Mighty Mighty Bosstones' George Floyd Tribute Horrifies Twitter Users
A Mighty Mighty Bosstones song purportedly written as a tribute to George Floyd is leaving a lot of people perturbed by its lack of sensitivity.
The song by the ska band is called “The Killing Of Georgie (Part III).” The title is a shoutout to Rod Stewart’s 1976 song “The Killing Of Georgie (Parts 1 and 2).”
But reviews of the new song can best be summed up by Esquire writer Dave Holmes, who called it “relevant, well-intentioned, and a towering achievement in the field of no.”
Although the song’s title references Floyd, a Black American murdered last year by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, he is not mentioned explicitly in the lyrics, which are mostly wishful platitudes about coming together to make America live up to its creed: “We were so close to something that we all could get behind / And we could have made a difference, but the stars were not aligned.”
There are very few Black people or people of color in the video — a problem for a song apparently written about a Black person killed by police. Instead, the music video features a white guy in a suit hopping and bopping around Boston while the lyrics pop up on the screen.
The band did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Meanwhile, Twitter users weren’t exactly singing the praises of the song.
Seeing that clip of that mighty mighty bosstones song reaffirmed my hatred of ska
Like who possibly thought that was a good idea 🤦🏻♀️— It Looks Sad. (@itlookssad) May 14, 2021
I saw half of a 23 second clip of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones song about George Floyd and i'm gonna go ahead and just try to erase that from my mind right now.
— Carla Jean Lauter 😷 (@beerbabe) May 14, 2021
Saw that Gen X was trending and thought you guys were blaming my whole generation for the new Mighty Mighty Bosstones song pic.twitter.com/QGkPdh6Odn
— Tim Molloy (@TimAMolloy) May 14, 2021
if you share that mighty mighty bosstones george floyd record to the timeline i will put you in concrete and send you to the lord
— Vince Diesel (@SlimiHendrix) May 14, 2021
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.