22 December 2006

Arabian Knights

Years ago I was a great enthusiast of "Siouxsie and the Banshees" and collected probably every album they put out (for younger readers, back in those days an "album" was a black plastic disk twelve inches in diameter which was played on a thing called a "phonograph", which worked by.....oh, never mind, let's just say this was when dinosaurs roamed the Earth). Anyway, this particular song, Arabian Knights, suggests what might be called a "raised consciousness" about the nature of the common cultural enemy long before the present conflict had forced itself on most people's attention. For those who have difficulty with Siouxsie's British accent or with the uneven quality of live-performance sound recording of a quarter-century ago, here are the words to the chorus near the end:

I heard a rumor
What have you done to her?
I heard a rumor
What have you done to her?
Veiled behind screens
Kept as your baby machine
While you conquer more orifices
Of boys, goats, and things
Ripped-out sheep's eyes
No forks or knives
Myriad lights
They said I'd be impressed
Arabian knights
At your primitive best

One shudders to imagine what the political-correctness police in present-day Britain would think of this.

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