The Stranglers - I Feel Like A Wog (1977 Peel Session)

[@thelighthousekeeper]

I AM a Wog.

[@sichere]

We are all WOGS

[@ricknblack]

i remember taping this back in 77,still got it.

[@stationers]

This is fantastic. This is much better than the album version which no doubt was punkified for the time and speeded up . Burnel's bass is magnificent at this slower pace. The whole thing is more powerful.

[@celticwarrior1365]

Iconic images and songs takes this 54 year old back to his adolescence. I want a wreath of red carnations on my casket!

[@gwugluud]

I really hate that Dave Greenfield has died. He was incredibly talented and highly original.

[@fol210967]

That bass.....fantastic

[@divergencefilms]

Never heard this version before - slower but powerful

[@jesus3373]

Thanks for this, fella.

[@dawnwhyman]

i like this version :)

[@Mexcoatl819]

Me too my dad brought me a pink girly bike so I said ''I am not riding that it's a girl's bike'' so he went out and swapped for one of them chopper boys bikes instead, you remember the ones with ape hangers and center gears.

[@wagsouza3459]

GOOD !

[@stephenscott4909]

ooh yeah

[@outsider2712]

Never met this track before - no less appropriate today than in those explosive times! Jean-Jaques being French, punks being subjected to hate campaigns in the reactionary media, being abused/attacked in the street, it's powerfully personal as well as subvertively anti-racist. Top song!

[@andrew2366]

JJ Burnell is not French.... His parents were but he was born in Notting Hill in London England......

[@MrRalphsworld]

Christ Dredd...i thought I was the only one in the universe that "got it"...i,m not alone after all :) Even with the aspergers...I know how it feels to be "a wog"...nice one bud.

[@Dreddloxx]

The title of the song is relevant,as the song itself relates to the alienation felt by the Protagonist...Listen to the lyrics;Anyone with a 'normal' I.Q. will understand WHY this track is so named in the blink of an eye...Nothing racist whatsoever!

[@bevsincla]

@eelpieballox ...so true..that is exactly what Western Oriental Gentleman means...glad someone knew....

[@wallerpaul70]

@Dreddloxx I agree Hugh is making the point of being alone.

[@theobjectivethinker64]

@England5is5the5best well it's well known that the stranglers were a pub band and Dr Feelgood and the like were great influences, however I think this is so different in so many ways. After listening to C'Mon by Man it's just a style like Jazz or R&B. Actually listening to Man I can hear Down in the Sewer opener.

[@SRDhain]

this is about 90bpm max, compared to the released version which is prob about 135 or even faster. They "punk'd" up cause of the gigs and speed they were prob chewing to get on the treadmill.

[@ARCHSTANTON61]

wog you on about ?

[@revzillo]

This version sounds quite a bi slowed down !!

[@theobjectivethinker64]

@England5is5the5best I would also add that the stranglers rarely copied other tunes however, the song Bitching is similar to Born to be wild by Steppenwolf, Walk on By is The Doors, light my Fire in essence and Toiler on the Sea has the opening bars to the doors LA Woman, but apart from that they were generally original.

[@bobeee8852]

..and don't forget, Mark, that the melody line from Bring on the nubiles was ripped from an old Frank Sinatra song !!

[@theobjectivethinker64]

@@bobeee8852 Well he likes his classics, not ripped but influenced.

[@PapaKeegs001]

@Dreddloxx please tell us how you really feel.

[@rh7189]

Very appropriate song for our times...globalisation and immigration and all that

[@gusgrig]

I owned a bicycle once!

[@stephenscott4909]

hanging around

[@AnEnemy100]

@eelpieballox Look up 'Backronyms' on wikipedia.

[@johnanthonyp]

They did this in a brum cLub and I agree that you don't get it I'll pet your head

[@Kelly14UK]

Trust me on this, it's not a racist song.

[@danw1374]

It's anti racist if anything

[@KevinsYouTube]

Oh my god! WTF's up with the name!?? LMAO Fair play. Was browsing the buzzcocks then I noticed this, had to check it out. Pretty damn bad ass tbf

[@theobjectivethinker64]

@monocromeman Who are you angry with here, I am a big fan and I was responding to England5is5is5the5best comment regarding I feel like a wog saying it's a straight lift from C'mon by Man, I disagree, I was just mentioning those songs the band admits to having some reference point such as Go Buddy Go the bass is a straight lift from Hendrix Hey Joe. 98% stranglers is original which is much higher than most bands. No one can be completely wihout influence it's impossible. I am a massive fan.

[@brian-pu3yy]

Sounds a lot like....THE FALL

[@TheStants9]

no!its not racist its the stranglers!

[@treasurehunteruk9718]

My Dad used to say WOG stood for Western Oriental Gentleman, so it's not an abusive term after all. None of those words are offensive.

[@graham1466]

really

[@treasurehunteruk9718]

@@graham1466 Yes!

[@danw1374]

I've heard that too

[@nigelstevens3627]

Walk on by

[@Vehement78]

don' call me your gollywaahhgggg

[@zeggle5229]

I immediately thought they was saying they felt like shit, or is it just me with a extraordinary IQ

[@Bob-ts2tu]

when i was growing up the term 'wog' was a racial insult directed at any black or asian, and it was still commonly used when the stranglers penned this. I have to say though that no-one made any big issue about this because we understood what the song was about and what they meant - it was never banned or anything. seems funny to say, but we must have been more enlightened back then than the BS woke brigade are today as we knew it was the context that mattered not the words.

[@ChrisM541]

People were more intelligent back then - the emergence of the internet has dumbed today's folk down by providing everyone with their 'answers' and ways to think, usually via that poison - social media.

[@Bob-ts2tu]

@@ChrisM541 I agree, and for some strange reason, some people seem to want to feel insulted and like victims at every opportunity

[@JohnPaulFoster]

@eelpieballox Wiley.

[@mycheezyhelm]

i feel like a wank

[@Trotskyxx]

And may I wish you a most satisfying knuckle shuffle too.

[@p1ngu45]

the lyrics wld undoubtedly be banned nowadays

[@slantyrock]

reminds me of the doors and the clash

[@FP51DPO]

I have just found that the stranglers ripped off the seeds evil hoodoo... Dave greenfied you very naughty boy

[@blancaroca8786]

Actually if you listen carefully in the middle you can here that similar keyboard riff. Good things do catch on. Good that the riff got out and got used in a great song decades after it was lost and forgotten. Probably these little riffs are constantly being rehashed in many songs. All of the songs nowadays have distinct bits robbed from the past. I think all the basic riffs and tunes have been done and there's little else but returns and remix now. I think writers should get some recognition and small compensation of significant . Here it's a close call as it's a little thing . Can we count a copyright on the the first r drum clicks if nice and sleazy for example? I doubt it. Anyway look at led zep stairway tune surely spirited in some measure from Spirit's song yet in court not warranted as significant enough. And they toured together. Spirit himself never bothered claiming much he realised the whole is greater than only the sum of the parts.

[@theobjectivethinker64]

NWA and Ice T owe a lot to these guys

[@RachelR220]

immigrant song....... by the glers......

[@nojszeger]

The song was written in the age when the PC was not an obligatory dogma yet. Unnecessary all racism, all anti-racism to explain.

[@michaeldean7220]

Too slow for me!

[@ThePyrogenica]

Well, I feel like a frickin' pizza, but I don't make songs up about it.

[@fooman65]

ThePyrogenica that's why you're a no mark

[@blancaroca8786]

Of course we should sing ànd shout about important issues. The stranglers are shouting about injustice and as always get misinterpreted.

[@blancaroca8786]

On second thoughts i think i now understand pyrogenica's joke

[@antoinelefeuvre4138]

but they did!!