Should The Cure remove "Killing An Arab" from their live setlist?

Started by dsanchez, April 22, 2019, 16:13:12

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chemicaloverload

This a shitemare and a total f*cking buzz kill.

A full day later and we're swinging back to the same f*cking argument
Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves

dsanchez

@tanya, you're going in circles here. you won't convinced me that the song should be removed, and I won't convince you that the song should not be removed. But something that you should do urgently(!) is to read Camus's book from start to end. Putting the song in its context will probably make you see it in a different way.
2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

MeltingMan

Quote from: Ulrich on April 23, 2019, 16:55:28
My guess: the reason why they play it is that they still like the song and enjoy to perform it on stage.

...and that's perfectly fine. The decision back then was right. See the quote below.

Quote from: dsanchezSo the band finally included this song in the London shows.
Definitely a better closing than Why Can't I Be You!

:smth023
En cette nation [Russie] qui n'a pas eu de théoriciens et de démagogues,
les pires ferments de destruction ont apparu. (J. Péladan)

Ulrich

Quote from: tanyasmith on April 23, 2019, 23:22:52
I can get past the title and appreciate the song for its darkness and mystery, for its weight and complexity, but is it going to hurt anybody that he keeps singing it? Do you really think most people are going to spend the time to educate themselves on it and get past the title if the title has alienated them? 

I don't know how many people will do that. Do you? Have you met any Cure fan who hasn't? What were the reactions to your tweet?
For how many years have they performed this song? How long is it going to take until "people" are going to "get it"?

I myself was (kinda) surprised when the band "resurrected" some old tunes (incl. KaA) during the '96 tour, because in the previous years with the shows I'd seen ('92-'95) the encores mostly consisted of songs like "A Forest", "Why can't I be you", "Close to me" etc.!

(Btw, with the next shows coming up celebrating the anniversary of "Disintegration", there is a good chance this first single will not be in the setlist!!!)  :)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

chemicaloverload

Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves

chemicaloverload

It makes for some interesting reading, especially the Trump impeachment part and quite frankly, I can't tell the difference between the two of you, holding on to non issues to monopolise peoples time to advance a warped agenda.
Life is only a dream and we are the imagination of ourselves

word_on_a_wing

"Where the flesh meets the spirit world,
Where the traffic is thin..."

Ulrich

The holy city breathed like a dying man...

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: tanyasmith on April 25, 2019, 00:02:11My friends, I rest my case:

https://www.newstatesman.com/2018/07/killing-arab-the-cure-single-hyde-park

This is a very good and nuanced discussion; however I disagree that "Killing Another" is "scarcely better" than the frankly goofy "Kissing an Arab" and "Killing an Ahab". If you want to *adapt* Camus for today's world, "Killing an Other" (sic) carries the point about a nihilism so numbing that all other human beings become Others to you and you're detached from all human emotion to the point where you don't feel anything pulling the trigger... And imho it does so better than "Killing an Arab", which is a more literal adaptation of the novel and Meursault's inner monologue and thus a reflection of the protagonist's racism. 

Ulrich

Now, Robert himself spoke about it and I think with that all should be said.

QuoteYou closed out the Hyde Park concert with "Killing an Arab." Even though it's based on Camus' The Stranger, that song has faced a lot of controversy over the years. How do you feel about it now?

RS: I went through a period when I was singing, "Killing another." There are two periods where I was going to reintroduce it into the set, and both times it's become a focal point. I'm still getting questions about it. I just wanted to reclaim it. I thought if I can't do it now with the 40th anniversary of it, that's it. What am I going to do, pretend I never wrote it? I've reached an age where I think if people misunderstand it and don't bother to try and understand what the song is about, then tough shit, really. I've given up explaining. Go read Albert Camus. I mean, go read Albert Camus anyway, because he wrote some great books. It's been misappropriated, and I thought I should take it back. In modern parlance, I should own that song again. The others will think, "Oh, come on, because it's going to be a talking point."

"Killing an Arab" is a song about many things, but essentially, it's about the value of human life and the value that other people give to their own life and to others. It's a complex subject distilled very badly into a three-minute pop song. I could probably write a better one now, but I don't think it would have the same authenticity.
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/cure-band-robert-smith-interview-40-live-893005/
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

OMG, honestly.  I 100% agree with @Ulrich and with Robert Smith on this topic.  We can't always be catering to the misconceptions of the lowest common denominator - but we can deal with Neonazis etc at venues by having security remove them when they cause trouble.  It is the people causing trouble who need to be dealt with, not the writers of songs that are misinterpreted by idiots, nor should perfectly acceptable material be censored (by not performing it because of idiots).  I think it's the height of irony that a song that deals with the value of human life is misinterpreted by people with three brain cells who aren't listening to the lyrics, purely based on a title, Killing An Arab, which is being read by these idiots as an instruction to go kill people of a certain ethnic background - simply because that fits their own proclivities.  This is not in any way the fault of the song, and 100% the fault of the idiots, so repercussions need to happen for them when they behave badly, not for the song.

But I suppose in America, there is now a mindset that the rest of society is somehow supposed to bend over backwards for idiots, as was seen a while back when a woman successfully sued a microwave manufacturer because she was stupid enough to microwave her own chihuahua, which, needless to say, died in the process.  Why did she do that?  To blow-dry it after a bath.  :1f629:   It is she who should have been fined, not the manufacturer of the device - who was deemed to have failed the general public by not including in the instructions that you shouldn't microwave your dog.   :1f632:   So, based on that type of 'thinking', nobody is now required to educate themselves before using new technology, or to use commonsense when living everyday life, or to understand and live by the idea of personal responsibility - instead, idiots can always sue someone else for their predictable mishaps - such as tripping over tree roots in the park because they're not looking where they are going - and this has now been actioned successfully both in America and Australia.  Burglars in both countries can now sue house owners if they hurt themselves gaining illegal entry to plunder those houses - and have done exactly that, on numerous occasions.  I think it is really important that thoughtful citizens stand up and oppose this sort of rubbish, instead of allowing themselves to be carried along by this societal insanity.

It's also pretty rich to ask Robert Smith to make a statement about his views on other ethnic groups - that's as insulting as the situation we had here in Australia after 9/11, when mainstream society started calling upon ordinary Muslims to make statements about extremist Muslim terrorists, and felt they weren't making their views clear enough and therefore saw that (and very wrongly) as the endorsement of extremism and terrorism by these ordinary citizens.  Sociopaths exist in any ethnic group.  Their crimes are their responsibility, not the responsibility of other people who happen to look like them.

The answer to this problem isn't to hassle people who write perfectly acceptable songs, or who come from the same ethnic group as the sociopath who made news today, or who don't have safety glass in all their windows to prevent burglars from cutting themselves when gaining illegal entry, or technology manufacturers who don't say, "Please don't insert this blender stick into bodily orifices because that can cause horrific injuries," etc etc etc.  Part of the answer is self-education, and public education - and another is to create the expectation as a community that people are responsible for their personal actions and for educating themselves (and yeah, reading Camus is totally consistent with that) - and another part is repercussions for hate crimes and bad behaviour, so that the rest of society doesn't have to end up cowering in the face of idiots and sociopaths.  Feel free to expand that list of real solutions, which aren't about putting our heads collectively in the sand.
SueC is time travelling

BiscuityBoyle

Quote from: tanyasmith on October 19, 2019, 18:53:31I'm glad Robert has addressed it recently, but I don't understand why he won't acknowledge that there is a lot of hatred toward Muslims and racism toward Arab people in general, especially in America, where I live and Western Europe where immigrants are facing resistance from a lot of the people and the government. When they played the song in Mexico recently it seemed like a good place to play it because the issues in Mexico right now are not related to hate against Muslims and Arabs, but to drug cartels and poverty. Here in America people are still sore about 9/11 and many people don't know the difference between Muslim, terrorist, and Arab, so there's this general racism from uneducated people against anybody who looks like they're from the Middle East. I don't know how Robert's recent statement in Rolling Stone puts to rest singing a song about Killing an Arab...? I understand his loyalty to the song and that he doesn't want to reject something that he feels is part of himself, as he wrote it and it helped put The Cure on the map, but who besides intellectual Cure fans are going to read Albert Camus to understand the deeper meaning of the song? It's rumored that Camus himself was a racist...People at Cure shows don't just stand still in intellectual wonder when The Cure performs the song, but drunk, riled up audience members use it as a reason to start mosh pits. It's easy for Robert Smith to stand on stage and perform the song as an art piece, as a complicated, humanist statement because he doesn't have to deal with getting smashed, squeezed, or elbowed. Out of respect to the feebler Cure fans, can't he just save the song for special occasions? The truth is I'd like to know how he personally feels about Arab people.


I genuinely don't know where to begin with this one. It has to be the most American thing I've ever read. Extremely literal-minded, suspicious of the least degree of complexity, tackling the issue strictly on the level of headlines and talking points, seeking to censor in the name of shallow "wokeness" and yet cluelessly accepting a great deal of right-wing framing.

My favorite has to be the following glorious non-sequitur: "It's rumored that Camus himself was a racist..." Just a lil something you've heard on the grapevine...

QuoteThe truth is I'd like to know how he personally feels about Arab people.

Robert, the life-long left-winger and anti-racist, owes an explanation to someone who cannot be bothered to read anything. That's the gist of your message. Truly, I understand why you believe he owes something to the "feebler" Cure fans, but he doesn't.


dsanchez

Quote from: tanyasmith on October 20, 2019, 02:40:36but when singing a song that mentions the killing of a member of a disenfranchised group of people without being clear that the song is not about hating that disenfranchised member of society

The Cure has been very clear about this topic long time ago. If the below notice (inserted in every 'Standing On A Beach' album) is not clear, then I don't know what is.

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

Ulrich

Yesterday I had the strong urge to close this topic, to end it with Robert's quote... IF ONLY I'd listened to this inner voice...  :1f62b:

Now I go online in the morning to read the same nonsense which started this topic. Whatever happened to "I REST MY CASE", tanya?  :1f633:

What's wrong with you? We have a great new interview with lots of stuff to comment. There is a new dvd/blu out with Cure music. Should be lots of topics to talk about, but you are discussing  the same old thing here?  :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Any more lines in the same direction as above I will view as "dangerously close to trolling". :unamused:

In my opinion, everything has been said long ago; Robert's explanation of the song above would've made a great closing note.
The holy city breathed like a dying man...