topic Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure in Content Questions

"Killing an Arab" - The Cure

profanegod — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 20:41:32 GMT

Why don't you have this song? I notice you also don't have the entire album "Boys Don't Cry", so rather than assuming the reason is due to some knee-jerk reaction to the title of the song rather than the subject matter (The Stranger by Albert Camus), I'd like some clarification on why this particular song is unavailable.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

Soundofus — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 21:41:43 GMT

Hello there and welcome to the community,

This song is available on a compilation

Spotify wants all the music in the world available to stream. But Sometimes by decision of the label and/or the artist or due to licensing problems, some songs/albums are not available at all or partially available on certain countries.

Spotify is working hard daily to convince labels/artist to have all their music to stream.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

BlackDog714 — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 03:13:27 GMT

So, this song is no longer available? As of 30 June 2016, it says unavailable.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

fuoscar — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 15:07:15 GMT

So the rest of the compliation (and "Boys Don't Cry" for that matter) is available, but the song "Killing an Arab" is blocked?!? Can you say "double standard"? I can listen to any number of drive-by glorifying misogynistic rap songs all day and all night, but THIS song is blocked? So who exactly is telling us whatwe can or can't listen to? Spotify or the record label? Could we get an answer?

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

jstoddard365 — Tue, 14 Nov 2017 04:43:34 GMT

I miss this song so much!

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

Grubby_Grouper — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 00:03:11 GMT

Hey, I was also very displeased that this wasn’t available, until I thought to search for the bestival 2011 live version, “Killing Another”. It’s spot on to the studio version, and it’s on spotify. Hope this helps.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

zcheeze — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 08:54:07 GMT

That is an EXTREMELY great show, too. The entire thing is fantastic. (A quick look-up of show history/description should quell any complaints re: the songs title change).

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

thecant2002 — Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:13:48 GMT

Still not on the US site. Its on Youtube and Apple Music. What gives? One of the Cure's greatest songs

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

kwperley — Sun, 23 Jun 2019 12:38:23 GMT

It must be the label, because there is a cover (and a pretty good one, imo) of Killing an Arab by "The Reign" available on Spotify, but the original is not.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

MsgtZ — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 21:57:14 GMT

As a cure fan and 24 year military man I'm **bleep** I spent 14 of those in combat to fight for freedom among other things and I pay not to have the freedom to here a song from my youth. Ironic as someone who did the what the songs name is I never thought about the song when I was there, damm shame. This generation is a bunch of cry babies oh that song is bad , he offended my race at holloween by whetting a Afro, or headdress, or he said **bleep**ed when he disliked that whatever and people wonder why I hate liberals looking at this country on a 5 inch screen never seeing the BIG PICTURE. A miscopic view of things creates miscopic closed minds , who does that help anyway open minded creative thinking people created all things we have from a chair to a plane censorship has always brought ignorance and danger , I've seen it for my self in Iraq and Afghanistan my grandfather once told me during WWII in some country they asked him if the black soldiers were for nite fighting guess where Spotify sits in that conversation. Msgt Z

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

zcheeze — Tue, 16 Jul 2019 10:49:49 GMT

@ Thank You for your service.

I don't think anyone likes censorship, especially artists! Unfortunately, The Cure have been dealing with a severe misinterpretation of this song since it came out in 1979. Even though it was their first single, they agreed to leave it out of lots of promos, radio spots, etc at the time.. they were after all still a college aged group trying to make it big in the music industry.

The song appears in live shows here and there for the next 20+ years uncensored. When I was in high school we read "The Stranger", analyzed it in great depth (can you even study/learn about existentialism without that book??), and then listened to the song in class as well.

The Bestival 2011 show in France was a special case. Robert wasn't going to play it at all, but ended up doing it as the very last song during the encore. Seeing as how just five months before the festival many people were killed by a suicide bomber in a Moroccan cafe, Norway had just suffered the deadliest attack on them since WWII, AND the "Bestival" Cure set took place 09-10-11, Robert was quoted as saying he thought changing the lyrics for THIS show to "Killing Another" was quite fitting.

Last year in Hyde Park for their 40th celebration show they played it regularly. In any case.. it not being on Spotify is the labels fault. They've been at it for 40 years!

(PS Do yourself a favor if you haven't already and listen to the 2011 live set. The second set and encore are.. mad dark sounding. It's **bleep**ing fantastic.)

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

2buck — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 16:08:21 GMT

We all know perfectly well why this fantastic song is not available. It's why tipper gore wanted warning stickers on albums in '85. It's why the live version is named kissing an Arab. (That wasn't good enough. They renamed it again.) and it's why they keep having to say they're not racists.

They all don't realize it's based on a book called the stranger by Albert Camus 1942.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_an_Arab

I don't blame Spotify. I sure hope they can help fix it.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

Emilia_8 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 16:18:48 GMT

Hi @2buck,

The song should be available on Boys Don't Cry

https://open.spotify.com/track/1adtXXpTDkhVhfV5oUq3YQ?si=yFrVdjNMRZO030CgMrfz4w

and Staring At The Sea - The Singles

https://open.spotify.com/track/1LpZAbTRcP46SqdJXCPIl9?si=eEtYpwPlR3GiiZdIOnh_dA

If it's not available for you, this can happen if licensing agreements with the artist/labels, or ownership of rights, has changed. Availability can vary between countries as well.

Unfortunately, this is something that Spotify doesn't have control over as it is up to the individual music companies and artists.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

user-removed — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 16:51:13 GMT

Freely available in the UK. Boys Don't Cry should not be listed under compilations however. I thought it was missing at first.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

Emilia_8 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 16:57:17 GMT

Hi @user-removed,

If you notice a track or an album on Spotify isn't playing correctly, or the information is incorrect, you are always welcome to report it:

Go to submission form.
Choose Report an offensive or broken track/album.
Click I STILL NEED HELP.
Find the URI of the content:
1. Open the desktop app and go to the track/album/artist you wish to report.
2. Click the three dots and select Share.
3. Click Copy Spotify URI. The code is copied to your clipboard.
4. Paste the URI into the submission form and fill in the other details.
  Note: It looks like this: spotify:track:4uLU6hMCjMI75M1A2tKUQC. It’s not the same as a link, which starts open.spotify.com.
Click SEND QUESTION.

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

user-removed — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 17:05:41 GMT

1. I've already said there's an issue right here, so I don't feel a need to do so again.

2. There is no share option on a PC web player

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

Emilia_8 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 17:17:53 GMT

Hi @user-removed,

No problem! I was just letting you know that there's an option to do that.

If you want to get an URI but you're only using web player you can copy the link, in this case open.spotify.com/album/1jkKKIpXPmCFr7m815t8th

and change it manually so it looks like that:

spotify:album:1jkKKIpXPmCFr7m815t8th

If you need an URI for something other than album, just put track/artist/user instead.

Have a nice day!

Re: "Killing an Arab" - The Cure

kencarnivorous — Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:27:34 GMT

This is such weakness!!! The Cure is not celebrating murder in this song. If anything, Smith is pointing out how jacked up British Imperialism is/was and this song is only offensive if your concept of religion comes from 1700ce. Censoring this song is a disservice to the entire world. Reinstate it!

If you can get angry enough to get something censored, you are the problem. All religion is false, including every Abrahamic religion, which includes Christianity and Islam. Prove me wrong. It's all false. Why are we catering to delusion? Please explain yourselves, Spotify.