German metal band causes trouble on t'net

[PhilT]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/12/10/iwf_reverses_wikiban/

[Dave W]

Looks to me like the trouble was caused by the IWF. And all over a 32-year-old album cover. 

[Barklessdog]

I guess you can lump Budgie into that.

Where else can you find underage sex an excepted and expected lifestyle other than in the rock business?

[uwe]

If liberal (and proud of it) old Uwe may come to the defense of his countrymen:



The Virgin Killer album and song Virgin Killer did not advocate rape, murder of or sex with minors.  It was discussed back then and the Scorpions did feel initially uneasy about it, several other similar shots were discarded because they found them too overtly sexual with the teen models in full makeup, Lolita mode and so on. Initial versions did not have the cracked glass, that only came later to hide the girl's vagina after the record company - RCA at the time - chickened out (the US version of In Trance, the album just before Virgin Killer, had already seen a shadowy tit of the cover model airbrushed out). Obviously, no one thought of the obvious how the "cover up" was actually making things worse rather than better.  The pic was intended as an albeit naive socio-critical statement: the innocent and inherently good "virgin" world being raped and mistreated by the likewise inherent evil of man.

The song and its lyrics were written by then lead guitarist Uli Roth who was an esoteric and hippie mythologist even back then and always dabbled with philosphic and religious subjects in his lyrics, certainly not a pedophile - pretty much the opposite in fact: he married Jimi Hendrix muse/love who must have been older than young Uli (they lived happily ever after until she died a few years ago, from people who know him I've heard that she was the love of his life and that the grief from her death almost destroyed his life too, he is basically now resurrecting his niche career).

This is the lyric to Virgin Killer - no, it's not Bob Dylan quality and in some places quite non-sensical, Uli Roth's English wäsn't ze best, but it doesn't play with pedophile leanings either:

"Music :Ulrich Roth
Lyrics:Ulrich Roth

Cry like you feel,
Try like you feel, feel it ...!
Try to escape,
Cry to escape, escape it ...!
It's so hard to run away
He's a virgin killer ...

No, no, no, can't you see?
No, no, no, can't you see?
You're a demon's, you're a demon's,
You're a demon's desire!

Death on the screen,
Sadistic magazines, watch out
Suicides ev'ryday,
Political ways, get it
Well, you can't find new ways ...
But he's a virgin killer ...

No, no, no, can't you see?
No, no, no, can't you see?
You're a demon's, you're a demon's,
You're a demon's desire!

Garbage in the streams,
A-bombs in your dreams, look out
Sharks in the pictures,
Exorcist prescriptions, forget it
Try to get away from that,
Cos he's a virgin killer ...

No, no, no, can't you see?
No, no, no, can't you see?
You're a demon's, you're a demon's,
You're a demon's desire!"

And there the case must rest, I think. There must be limits to tearing things out of context. If art is not allowed to do outrageous things that might offend some people's feelings or use inflamatory symbols, we'd be thrown back into the middle ages. They burnt people at stakes back then. Nein danke.

Uwe

PS: I had the album with the original cover. Unlike pictures of Cherie Curie (Runaways) in stockings it never did incite me to auto-sexual acts. It was always patently clear to me what the Scorpions were trying to say with it even as a 16 year old: Innocence being defiled. Never liked the song though, like many Roth compositions a bit shrieky. Roth doesn't/didn't have a voice and Meine (the Scorps lead voc) was always ill at ease singing Roth's stuff.