It seems kinda silly to me that some of the people posting here are wondering if it's about slavery or at least a metaphor using slavery considering the first lines are "Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields, sold in a market down in New Orleans."
Anyway, it's hard to know exactly what Mick is getting at. I'm willing to bet he just got a kick out of writing some bizarre lyrics, here. I mean, ok...we've got a slave ship arriving, slaves being sold, white guy having sex with black slaves, his wife being pissed about it but saying nothing, the "house boy" (black servant) who's also apparently banging somebody in the house, and then at the end, Mick in modern times saying something to the effect of "hey, I like black girls!"
I think the point is that people have always liked black/white sex. Whether it was the slaver presumably forcing it, or the "house boy" who was banging the housewife voluntarily, or Mick in 1970 liking black women.
The heroin stuff...I dunno about all that. If Mick said heroin had something to do with it, it's probably because he was thinking about things that are somewhat forbidden that people like, but have an ugly side (addiction/rape).
It seems kinda silly to me that some of the people posting here are wondering if it's about slavery or at least a metaphor using slavery considering the first lines are "Gold coast slave ship bound for cotton fields, sold in a market down in New Orleans."
Anyway, it's hard to know exactly what Mick is getting at. I'm willing to bet he just got a kick out of writing some bizarre lyrics, here. I mean, ok...we've got a slave ship arriving, slaves being sold, white guy having sex with black slaves, his wife being pissed about it but saying nothing, the "house boy" (black servant) who's also apparently banging somebody in the house, and then at the end, Mick in modern times saying something to the effect of "hey, I like black girls!"
I think the point is that people have always liked black/white sex. Whether it was the slaver presumably forcing it, or the "house boy" who was banging the housewife voluntarily, or Mick in 1970 liking black women.
The heroin stuff...I dunno about all that. If Mick said heroin had something to do with it, it's probably because he was thinking about things that are somewhat forbidden that people like, but have an ugly side (addiction/rape).