Rolling Stones go sour on Brown Sugar
Band drops song from US tour amid claims the ‘raw’ lyrics are offensive towards black women
IT WAS part of the soundtrack to the 1970s – a song by a band who never seemed likely to embrace political correctness.
But half a century later the Rolling Stones are censoring themselves, removing Brown Sugar from their set list amid concerns over references to slavery, rape, and “black girls”.
The band have not performed the song since a gig in Miami in August 2019 amid claims that it embodies “19th-century evil” and is “stunningly offensive to black women”.
“You picked up on that, huh?” guitarist Keith Richards, 77, said when asked by an interviewer about the song’s absence from recent US concerts.
He added: “I don’t know. I’m trying to figure out with the sisters quite where the beef is. Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery? But they’re trying to bury it. At the moment I don’t want to get into conflicts with all of this s---.
“But I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.”
Mick Jagger, 78, in the same interview with the Los Angeles Times, was more circumspect about the reason for ditching the song.
He said: “We’ve played Brown Sugar every night since 1970, so sometimes you think, we’ll take that one out for now and see how it goes. We might put it back in.”
Jagger has previously admitted that he would not write it now. He penned it more than 50 years ago in just 45 minutes and over a decade ago he called it “all the nasty subjects in one go”. “I would probably censor myself [now],” he said. “I’d think, ‘Oh God, I can’t. I’ve got to stop. I can’t just write raw like that’.” The first verse includes the lyrics: “Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields/sold in the market down in New Orleans /Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing alright/hear him whip the women just around midnight.”
The Rolling Stones had changed some of the words in recent years, including taking out the reference to whipping, and changing a use of “black girl” to “young girl”. But there were growing complaints about the song in America. In 2019, shortly before they played it for what might be the last time, music producer Ian Brennan condemned its “repulsive stereotypes”.
Writing in the Chicago Tribune he said: “Imagine everyone in a sold-out stadium singing along joyfully to a tune glorifying slavery, rape, torture and paedophilia, with the entire chorus led by a hyper-gesticulating 75-year-old white male, centimillionaire. It sounds like something out of a dystopian horror film or a tale of 19th-century-era evil. Sadly, this spectacle is coming to a major city near you.”
Many Rolling Stones fans expressed outrage on social media over the decision to drop the song. One complained the band had fallen victim to “cancel culture” and added: “These were once classed as ‘Rebels’.” Another said: “Wokedom is destroying Western civilisation.” Brown Sugar was released in 1971 as part of the Sticky Fingers album. Jagger was believed to have been inspired by his former lover, the black American actress and singer Marsha Hunt, the mother of his daughter Karis.
In a later autobiography Ms Hunt said the song was about her, but added: “It doesn’t make me feel any way at all.”
Brown Sugar is not the first song the band have stopped playing. They have not performed Star Star, a raunchy ode to groupies, since 2003.