The Cure (Robert Smith, Michael Dempsey, Lol Tolhurst)
Producer(s)
Chris Parry
The Cure singles chronology
"Killing an Arab" (1978)
"Boys Don't Cry" (1979)
Official audio
"Killing an Arab" on YouTube
"Killing an Arab" is the first single by the Cure. It was recorded at the same time as their first album Three Imaginary Boys (1979), but not included on the album. However, it was included on the band's first US album, Boys Don't Cry (1980).[2]
The song's title and lyrics reference Albert Camus's novel The Stranger. Because of the title, the song has drawn controversy for what critics have described as promoting violence against Arabs, which songwriter Robert Smith pinned on the public's lack of knowledge regarding the novel. Shortly after its release, Smith said, "It just happened that the main character in the book had actually killed an Arab, but it could have been a Scandinavian or an English bloke."[3] In 2003, Smith acknowledged that, "If I knew it before, I would have called it 'Standing on the Beach'. It would have avoided many troubles."[4]
^Mathews, Liam (2 August 2017). "10 Ways The Sinner Is and Isn't Like The Cure's Song "Killing an Arab"". TV Guide. Retrieved 9 March 2020.
^De Muir, Harold. "An Interview With Robert Smith of The Cure". Eastcoast Rocket. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
^Apter, Jeff (2008). Never Enough: The Story of The Cure. Omnibus Press. ISBN 9780857120243.
"KillinganArab" is the first single by the Cure. It was recorded at the same time as their first album Three Imaginary Boys (1979), but not included...
fully under British rule. The day after the vote, Arabs launched attacks against the Jews, killing 126 of them during the first two weeks and 75 were...
are both taken from the opening lyrics of the Cure's debut single, "KillinganArab". The "New Voice – New Mix" of "Boys Don't Cry" (released as a single...
"KillinganArab" in December 1978 on the Small Wonder label as a stopgap until Fiction finalised distribution arrangements with Polydor. "Killingan Arab"...
Anniversary: 1978 - 2018 Live In Hyde Park London Chart position in 1983. "KillinganArab", "Boys Don't Cry" and "Jumping Someone Else's Train" were later included...
around 50,000 Arabs and about 20,000 Indians. American diplomat Don Petterson described the killings of Arabs by the African majority as an act of genocide...
attacks during the 1930s Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War List of villages depopulated during the Arab-Israeli conflict List of massacres...
years after having been first aired, as was the case of the Cure's "KillinganArab", ABBA's "Waterloo", Queen's "Killer Queen", the Boomtown Rats' "I...
a Jewish child, Irgun members attacked anArab neighborhood near Kerem Hatemanim in Tel Aviv, killing one Arab man and injuring another. On August 17...
hegemony over most of the country, many cities rose in rebellion by killing their Arab governors or attacking their garrisons. Eventually, military reinforcements...
October 2011. "Libya: New Proof of Mass Killings at Gaddafi Death Site". Human Rights Watch. 17 October 2012. "Arab Spring domino effect: Gaddafi is gone...
The Jerusalem Post stated that the killing joined a series of "wrongful mistaken killings" of Jewish Israelis and Arab Israelis since the 2023 Hamas-led...
first season, and an operative in the Islamic State organization who returned from Syria and wants to take revenge on Doron for killing his father. In this...
Arab Nation (RLE: the Arab Nation). Routledge. pp. 70–74. ISBN 978-0-415-62286-8. el-Hasan, Hasan Afif (2019-05-01). Killing the Arab Spring. Algora Publishing...
The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, romanized: ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī) or the First Arab Spring (to distinguish from the Second Arab Spring) was a series...
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East. Located at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula...
The Arab citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis or Israeli Arabs) are the country's largest ethnic minority. They are colloquially referred to in Arabic as...
arguing that: "We must create a situation whereby killinganArab is like killing a rat, where Arabs are dirt, and thereby showing that we and not they...
An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is a traditional form of murder in which a person is killed...
Dempsey was the band's bassist starting with their first single "KillinganArab" and then their debut album Three Imaginary Boys in 1979. Dempsey has...
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