Stone me... now even Keef and Mick have gone woke!
Brown Sugar axed from shows in row over references to slavery
THE Rolling Stones have dropped Brown Sugar from their set list amid criticism of the song over its references to slavery.
Guitarist Keith Richards admitted the iconic hit had been axed but defended it, insisting the lyrics are a condemnation of the slave trade.
Asked why they have not played it on their current tour, he told the LA Times: ‘You picked up on that, huh? 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... I’m hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.’
The Stones last played Brown Sugar on the final date of their North American tour in August 2019, although singer Mick Jagger has said it could return to the setlist. MailOnline columnist Piers Morgan raged: ‘I’m getting no satisfaction from seeing the Rolling Stones surrender to the woke brigade – when the charts are full of rappers glorifying violent sex, misogyny and guns, why is Brown Sugar the song that’s deemed offensive?’
The 1971 hit, which features references to drug use and a ‘young girl’ being subjected to slavery, rape and beatings, did not feature as the band returned to the stage in the US last month. Jagger, who penned the lyrics, explained: ‘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.’
He admitted in 1995 that he ‘never would write that song now... I would probably censor myself’. Model Marsha Hunt, Jagger’s exgirlfriend and mother of his first child Karis, has claimed she inspired the song, as has backing vocalist Claudia Lennear, another of the singer’s former loves.
Over the years, references in the original lyric to ‘black girl’ were changed to ‘young girl’. But critic Tom Taylor has said the track ‘does not offer one considered thought’ to it subject matter, adding: ‘The atrocity of the slave trade, rape and the unimaginable suffering therein should not be adorned with gyrating, glib lyrics, guitar solos and no redeeming features in the way of discerned appraisal.’
Music producer Ian Brennan wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 2019: ‘The issue today is not that they ever wrote the song. Nor that they have ever sung it. The fault is that they keep singing it.’
The Stones’ current No Filter tour is their first since the death in August of drummer Charlie Watts.