This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Musical history’s most revered rock group, The Beatles, had once stirred chaos all across Britain as well as parts of the world, over their infamous song, Get Out.
Originally titled as No Pakistanis, the single had ensued furor all across Britain over its supposed anti-immigrant sentiments on one hand and won over neo-Nazi groups like Stormfront and oblivious white supremacist bands such as Battlecry, on the other.
According to a piece by Salon, this was something the British group—known as the flag-bearers for spreading social and political awareness through music—had hardly predicted since the song was always meant to be satire, as insisted by co-lead vocalist and bassist of The Beatles, Paul McCartney.
The fiasco ascended courtesy of the bootleg versions of the track with the original title circulating all around in 1986, at a time when racial, political and social mayhem was rampant.
[Blogger’s note – Hmmm interesting reporting this – yes ‘Get Out’ is a very infamous Beatles song!!]
I had never heard of this song, but am sure it was intended as satire. When the Beatles got to the US in ’64, they were told they were playing to segregated audiences. They refused and had it put into their contract that they would play to racially mixed audiences only. They were ahead of their time in their anti-racist stance. No band was less racist.
Get Back (No Pakistanis), Enoch Powell, Commonwealth, and Get Off (White Power) all played back-to-back during one January 1969 Get Back session, were anti-anti-racist. Enoch Powell MP had recently delivered his infamous “Rivers of Blood” speech to Parliament.