Across rock music history there is a rich tradition of people writing songs about messy breakups.
Imagine a world without Blondie's "One Way Or Another", Carly Simon's
"You're So Vain" or even Alanis Morrisette's "You Oughta Know"?
Sometimes, however, these songs can be a little too personal, and it
seems that we've crossed the line with the release of The Eversons'
digital b-side "Harlot" this week.
Lil' Chief Records
unreservedly apologises to the person that the song has been interpreted as being a personal attack on, and to all others who were offended by the lyrical content
of said song. Our initial impression of the song was that it was a love
song to a sex worker, however we should have realised it's potential to
hurt an individual and now recognise that it is both sexist and misogynistic and that we failed to screen it properly.
We understand that our
handling of this affair may be seen as unsatisfactory by many, and for
that we apologise too. This is new experience for us - in 10 years of
business we have never experienced
a strong negative response to a release, and within reason do not
believe in censoring our artists. We will now certainly be more mindful
of the possible impact that our future releases may have, whether they
be A-sides or B-sides.
"Harlot" has been removed from
Bandcamp at The Eversons' request, and will not be reissued in any
other way in the future. (If it was a physical product, it'd now be as
rare as one of those "butcher" cover Beatles albums.)
Songwriter Mark Turner issued an initial apology on Wednesday concerning the lyrical content, and the band and Mark have released a further apology today.
The core response to the song can be found here on the The Eversons Facebook page, while further discussion can be found on the Lil' Chief Facebook page and here.
We've learnt a lot from these comments over the last few days, and so
would encourage anyone that is interested in learning more to have a
read or contribute.
On a side note, we have been
dismayed at how nasty and threatening some of the comments have become,
including threats of physical violence towards some comment makers. The song
has clearly sparked an impassioned debate, but we ask that the small
number of people using it as an excuse to air personal grievances and
make physical threats, even when made in jest, refrain from doing so as
this does nothing to help the cause but rather blurs the message.
