SONGS ABOUT RAPING

Just got the Special AKA's 1982 single "The Boiler" in the mail the other day. I got home late at night and put it on the turntable. It starts off like some sort of Easy Listening blues, not unlike some tracks on the 2nd Specials album, which is no coincidence as this was Jerry ("bike rack") Dammers' post-Specials band. There's a girl telling a story in a matter-of-fact Cockney accent about meeting some bloke, who insists on buying her some "gear", then they go out, he buys her drinks, etc. The tune - which isn't as arresting as some other Dammers compositions like "Ghost Town" or the Miles-Davis-played-by-Hungarian-gypsies "War Crimes" - shuffles ahead. Then he wants to go up to her place; she refuses, he gets angry, walks away. She's on her own, in the street. Then suddenly someone grabs her and... At this point the screaming starts; I had to gradually turn the volume down until I could only hear the sound of the needle, because I was afraid my girlfriend would wake up and run down the stairs, but also because it made me feel plain embarrassed listening to it.
For Jerry Dammers to put out this track as a single, hot on the heels of the Specials' 1980-81 string of hits, was a sure-fire way of committing commercial suicide. What was he thinking? Try to imagine some deejay in 1982 spinning this inbetween "Agadoo" and "'Taint what you do" (by those other former Specials, Fun Boy Three)... Try to imagine people playing this even to dance to... It's impossible. I guess he just put this record out because he felt he had to, simple as that.
It made me think of an equally harrowing song, but from the viewpoint of the perpetrator: "Gunpoint Affection" by the great DC punk band Black Market Baby. Now I don't usually post American mp3's as that's taken care of nicely by a bunch of other blogs, but I'll make an exception for this one. When this song appeared on their 1983 Senseless Offerings LP (one of the best punk LP's ever) some people thought they were actually glorifying rape. Well, they sure don't sing "It's bad! It's bad!"; but the fact that you can't clearly figure out where the band stands makes the song all the more powerful and harrowing, in my opinion.

Special AKA feat. Rhoda Dakar - The Boiler
Black Market Baby - Gunpoint Affection