10. The Cure – Did They Inspire People To Hate Arabs?
Many women love dressing in black, and if they grew up in the 80s and 90s, this band was probably the reason why. Their albums were great for bipolar emotions, with happy songs like ‘Friday I’m In Love’ and ‘Just Like Heaven’, mixed in with depressing songs like ‘Fascination Street’. Their first ever single back in 1979 was a song called ‘Killing An Arab’. The title is so controversial that it isn’t even available for purchase right now.
What’s the hidden message here? In the end the song was an excerpt from the novel The Stranger, by Albert Camus, about the problems of Algerians living in France. According to the lead singer: “One of the themes of the song is that everyone’s existence is pretty much the same. Everyone lives, everyone dies, our existences are the same. It’s as far from a racist song as you can write. It seems though that no one can get past the title and that’s incredibly frustrating. The fact is it’s based on a book that’s set in France and deals with the problems of the Algerians, so it was only geographical reasons why it was an Arab and not anyone else.” Nevertheless skinheads did use the song as inspiration to conduct attacks when the song was released.
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