Strange Reaction to a Song

[5andFretless]

Saturday night we did our first bar band gig of the season. Same bar every other Saturday until May, then every Saturday night until August. Third year of doing it

We started our 3rd set with U & UR Hand by Pink. You would have thought that we sacrificed a live animal on stage. This is a pretty nice, fairly big, on the water, crowded bar. Mostly people in their late 20's to early 40's. Lots of professionals. I am sure that everyone in that room had heard this song on the radio several times. I am also pretty sure that anyone that has ever listened to the song knows what it is about and what has been cut. All we did was sing it uncut.

Has anyone else ever performed a popular song that was edited for the radio unedited and get a bad reaction? We are all pretty much baffled.

[XtreO]

1. Maybe the general crowd hate this particular song, much like I passionately hate artists like for example Soulja Boy.
2. Perhaps this is the time for you and your band to carefully evaluate your prodigious (???) musical skills on your respective instruments?
3. The uncut version of the song you performed might be simply boring, too much of a good thing never goes well.

[Illbay]

Originally Posted by XtreO

2. Perhaps this is the time for you and your band to carefully evaluate your prodigious (???) musical skills on your respective instruments?

[bassman1185]

Well, I have never heard the song before, so I looked it up on www.songlyrics.com, and it has a fair amount of language in it. It's possible that the crowd had never heard the uncut version of the song and they were just offended.

[Pilgrim]

Fairly simple - the song was probably in bad taste. I hadn't heard it, looked it up, and I don't think I'd have enjoyed listening to it. Why not stay with stuff that's more positive?

[Sarah5string]

That or you covered a Pink song???

[whoneedstherapy]

Originally Posted by Sarah5string

That or you covered a Pink song???

+1000

[Jim Powers]

"Who Knew" would be positive. U n UR Hand is just a negative message, especially in a bar where professional people are coming to meet. You never know when people may actually listen to the message.

[nsmar4211]

This is funny because my group actually covers both of those pink songs....and they both go over well.

However, we do edit U and UR hand when we do it. As well as several other songs, as none of us particularly like the cursing over a microphone. So we usually just do the radio thing and leave the word out. One other song has the F word in it in a place where leaving it out would leave a huge musical hole.....so rather than the singer sing it, I pop the octave of the note on my bass (musical version of "beep").... works and the few people that notice get a kick out of it and no hole.

My favorite "strange" reaction to a song is when people come up and tell us they hated Brittany Spears music but actually like the way we do the one song (Hit Me Baby One More Time). On the radio you can't really hear it but it's got a funky bass line so it's fun to play.

We temper our setlist to our crowd......so if there's a ton of kids running around at a venue we leave certain songs out (like Meredith Brooks' B****). So far.....no bad strange reactions .

[Zappstorius]

I think that song is fine, but probably not a great choice for a bar full of professional people. You gotta tailer the songs that you cover for the crowd that you're playing to.

[Pilgrim]

The wise words here: PLAY TO THE AUDIENCE.

A crowd of teens, a crowd of 20-somethings in a bar, and a crowd of professional people need three different approaches - and changes in song selection.

In 1970, I can assure you that I wouldn't have gone to a Future Farmers of America meeting and played anti-war music. Good way to come out on a stretcher.

[Phrogie]

There's a local cover band that I hang with some times, and that's one of the songs they cover. Uncut. I haven't seen a bad reaction yet. Heck, it's one of the songs -I- do at karaoke... and I -always- get a good reaction out of it...

Tho in the case of my doing it at 'rokie, it's probably more to do with the amount of women to men in the bar. There's usually far more women... and those are the ones I usually get the good reactions from.

So yeah, play to your audience... if you're seeing more women in the audience then men, they're more likely to appreciate it... I'm sure most of them empathise with it in any case.

Oh, and of course I'm running under the presumption that you have a female actually singing it...

A guy singing it would be... odd.

[Depth_Charge]

Originally Posted by Jim Powers

"Who Knew" would be positive. U n UR Hand is just a negative message, especially in a bar where professional people are coming to meet. You never know when people may actually listen to the message.

Our band play this song. People dance to it and aussies swear a lot anyway...so the language isn't that bad for down here.

To me the song has a very positive message, delivered negatively on purpose.

In my mind at least, the song reinforces the fact that men continue to objectify women and will often make unwanted and rather daring advances on women, as well as carry some twisted sense of entitlement, in environments where women are just trying to enjoy a night out, like licensed pubs, clubs and even parties and social gatherings.

It probably helps that I've dated strippers in the past, and seen the worst of this kind of behaviour in men.

So maybe your crowds don't like the food for thought?

Or just the swearing...who knows?

[5andFretless]

Interesting set of responses. Yes, we have a female singer, and we are all in our 40's, so we were the same age as the oldest average in the place. We also all have suit and tie jobs, so we were in our element.

We also do "Who Knew" and it goes well, except at the engagement party that we did in the Hamptons. We actually started to play it and the drummer stopped us. I thought about it for a moment and realized that it might not be a good idea, but it was apprapo. A couple of weeks later our singer was at a wedding and the band played the song, but apparently no one caught the significance but her.

We may try it again next week. We never give up after only one failure.

[bassbully]

My old female fronted rock band did that song and it killed.

[JKT]

I had to look it up too. Not into the genre, not into lots of cursing, or sexual innuendo (hey isn't that italian for suppository?) either.

IMHO, covering stuff like this in general, with very little exception is always a mistake. Sometimes a big mistake. You could play 30 songs and kill on all of them but they're gonna remember the offensive or negative stuff everytime.

The closest and I think most accurate analogy to this is thinking about some of the most famous comedians you know of. Most of the true greats never "worked blue" meaning the use of off color material. That's because they always knew it wasn't necessary. Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld come to mind immediately, and of course there are others. And it isn't like they never did material with adult themes either, but it is almost like a cheap sell-out to resort to foul language.
I believe it is the same sort of phenomenom that applies to music it's just that singers and songwriters think it never applies to them, and as you discovered that ain't exactly true.

Pink, like others who choose to do this sort of material, recorded the song they way they wanted to and when they do it in concert, they are doing it for people who ostensibly bought the record and expect to hear that sort of thing.

The dichotomy occurs with the covering artist attempting to "get away with it" in a club setting. It is a gamble that leaves you vulnerable. Like pulling the trigger on a gun, you can't take those words back.

Part of this is our culture these days. Lots of stuff is often looked at as "acceptable" and not so shocking. Until it comes out of a PA speaker during happy hour.

Look at a copy of the lyrics and think about it this way,
this song makes explicit references to: Violence against women, masturbation, and the male genitalia. Even in todays culture, these can clearly be classified as somewhat... controversial topics.

What would be really clever IMO is to write a song that says the same thing without resorting to the obvious. Then again that's just me. Like my view of an attractive women- I've been in show business for 35 years, if you want to get me excited, hide it... 'cause I've seen it all before

JKT

[whitedk57]

Is the singer female? The song seems geared for a female to sing it...