‘Half-Breed’ and ‘Brown Sugar’ Vanished: Why Classic Artists Are Censoring Themselves
This month, ahead of her induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the publication of the first volume of her memoir, Cher will unveil a new career-spanning anthology “personally curated by the legend herself.” Her most expansive to date, Forever includes Cher’s earliest hits on her own (“Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” “Dark Lady”), her Eighties power ballads (“If I Could Turn Back Time,” “I Found Someone”), and unstoppable club hits (“Take Me Home” and “Believe”). A Forever Fan Edition adds in her breakout hits with Sonny Bono, a duet with her late husband Gregg Allman, and more, for a total of 40 tracks.
One hit is conspicuously missing, though: “Half-Breed,” the thumping 1973 story-song about the child of a white man and Cherokee woman who grapples with prejudice on both sides: “The Indians said that I was white by law/The white man always called me ‘Indian Squaw,’” goes one line. A Native American chant rumbles underneath the chorus.
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“Half-Breed” made its way onto a Cher retrospective in the Nineties, but we can only speculate why the song isn’t included on Forever; Cher’s camp declined to comment to Rolling Stone. But it’s possible that the deletion may be the latest instance of an emerging trend of classic artists reviewing their back catalogs, set lists, or album covers and deciding that some things just don’t hold up in a far more culturally sensitive era. Contemporary stars like Kesha, Lizzo, and Beyoncé have regularly been revising problematic lyrics — just last week GloRilla altered a line in a song that has yet to be officially released to excise the word “retarded” — but, for the most part, classic artists are just now starting to edit.
In 2021, the Rolling Stones yanked “Brown Sugar” — about that “Gold Coast slave ship” and a slave trader who “knows he’s doin’ all right/Hear him whip the women just around midnight” — from their concert lineup. “Didn’t they understand this was a song about the horrors of slavery?” Keith Richards said at the time, adding he was “hoping that we’ll be able to resurrect the babe in her glory somewhere along the track.”
The song has yet to reappear at their shows, though, and apparently isn’t the only instance of the Stones tweaking past possible transgressions. In 1977, the band played an intimate show at the El Mocambo, a club in Toronto. When parts of it were first released on that same year’s concert record Love You Live, Mick Jagger was heard introducing the band by joking about their sexual preferences: “Charlie Watts is sort of a maybe,” “Bill Wyman just wants to take photographs of girls’ legs,” “Ronnie Wood’s gay.” In 2022, when a more complete recording of those shows was officially released, Jagger’s remarks were nowhere to be heard, on any platform. (That same year, Patti Smith pulled “Rock n Roll N—-r” from all streaming editions of her 1978 album, Easter.)
This spring, Joni Mitchell rolled out a box set of albums from the late Seventies, including Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter. When the record was released in 1977, few took offense, at least publicly, that one of the cover shots of Mitchell depicted her in blackface (as the character she called “Art Nouveau”). Now, someone apparently thought better of it: The reissued album has a completely different cover, sporting a photo of Mitchell hiding behind what looks like a stuffed wolf.
Not surprisingly, none of the major artists are commenting about these makeovers. (All either declined to speak with Rolling Stone or did not respond to requests for comments.) The trend has some in the music business bemused, baffled, or both. “In the case of Joni, I would have advised her to do what she’s doing,” says a leading entertainment consultant and crisis-management expert, who chose to remain anonymous. “But does anyone think Joni is racist?”
Regarding “Brown Sugar” and other songs with lyrics that might be considered offensive today, the consultant adds, “Everyone knows these songs were written in a different era and that they wouldn’t write them now. No one is going to think Cher is an evil person for singing a song from 50 years ago. People have to be careful about overreacting to the times.”
At the moment, fans appear to be equally divided about such moves. When Mitchell announced the altered cover of Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter, she simply shared the artwork on social media without comment. In their posts, some fans were fine with the older artwork, one calling it “better.” “I’m going to be one of the few who disagrees with the general opinion: I prefer the original cover,” wrote another. “Because of political correctness we have ruined our humor, now it’s time for art and soon the lyrics will take over. Can anyone really be offended by the original photograph?”
Others were fine with Mitchell’s decision. “Times change, and with it so does how art and music is perceived. Changing the cover doesn’t change the music, but rather adds another dimension to it. I saw the change as acknowledging that the ends don’t justify the means… I’m glad the cover was changed,” wrote one. Another fan was more succinct: “This is a much better album cover!!!”
As for “Half-Breed,” Cher has a complicated history with the song (which, to be fair, features one of the most impassioned and pained vocals of her career). After its release, she didn’t perform the song live until 1999, after which it occasionally made its way back into her live repertoire. On her 2014 tour, she resurrected the hit, complete with a new headdress to match the lyric. But after that, it again vanished from her set list — the song came under fire on social media amid claims of cultural appropriation. “I did song 50 yrs. ago, and it wasn’t meant 2 be offensive,” Cher posted in 2017. “However, that’s kinda Bull Shit excuse. Need to retire beautiful costume & stop singing it. It’s WAY past time.” (“Half-Breed” remains in the current touring version of The Cher Show musical.)
Neither the publisher of “Half-Breed” nor Dawn Garrett, the daughter of Snuff Garrett, who produced the original recording, were notified about the hit’s omission from Forever and can only guess along with everyone else. “If I had to speculate, I’m going with exactly what you’re writing about,” says Garrett. “I didn’t grow up with the idea that the song was a horrendous insult or anything like that. But this is a completely different generation, and I think it’s important that nobody be insulted or upset. I guess it will remain to be seen if some of the older fans aren’t happy about that. Or if it’s too polarizing.”
The lingering question, of course, is how far this trend will go and which other classic songs or lyrics will essentially be canceled. The music consultant, for one, is skeptical. “You can look ridiculous if you try to will something out of existence,” the consultant says. “You can’t un-Google something. If Michelangelo were still around, would he cover up parts of some of his work?”
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