About whether Kilroy was racist: The main theme of the album was a criticism of Moral Majority and the religious right; that does not seem to chime much with racism. I think it is more a 70s thing: electronics were almost by definition Japanese back then.

You have my deepest sympathy.

Boing Boing is the wrong crowd for that sentiment, for sure.

One advantage (and disadvantage) of the pre-computer era is that if your garage band played terrible stuff with three chords and a rhythmless drummer, it mostly got forgotten by anyone who wasn’t there, but today if you record something on GarageBand, soulless drum machine and all, it’s going to be alive on the interwebz forever.

I was a bit too young at the time to consider whether the Beatles wrote “I want to hold your hand” non-ironically or as commercial easy-to-sell pop music, but a couple of generations have had fun with since, even though it’s no Sgt. Pepper.   I don’t know how Spinal Tap feels to someone first encountering it today, but when it came out much of the audience had seen most of the genres it was mocking. 

Most of current country music is overproduced fake commercial pseudo-nostalgia, but if you look at the roots you’ll find that AP Carter collected a whole lot of whiny songs about people being lonely and unhappy out in the country, most of which weren’t keepers but some of which was seriously good.   And (since I play old-timey), Stephen Foster, one of the first people to make a living composing and selling sheet music?  A lot of his lyrics are really embarrassing to read, but his tunes were catchy and easy to play.  And go farther back and look at Twa Corbies, which is way overschlocky but still works well today. 

yer kiddin, I’ve met only 1 or two people who didn’t have an Eagles, Queen or Rush song that they didn’t love dearly.

You’re up to three now.

The slant-eyed, Japanese-built “Mr. Robotos” are an obvious racial caricature, and probably more than a little racist. At the time of the album’s release, they were likely meant as a commentary on Japanese car-makers putting Americans out of work.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/KilroyWasHere

How many racist songs do you know that are bi-lingual and use another language properly in the lyrics? I’m not writing just about the ‘Domo Arigato’ part, but the ‘Mata ah-oo Hima de’ and ‘Himitsu wo Shiri tai’ section, as well. I’m writing these from the gatefold of the original album where the lyrics for those lines are also written in Japanese. Please browse the lyrics of Mr. Roboto and tell me where the racist lyrics are.

The lyrics seem to me to be about Kilroy hiding inside the shell of a Roboto that was made in Japan. That’s it. Metaphorically, it’s Kilroy hiding inside the technology that has been oppressing him so he can escape. In the 1980s, Japanese imported electronics were everywhere. Everywhere. Anything new and innovative was associated with Japan.

Had Canada been the biggest exporter/innovator of technology in the world instead of Japan, the lyrics of the song might have been, “Hey Hoser Robot! What’s yer secret, eh?” I don’t think the Japanese were ever offended by the lyrics, so this bit of White Man Guilt doesn’t apply here.

I get where you’re coming from,

This song is both  luddite and bigoted about Japanese people.

Great concerts from that era, though — Yes, Stones, Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and the like. LOL…my first concert was a long hitch-hike to see Chuck Berry; he only played a 20-minute set, then the jones set in so bad he had to take off and score. No refund, and only 2 rides on the way back home. ;-)

Second great memory and still holds true today is the use of Come Sail Away in the pilot of Freaks and Geeks.

So it was anti-technology and pro-Japanese at the same time? Gimme a break.

Sometimes we’re simply unable to see the racism right in front of us.