‘I’m An Indian Too’, Cliff Richard, 1968

6 comments to ‘I’m An Indian Too’, Cliff Richard, 1968

• Keir Hardie

  September 30, 2011 at 8:52 pm · Reply

  That’s the worst thing that I’ve ever seen. Ironically he was born in India! But that would be more amusing if this a bit less appalling. That appears to be David Battley, later of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory and Eric Idle and Neil Innes’ Rutland Weekend Television, as ‘Geronimo’.

• qka

  October 2, 2011 at 5:36 pm · Reply

  @Keir Hardie

  Agreed – in 1968 this sort of thing was starting to be considered culturally insensitive, at least in the US. (He may have been born in India, but this song is about Native American “Indians.)

  This song from the 1946 US Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun, about real the Annie Oakley.

  In 1950 Annie Get Your Gun was made into a movie, starring Betty Hutton as Annie. I prefer her version of this song, in part because it was from a time that was culturally different, and also that the musical touches on her relationship with the famous Lakota Sioux Chief Sitting Bull

  This performance takes that out of context.

• bloods and crisps

  January 10, 2012 at 2:07 pm · Reply

  In fact that’s Bruce Welch and Hank Marvin of The Shadows dressed as ‘Indians’ with Cliff. That doesn’t make it any less dreadful, admittedly.

• Beezer

  April 19, 2012 at 8:57 pm · Reply

  I take it this was a rehersal as there is no audience recation or canned laughter. Or maybe BBC Television Theatre was packed with an audience who sat dumb struck by the performance.

• KR5

  April 29, 2012 at 1:49 pm · Reply

  Lots of stuff from forty years ago was dreadful, tasteless and decidedly unfunny – but nobody thought so at the time.

• Mark2

  May 8, 2012 at 10:59 am · Reply

  KR5 is quite right. I wonder what we do today that will strike us as tasteless forty years from now.