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Wow, ray Stevens is a piece of shit
13 years ago
I'm a little late to the party on this one but...holy shit
Do you guys remember Ray Stevens? He's that guy that used to do parody songs like "The Streak" and "Gitarzan" and "Ahab the Arab." I used to hear his stuff pretty frequently on Dr. Demento as a kid. I was never a huge fan because his humor always seemed kind of blunt, going after cheap targets that everyone can agree on like "those darn politicians" and "taxes." And Stevens' lyrics were never all that clever, something that became especially apparent when you had him on the same show as Tom Lehrer and Weird Al, but they were generally pretty innocuous* and the tunes were catchy in a folksy hayseed way.
*I mean, yeah, "Ahab the Arab" has always been a problematic song, but I kind give it a pass it because it's a beast of its time and it's just kind of goofy rather than mean-spirited or anything.
So apparently, in the 15 years since I last bothered to think about him, he's gone crazy. Or maybe he was always crazy and he didn't show it? His older songs always did vaguely smack of dumbass pandering but he must have held back to avoid alienating too much of his audience. Anyway, like Victoria Jackson and Gallagher, he's recently discovered that he can elbow his way back into the limelight by full out embracing lunatic right politics and repackaging himself as the straight-talkin' darling of the tea party contingent. The results are pretty amazing; his new songs are full of wonky rants about "Obamacare", death panels, and illegal immigration. They're really...not fun songs. He also dances around wearing a tri-corner hat and makes cracks about how Obama is going to rename the USA the USSA -- the UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA. I'm not sure if this is a desperate bid for relevancy or if he's genuninely an idiot, but I kind of suspect the latter.
The lyrics in "We the People" -- the one about death panels -- almost seem like a parody:
We heard from Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh
what you got in mind for Grandma,
And we've heard this O'Reilly fellow on Fox,
We're just like Joe the plumber
and when we crunch the numbers
we'll vote you out at the ballot box!
More obnoxious, he does that thing where he bleeps out the word "ass" with a fart noise because, apparently, we're children who will cry if we hear a bad word. I hate that sort of shit.
"Come to the USA" contains hilariously bizarre lines about how the US government loves giving taxpayer money to illegal immigrants to start brothels. In the music video, he predictably appears wearing a sombrero. He also appears wearing a Hawaiian shirt and smoking a cigar. I think he's supposed to look like a Cuban refugee, but I can't be sure. Actually, a lot of his new songs seem to really hate Mexicans, even ones not explicitly about immigration like "Juanita and the Kids," where he just sings about scamming tax refunds in a Mexican accent. It's kind of gross. "God Save Arizona" compares illegal immigration in Arizona to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and also calls fascist piece of shit Joe Arpaio "a patriot."
Anyway, once I figured out that he was trying to appeal not just to the tea party sorts, I expected that sort of thing. Just par for the course, really. What really made my jaw drop was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqLa-hLqcnQ
[EDIT: I see on Wikipedia that the 2005 song was originally written by someone called Chuck Redden and Stevens just covered it. The Redden version contains "much more pointed accusations and assertions", so now I'm not exactly sure which version this is and I don't know what the differences between the two are. If anyone can find a confirmed version of Stevens' song, I would be most grateful. I haven't had any luck yet!]
You guys really need to hear this. Because holy shit. The basic gist is that the people of New Orleans are a bunch of whiners because they expected to not be left to die. Also, they shit in the streets. And also they're a bunch of lazy bums with no jobs! Also very heavily implied that they are lazy, whiny looters because they are black. Just astounding.
Really, I had no idea what a shithead Ray Stevens was. Am I just out of the loop here?
Do you guys remember Ray Stevens? He's that guy that used to do parody songs like "The Streak" and "Gitarzan" and "Ahab the Arab." I used to hear his stuff pretty frequently on Dr. Demento as a kid. I was never a huge fan because his humor always seemed kind of blunt, going after cheap targets that everyone can agree on like "those darn politicians" and "taxes." And Stevens' lyrics were never all that clever, something that became especially apparent when you had him on the same show as Tom Lehrer and Weird Al, but they were generally pretty innocuous* and the tunes were catchy in a folksy hayseed way.
*I mean, yeah, "Ahab the Arab" has always been a problematic song, but I kind give it a pass it because it's a beast of its time and it's just kind of goofy rather than mean-spirited or anything.
So apparently, in the 15 years since I last bothered to think about him, he's gone crazy. Or maybe he was always crazy and he didn't show it? His older songs always did vaguely smack of dumbass pandering but he must have held back to avoid alienating too much of his audience. Anyway, like Victoria Jackson and Gallagher, he's recently discovered that he can elbow his way back into the limelight by full out embracing lunatic right politics and repackaging himself as the straight-talkin' darling of the tea party contingent. The results are pretty amazing; his new songs are full of wonky rants about "Obamacare", death panels, and illegal immigration. They're really...not fun songs. He also dances around wearing a tri-corner hat and makes cracks about how Obama is going to rename the USA the USSA -- the UNITED SOCIALIST STATES OF AMERICA. I'm not sure if this is a desperate bid for relevancy or if he's genuninely an idiot, but I kind of suspect the latter.
The lyrics in "We the People" -- the one about death panels -- almost seem like a parody:
We heard from Hannity, Beck and Limbaugh
what you got in mind for Grandma,
And we've heard this O'Reilly fellow on Fox,
We're just like Joe the plumber
and when we crunch the numbers
we'll vote you out at the ballot box!
More obnoxious, he does that thing where he bleeps out the word "ass" with a fart noise because, apparently, we're children who will cry if we hear a bad word. I hate that sort of shit.
"Come to the USA" contains hilariously bizarre lines about how the US government loves giving taxpayer money to illegal immigrants to start brothels. In the music video, he predictably appears wearing a sombrero. He also appears wearing a Hawaiian shirt and smoking a cigar. I think he's supposed to look like a Cuban refugee, but I can't be sure. Actually, a lot of his new songs seem to really hate Mexicans, even ones not explicitly about immigration like "Juanita and the Kids," where he just sings about scamming tax refunds in a Mexican accent. It's kind of gross. "God Save Arizona" compares illegal immigration in Arizona to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and also calls fascist piece of shit Joe Arpaio "a patriot."
Anyway, once I figured out that he was trying to appeal not just to the tea party sorts, I expected that sort of thing. Just par for the course, really. What really made my jaw drop was this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqLa-hLqcnQ
[EDIT: I see on Wikipedia that the 2005 song was originally written by someone called Chuck Redden and Stevens just covered it. The Redden version contains "much more pointed accusations and assertions", so now I'm not exactly sure which version this is and I don't know what the differences between the two are. If anyone can find a confirmed version of Stevens' song, I would be most grateful. I haven't had any luck yet!]
You guys really need to hear this. Because holy shit. The basic gist is that the people of New Orleans are a bunch of whiners because they expected to not be left to die. Also, they shit in the streets. And also they're a bunch of lazy bums with no jobs! Also very heavily implied that they are lazy, whiny looters because they are black. Just astounding.
Really, I had no idea what a shithead Ray Stevens was. Am I just out of the loop here?
man, its shit like this that makes folk who hold "fuck your freedom of speech" signs much more valid
When I said that, I meant that "freedom of speech" is these days less used as something that could be possibly be attacked judiciously, but more as something as it being "free of criticism" (As in someone giving you crap for stating so). It got so corrupted as a concept that people equal the criticism ("Ray Stevens is a crpyto racist piece of shit") to an actual leglislative measure ("I want to see him arrested for being a crypto racist dickbat"). And its this bizarre buzzword that means jack shit on normal contexts that goes into circular arguments of "That's fucked up but I'm allowed because of freedom of speech WELL ME GIVING YOU SHIT IS ALSO COVERED BY FREEDOM OF SPEECH well so does my counterargument...". You have the freedom of speech! Much like I have the freedom to relief my bowels on someone's carpet.
Of course you are allowed to say Ray Stevens is a POS, and say so all day long, as it should be. What do you mean that freedom of speech could "possibly be attacked judiciously."? What is there to criticize about freedom of speech? Sure, criticize what people say, take umbrage with their reasoning or lack thereof, but don't criticize the fact that they were allowed to say it in the first place.
If I misunderstood you, it's because saying "fuck your freedom of speech" sounds like, "You shouldn't have the freedom to say that," not, "fuck you for saying that."
Otherwise, I agree with you that Ray Stevens has an absolute right to say whatever he wants and any sort of official/government censorship on him would be way more offensive than anything he could say.
If I said anything otherwise, it's because I was OFF MY NUT WITH RAGE last night and spoke out of anger. So I will retract that and admit my own fault.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Even_S.....ns_%28album%29
(let's just say my sense of humor is incredibly broad),
but this newer stuff he's done serves only to make me sad.
and not just because I am in utter disagreement with his political stances.
it's like he's not even really trying any more.
In any event, I prefer his earlier works such as the "Mississippi Squirrel Revival" (and it's even furry!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16fG1sDagU
You ever notice that the king of musical satire, Weird Al Yankovic, is rarely overtly political? Frankly, I'd prefer it to stay that way. (His output does seem to have taken a dip in quality along with the rest of pop music, though.)
The problem here isn't freedom of speech. The problem is complete and utter ignorance and catering towards those of a similar mindset.
But people in New Orleans really are lazy, looting, shit-in-the-streets trash. I've witnessed it. Most of the good workers in NO are from Metaire.
The music. So fucking dull. Why do all these insane, completely off the wall "comedic" political songs have such droning monotonous melodies? I don't think there was more than one bar of music in that entire thing.
Jesus Christ.
Normally, its sung with more than two notes though and though its about fighting the British, its much less insulting.
This was always the better parody of that song I thought: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0mGFjAySTw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon_XIV
I guess all we can really do is hope that time and education will improve things.
I wonder what he would offer as a solution to the supposed problem.
He's still alive, isn't he? I think he teaches math at UC Santa Cruz.
(Don't mind me, just borked some coding. Cold fingers + tiny keyboard = wtf was that)
I mean, I am in the market for a prostitute.
Too late, it already is and has been for a long, long time. B)
Although now I see on Wikipedia that the 2005 song was originally written by someone called Chuck Redden and Stevens just covered it. The Redden version contains "much more pointed accusations and assertions", so now I'm not exactly sure what the differences are.
Also confusing is that apparently "The New Battle of New Orleans" is an "obscure" release from 2005, but it looks like Stevens ALSO recorded a straight cover of the Johnny Horton song on his 2007 album "New Orleans Moon," so whenever I try to confirm that the version of "The New Battle of New Orleans" that I heard is from Stevens I just get the 2007 version.
But yeah, now that I look into it further, I can't say with 100% certainty that the version I heard was Stevens and I don't really know what he changed.