use the n slur in the song amount to stereotyping and was certainly intended to attack at least the black people he was stereotyping.
Now, I'm pulling this from having been a fan of the band since they broke into national awareness, and all the stuff I read and heard along the way. But, the interviews are usually available online. I know the Rolling Stone magazine stuff is. There's still concert ,footage of him from the era ranting about being accused of bigotry, though that was pretty much just him saying "fuck you" to anyone that didn't like him.
Very specifically, Axl has said that he wrote it from his own perspective, talking about his experiences and his anger. The "one in a million" sections of the song are him repeating something said to him in real life because he was a raging asshole (again, he's said that on record).
So, the worst motives being ascribed to him aren't ONLY because he isn't well liked. Hell, I've still got the vinyl of Lies, and have the rest of the pre-breakup albums on at least CD, if not multiple formats. I don't hate Axl, much less the band.
Knopfler has also been open about how his song was written, and it's intent. It was, just as you said, holding up the kind of speech and behavior in the song to ridicule. That's been his public stance on the song from the beginning, and it has never changed afaik. The lyrics support that stance. He's told the story of writing down many of the lines from the song after hearing them in person by another person. The lyrics are saying that the musicians on stage and screen are the yo-yos playing Hawaiian music, so the f slur in the song would be directed at Knopfler himself even if he was writing from his own perspective.
I know, that's a lot of words for a decades old song lol. But anyone that was a fan of the band back then had to negotiate the matter. My best friend still hates Axl because of the song. The debate about exactly how bad the lyrics are was a nearly daily thing for a few weeks after the EP came out. I never hated Axl, I don't waste my hate on strangers very often (and never on strangers that can't really do anything with whatever bullshit they spew). But I get why people do.
Woosh
This is the best reaction I've seen to this tired discussion.
😀 Listening to that really catchy song from America when you're not a native speaker
😧 Once you learn a bit of English and realize they're singing about doing a school shooting
It's okay, native speakers only caught that one because it's in the chorus. Some people still think "Born In The USA" is a patriotic anthem. David Bowie called it the most anti-American song he'd ever heard. Davie Bowie co-wrote "I'm Afraid Of Americans."
Born down in a dead man's town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground End up like a dog that's been beat too much 'Til you spend half your life just to cover it up, now
Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A., now
Got in a little hometown jam So they put a rifle in my hands Send me off to a foreign land To go and kill the yellow man
Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A.
Come back home to the refinery Hiring man said, "Son, if it was up to me" Went down to see my V.A. man He said, "Son, don't you understand, now?"
I had a brother at Khe Sanh Fighting off all the Viet Cong They're still there, he's all gone He had a woman he loved in Saigon I got a picture of him in her arms, now
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary Out by the gas fires of the refinery I'm ten years burning down the road Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
Born in the U.S.A. I was born in the U.S.A., now Born in the U.S.A. I'm a long gone daddy in the U.S.A., now
Born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. Born in the U.S.A. I'm a cool rocking daddy in the U.S.A., now
Isn't he talking about people talking about him in the cut verse? Referring to himself? He's not calling anyone a bundle of sticks, he's repeating what he's been called
About some other guy on MTV, according to Wikipedia
As someone not affected by this, I am curious. Are gay people offended by this song? My guess was no because the lyrics are making fun of the people who called them that, but now I am uncertain.
It's literally impossible to be offended when the guitar is that good. You wanna know what happens to Money for Nothin when your sound system gets twice as good? it doubles in quality. This rule applies for any sound system ever invented.
I think the fact that the radio edit cuts out that verse answers your question.
By that logic black people cringe in pain listening to every other hip hop release for including that word. Which I also doubt.
Point being, radio stations censoring themselves preemptively because someone, somewhere, might take offense isn’t a good indicator of how the affected people actually feel about it.
Yeah buddy, that's his own hair.
Worst of all, radio edits of "Sultans of Swing" that cut the guitar solo...
