Remarks:
This song did not chart. It is from her 1990 album, “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got”, which did have a huge hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U”, written by Prince.
I annotated her lyrics below, but there is nothing much on the Internet, here or elsewhere, about actual Black boys on mopeds. She is thinking of Nicholas Bramble, 21, who was chased by police in England on May 17th 1989. The police assumed he was driving a stolen moped because he was Black. He crashed and died. The moped was his.
This is the second song to appear in this space that references the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The first was “Shiny Happy People” (1991) by R.E.M.
Lyrics:
Margaret Thatcher on TV
Shocked by the deaths that took place in Beijing
It seems strange that she should be offended
The same orders are given by her
I’ve said this before now
You said I was childish and you’ll say it now
Remember what I told you:
If they hated me they will hate you
England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill black boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving
Young mother down at Smithfield
5 am, looking for food for her kids
In her arms she holds three cold babies
And the first word that they learned was “please”
These are dangerous days
To say what you feel is to dig your own grave
Remember what I told you:
If you were of the world they would love you
England’s not the mythical land of Madame George and roses
It’s the home of police who kill blacks boys on mopeds
And I love my boy and that’s why I’m leaving
I don’t want him to be aware that there’s
Any such thing as grieving
Wow. 1990… Could have been written yesterday.
(This is still buddhuu, just reverting to my FB account as the one that WordPress defaults to is obsolete.)
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..I remember listenin’ to this back in the 90’s-such a beautiful song that always seemed to be underrated by many in the music biz, in my opinion..SIdenote: Sinead is the epitome of rebel and badazz who keeps it 100 and take no shi#!
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1990: Black boys on mopeds being murdered
2015: Black boys playing in playgrounds being murdered
Nothing changes. Same as it ever was.
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I always found that song absolutely chilling. It may have been my first indication that the world I lived in was not as beautifully simple as I wanted to believe, but I never knew what she was referencing with the line “black boys on mopeds” and no one I asked at the time could tell me. Thank you for bringing it up.
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Reblogged this on Dispensable Thoughts and commented:
Huge Sinead O’ Connor fan. Have often found the lyrics in many of her songs powerfully and painfully disturbing, but they stir my soul and inner spirit. Whether she simply sings them or visually the lyrics in a video you get the message and the meaning. Like this particular song the blogger chose to spotlight. You can’t say nothing compares to it because we got comparisons to the incident all over the United States.
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“You can’t say nothing compares to it”
I see what you did there! 🙂
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Golly, I feel so much better now. I thought I was imagining it all.
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