OK, if I must. Firstly, there's more to racism than "calling people pakis". I think "Bengali in Platforms" is a lovely song musically, but its lyrics are perhaps a little naive politically. Phrases such as "shelve your Western plans" and "life is hard enough when you belong here" suggest that immigrants from Bangladesh do not belong "here" in the UK - and should, perhaps, "shelve their Western plans". Now, this doesn't necessarily mean that Moz is suggesting that they should return to Asia; it is entirely possible to interpret the song as a criticism of the pressure placed on Asian immigrants to assimilate into Western culture, rather than preserve their own cultural identity. (In philosophical terms, this would represent a multicultural rather than a cosmopolitan position.) So "shelve your Western plans" could mean something like "Be proud of yourself! Don't feel you have to conform to others' standards!" This is actually consistent with what Moz has subsequently said in interviews about how he would like an Asian band with a very strong, "almost racist" sense of their own cultural identity to emerge in the British mainstream. (Fun-da-Mental were probably the closest we've had to this, though, ironically, Cornershop aren't so far off themselves, at least insofar as they use recognisably Asian instruments and themes in much of their music.) But even if we allow that, the "Western plans" phrase is too close for comfort to standard right wing anti-immigration comments, and the "when you belong here" phrase strongly suggests that Bengali immigrants do not in fact belong here. Now, if you were a young Asian living in the UK, who constantly had to put up with jibes about not fitting in from racists, how would you interpret the song? I am emphatically not saying that Moz is racist, just that the most obvious interpretation of the song makes it look as if he is. That's why I say it was ill-judged, and that's why I can understand why Cornershop reacted in the way he did.

Oh, and by the way, the original version of "Brimful of Asha" was very popular before Fatboy Slim went anywhere near it - listeners to the John Peel show, for example, voted it their favourite song of the year in the Festive 50 of 1997 (the remix didn't appear until early 1998.)

Sorry for the long post.

I can see why some people would think that but personally I don't think it's a racist song.Morrissey has always sung about being or feeling like an outsider.Anyone of any colour can be an outsider.I don't think his "life is hard enough when you belong here" was directed at coloured people.I think he just wrote it about being an outsider of any colour.