Ray Stevens is a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, but he has long maintained his 1962 country hit "Ahab the Arab" is not a political statement. In fact, he has defended the song several times over the years, and he has recently been forced to do so again. The 75-year-old was asked by Nashville Gab if he still gets criticism.
"Yeah, only from screaming liberal idiots," he replied, via The Boot. "You know, some guy on MSNBC called me a racist; I doubt if he'd ever heard the song."
Stevens explained how the song, about a young Arabian man with a camel named Clyde who secretly courts one of the sultan's women, came to be.
"When I was a kid, my mom gave me a book called Arabian Nights, and I wrote the song just from information I learned outta that book," he said. "You know, the book talked about Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves and 'Open sesame' and, you know, all the fun stuff that is in that book. And so I thought, I'll write a [song] about this guy, and he's messing around with one of the sultan's girls in the harem. There's nothing racist about it."
Here is a sampling of the lyrics:
And he'd say
[alleged Arabic content]
Which is Arabic for, "Stop, Clyde!"
Clyde would say
[alleged Arabic content]
Which is camel for, "What the heck did he say anyway?"
Stevens sat down with Fox News's Bill O'Reilly in 2010 to discuss the tune. Here was part of the transcript, according to ThinkProgress:
STEVENS: That was '62. [The Council on American-Islamic Relations] wasn't around. You know, there wasn't evil or an intent in that song except for fun.
O'REILLY: Right.
STEVENS: And, you know, as a kid I read "Arabian Nights." I was a big fan of the whole culture. And so I wrote this song as a comedy song just for fun.
O'REILLY: So 48 years ago — 48 years ago in this country we could make fun of Arabs. ... We could make fun of people in a general way, and certainly, Ahab was the Arab was a general parody. But now, we can't. What has changed in America?
STEVENS: I think we've gone overboard with the political correctness just like so many other people think the same way about that. And I don't know. We've got to come out of that, I think.
Regardless of Stevens's feelings, the song has upset many people over the years. Some claim it invited mockery of Arabians and other Middle Eastern cultures. As Stevens said, the song is more than 50 years old, but that does not mean it goes over well in today's society.
