Behind the Songs: Blacks/Radio

A selection of quotes from The Psychedelic Furs on the song "Blacks/Radio".

Richard Butler: "That actually comes from a quote by Andy Warhol. Somebody said, 'What do you think of the black people?' and he replied, 'Oh, I love them, if it wasn't for the blacks in the South, my father's refrigerator factory would close down.' The song's built around the quote." (ZigZag 1979)

Duncan Kilburn (on the "Chaos" and "Radio" segments of the song): "That's two songs that we've been doing for some time, linked together." (ZigZag 1979)

Tim Butler: "On the first 'Chaos', me and the drummer keep up a beat and everybody else does the chaos. On the last one, everything just goes wild." (ZigZag 1979)

Roger Morris: "I think what we're trying to do is play some bits more straightforward to make the chaos stand out even more." (ZigZag 1979)

Richard Butler (in response to the interviewer saying some of the songs like "Blacks/Radio" could be controversial because of the titles): "Yeah, well we've had all that. We played at Portsmouth Polytechnic – they think they're clever students down there and they're all into this leftist scene. Anyway, they thought: 'Well, this song is called "Blacks"', and immediately they started throwing bottles and glasses cos they thought it was racist." (Slash 1980)

Tim Butler (on the night of the Portsmouth Polytechnic concert): "One of the guys who was throwing glasses actually walked up to the social secretary of the college and said: 'Those guys – I just heard them saying in the song that black people have got smaller brains than white people'. He swore he heard it, which is rubbish, cos it's about a quote that Andy Warhol made about white people getting rich off the fruits of black people's labor." (Slash 1980)

John Ashton: "'Blacks' and 'Radio' I don't think came out that well on vinyl because they're a feeling more than anything else. Maybe they should have been put out as live things." (ZigZag 1980)

Richard Butler: "It's funny 'cause the song 'Blacks' was - a lot of people have thought it's racist before. It's in fact very tongue-in-cheek in that it comes from a comment made by Andy Warhol. Somebody said to him - 'What do you think of the Black people?', and he said 'If it wasn't for the Blacks in the south, my father's refrigerator factory would close down.' He was being very [__] taking and it's taking a [__] at racism. People don't see it, yet people are throwing things. For anybody to think we're a racist band is absolutely ridiculous 'cause we're all intelligent people here." (Overview 1981)

Richard Butler (on being asked what was the first song ever written by the band): "I think it was 'Blacks/Radio'." (Overview 1981)

John Ashton: "I've forgotten (thankfully) how many takes of this it took to get the transition to sound like 'the Furs on a good night.'" (Should God Forget liner notes, 1997)

Richard Butler (on the song being removed from the North American release of The Psychedelic Furs): "[Columbia] thought 'Blacks/Radio' was racist, which on a superficial level you could think that it was. That was taken from an Andy Warhol quote. He was asked if he liked black people and as usual, he replied very tongue in cheek. 'If it wasn't for the blacks in the south, my father's refrigerator business would close down.' I thought, 'Wow that's a great quote' and used it and then people didn't see the irony in it." (iJamming! 2001)

John Ashton: "A lot of [The Psychedelic Furs] was pre-written by virtue of the fact that the band had been around a couple of years. So there were songs there. I joined the band in '78, and 'Sister Europe' was already a song, a version of 'Imitation Of Christ' was there, 'We Love You' was already there. And there were other songs that were coming along, like 'India,' that I brought to the band. 'Fall' was another, and 'Blacks/Radio,' which was just kind of a jam." (Popdose 2012)

Interviewer: "I have to tell you, I still come over all funny whilst listening to 'Blacks/Radio.' It's one of my Psychedelic Furs faves - a mad, dance-able tune with bizarre lyrics. I've bounced around in bouts of idiot glee to that many times. Only a few years that I really paid attention to the lyrics. It seems to remain pertinent, touching on black slave labor, white privilege, the fetishization of modern commodities, the stupidity of yuppie culture, ennui..am I reading it the way you penned it?"

Richard Butler: "(Smiling) You are reading 'Blacks/Radio' the way it was written." (Whitehot Magazine 2016)

John Ashton (on hearing a demo tape of The Furs given to him right before he joined the band): "I put the tape on and I really liked it. There were early versions of 'We Love You,' 'Blacks/Chaos/Radio,' which didn't make it on the US domestic release but was on the original United Kingdom release; maybe 'Flowers,' another one. They were very much of the punk edgy sort of harder songs. Maybe 'Pulse' as well, I'm not sure." (Everyone Loves Guitar podcast, 2021)

Tim Butler: "[Martin Hannett] produced 'Susan's Strange', and, what was the other one he produced? I've forgotten the other one, oh, 'Soap Commercial', which weren't on the English version of [The Psychedelic Furs] because on the English version of that album we had a track called 'Blacks/Radio/Chaos', it was like a long jamming track, and CBS thought it sounded like it was racist but it wasn't. So on the US copy of that album, we put 'Susan's Strange' and 'Soap Commercial' on it." (The Collapse Board 2024)

Richard Butler with Andy Warhol. Credits to photographer.