RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #172 (10/22/2021): Brown Sugar
(first aired on Dave’s Gone By Oct. 23, 2021. on youtube: https://youtu.be/p72oWhq-X68)
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for mid-October 2021.
It has been a sad and surreal year for fans of a little music group called The Rolling Stones. You may have heard of them. They began as a blues-rock band in the mid-60s and then, for several years, made the most compelling rock and roll in the history of ever. Then Mick Taylor quit and they vacillated between still kinda-great and name one decent album in the last 40 years.
But through it all, they were the Stones — the swagger, the sound, the mix of energy and grit — and not the kind you get from a Larabar. When Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, and — oh, okay, we’ll include Ronnie Wood — when they locked in together, you knew they were still the greatest band in the world who weren’t the Beatles.
And then this August, cancer took Charlie. We all felt like we’d been kick-drummed in the stomach. But Ronnie, Mick, and Keef had already decided the show must go on. They survived Brian Jones doing the backstroke, they endured when Bill Wyman quit to concentrate on divorcing his 10-year-old wife. Jagger’s open-heart surgery? Richards’ urban-legend bloodstream? Bumps in the road; the Stones roll on, touring as we speak.
So why am I complaining? Well, because I’m Jewish. But also because Mick and Keith recently made a decision about one of their classic songs: “Brown Sugar.” What is “Brown Sugar” about? Nobody knows. Mick Jagger doesn’t know, and he wrote it. He just threw some ideas on paper about white men shtupping the hell out of black women — not an uncommon theme for the guy who wrote “Sweet Black Angel” and “Some Girls.” But because of these woke times, and because the lyrics reference slavery in a jaw-droppingly tasteless way, “Brown Sugar” is now officially retired from the Stones catalogue.
Since its 1971 debut on Sticky Fingers, “Brown Sugar” has been a radio staple and concert favorite. Fans, black and white, boogied to it, and, guess what? They did not spontaneously combust or weep indignantly at the lyrics. Granted, it’s impossible to understand the lyrics burbling out of Mick Jagger: “Old boy stagecoach hypocotyl beans” – what? But even if you have the lyric sheet, you don’t hear the song and think, “Ooh, this makes me want to take a riding crop to Harriet Tubman.” Not to mention, the narrator of “Brown Sugar” is complimenting black women on their pleasant vaginal flavor. Hey, I’ve eaten some Jewish women, and it’s like having an anchovy throw up on your teeth.
No question, “Brown Sugar” is all kinds of politically incorrect, but so are a million rap numbers that do a lot worse things to black women than tasting them. Still, what scares me about the decision by Jagger and Richards — who, as authors and performers, have every right to do as they please with their work — what scares me is precedent. If you self-censor one particularly egregious tune, how long before other Stones masterpieces fall under the same scrutiny and become cancel-culture casualties?
Feminists give “Under My Thumb” the middle finger, your local PTA is sure to ban “Little T&A,” and born-again Christians raise hell against “Sympathy for the Devil.” But sometimes the offense is more subtle. What if Al Sharpton comes out against “Paint it Black” for its negativity about that color? What if “19th Nervous Breakdown” starts giving mentally ill people their 20th? What if third-grade English teachers — already despairing over teaching this generation anything that isn’t a digital game — what if they hear “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and get pushed over the edge by the double negative? (So he can get satisfaction?) What if animal-rights activists protest “Beast of Burden” and transgender woman feel bad about “Rocks Off”? What if the makers of tampons and maxipads lobby to ban “Let it Bleed?” What if the makers of Imodium want to censor “Let it Loose?” What if deaf people say “no” to “Can’t You Hear Me Knocking,” blind people have a problem with “Far Away Eyes,” and hemophiliacs cringe at “Too Much Blood”? What if Catholics try to block “No Expectations” because that conflicts with their idea of the afterlife, or if Rabbis urge congregants to delete the song “Happy” because they know it’s something Jews will never be?
Instead of cancel, cancel, cancel, we need context, context, context. Whether it’s Birth of a Nation, a Statue of Thomas Jefferson, Mickey Rooney in yellowface, or Wagner at the Israel Philharmonic — explain it, debate it, keep it. At some point, we have to tell all the woke whiners, “You can’t always get what you want. Go ahead and vent at what vexes you. Give a speech before the movie, put a sign near the statue, have the deejay say, `This next song is `Brown Sugar.’ It might be about slavery, or drugs, or dessert. Either way, don’t try this at home.”
Asked about “Brown Sugar,” Jagger once said, “I would never write that now; I’d probably censor myself. I can’t just write raw like that.” That was in 1995. And Jagger had long stopped writing raw like that. You tell me if that’s a good thing.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York. Gimme Seltzer!
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