Tuesday, April 9, 2013

"Accidental Racist" by Brad Paisley

As I was downloading the new Brad Paisley album today, I saw one song title that stood out to me.  It was a song called "Accidental Racist."  I had heard that Brad Paisley was collaborating with LL Cool J on his album and as it turns out, this is the song LL Cool J is featured on.  I was intrigued and I listened to it.  Here is a link to the lyrics and the song:

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/bradpaisley/accidentalracist.html



I'm interested to hear what y'all think about this song.  The album was released today and already this song has stirred up a lot of controversy.  Here are a couple articles I stumbled upon:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2013/04/09/brad-paisley-accidental-racist-epic-fail/2067171/

http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/04/09/176675002/brad-paisleys-accidental-racist-and-the-history-of-white-southern-musical-identi

Here is a clip of Brad Paisley discussing the single on the Ellen show:


It seems like this song is relevant to our class and our discussions in a couple of ways and I'd like to know what everyone's thoughts and reactions are.






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2 comments:

  1. UnknownApril 10, 2013 at 9:17 PM

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  2. UnknownApril 10, 2013 at 9:18 PM


    So I'm still not able to find the actual song on youtube, your link didn't go through. Here are the lyrics that I found misleading-

    “So when I see that white cowboy hat/I’m thinkin’ it’s not all good.”
    -I'm not really sure who sees cowboy hats as a racist identifier? I go to the rodeo every summer and I see blacks, whites, and latinos all wearing cowboy hats.


    “If you don’t judge my do-rag/I won’t judge your red flag.”
    -I'm pretty sure if anyone is caught wearing these outdated articles of clothing they are seen as unfashionable, not racist.

    "“The relationship between the Mason-Dixon needs some fixin.’”
    -This forced rhyme was my favorite lyric that Brad also mentioned on Ellen's show but it is so vague that it doesn't hit too hard on what is wrong today with the relationships surrounding the Mason-Dixon.


    “I’d love to buy you a beer, conversate and clear the air.”
    Converse*, sorry to become the grammar Nazi I just had to clear the air.


    I don't believe this song is anything near groundbreaking in the music industry. I think Brad Praisley and LL Cool are a little too late to make these statements over the ignorance in the United States. I believe people today are more aware of the ignorance than they were in the past, but I think people show this "awareness of ignorance" by simply ignoring the occurrence of racist actions.

    The only thing I see big here is a collaboration between a rapper and a country singer, which I have seen before between Tim Mcgraw and Nelly.


    Check out the song by "A Wake" by Macklemore. I'm not really a fan of him but I do think he is on to something.

    http://youtu.be/oDgmC1T3Uu8

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