Brown Sugar by Rolling Stones (1971)

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Brown Sugar Cover

Brown Sugar is a song released on 16 April 1971 by the Rolling Stones from their album Sticky Fingers (1971). Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song at number number 495 from 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and at number five on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time. [1]

The hard rock/rock&roll song was written by Keith Richards & Mick Jagger [2]

Controversy

Jagger wrote the riff to the song, which was inspired by soul singer Claudia Lennear while filming Ned Kelly in Australia and recorded in 1969 in Muscle Shoals studios. In his book Life, Keef commented on Jagger’s lyrics writing process:

"They started running down Brown Sugar the first night, but they didn’t get a take. I watched Mick write the lyrics. It took him maybe forty-five minutes; it was disgusting. He wrote it down as fast as he could move his hand. I’d never seen anything like it. He had one of those yellow legal pads, and he’d write a verse a page, just write a verse and then turn the page, and when he had three pages filled, they started to cut it. It was amazing!"

The most straightforward to interpret this song is a meditation on white male on black female sex and how power has influenced it, according to Genius. [3]

Also described by rock critic, Robert Christgau, the lyrics have often been a point of interest and controversy as "a rocker so compelling that it discourages exegesis." Brown Sugar’s scandalous lyrics essentially a mixing of taboo subjects including slavery, rape, interracial sex, cunnilingus, sadomasochism, lost virginity and heroin. [4]

On one source, it is known that the song was originally titled "Black Pussy". The song is sexist, gross, and offensive toward black women as shown in some lyrics:

Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields

Sold in the market down in New Orleans

Scarred old slaver knows he’s doing alright

Hear him whip the women just around midnight

Until Jagger changes them during the shows, whilst it is not the first time that the band censored the song. The lyrics may go too far as it is more cornered the black woman in a way, as in:

Brown Sugar, how come you taste so good?

Ah, got me feelin’ now for brown sugar, just like a black girl should. [5]

In 1995, Jagger admitted that he went too far on the song as he clarified, "God knows what I’m on about on that song. It’s such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go. […] I never would write that song now. I would probably censor myself. I’d think, 'Oh God, I can’t. I’ve got to stop. I can’t just write raw like that.'" [6]

This could be imagined how inappropriate this could be if everyone shout out, sing along joyfully to tune glorifying slavery, rape, torture and pedophilia

Imagine everyone in a sold-out stadium singing along joyfully to a tune glorifying slavery, rape. The violence and stereotypes described and depicted in the song Brown Sugar are repugnant. [7]

References