"Arabian Nights" Lyrics

Original Verse:
Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam
Where they cut off your ear
If they don't like your face
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home
When the wind's from the east

And the sun's from the west
And the sand in the glass is right
Come on down
Stop on by
Hop a carpet and fly
To another Arabian night

Arabian nights
Like Arabian days
More often than not
Are hotter than hot
In a lot of good ways

Arabian nights
'Neath Arabian moons
A fool off his guard
Could fall and fall hard
Out there on the dunes


Click here for "Arabian Nights" video:

When children hear the word “Arab" what is the first thing that comes to mind? Perhaps the imagery of Disney’s Arabian Nights’ fantasy film Aladdin, a film which has been immensely popular in theaters and on video and is sometimes shown in school classrooms.

Yet Arab Americans have problems with this film. Although in many ways it is charming, artistically impressive, and one of the few American films to feature an Arab hero or heroine, a closer look reveals some disturbing features.

The film’s light-skinned lead characters, Aladdin and Jasmine, have Anglicized features and Anglo-American accents. This is in contract to the other characters who are dark-skinned, swarthy and villainous-cruel palace guards or greedy merchants with Arabic accents and grotesque facial features.

One of the main problems that the film Aladdin faced was the controversy over the opening song, "Arabian Nights."  One of the verses of the opening song "Arabian Nights" was altered following protests from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The lyrics were changed in July 1993 from "Where they cut off your ear if they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home," in the original release to "Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense/It's barbaric, but, hey, it's home."

The change first appeared on the 1993 video release.The original lyric was intact on the initial CD soundtrack release, but the re-release uses the edited lyric.

The ADC also complained on how lead characters Aladdin and Jasmine resemble light-skinned Europeans and have European accents, while most of the other characters in the film, who are dark-skinned and have Arab accents and facial features, appear villainous or greedy.

In June of 2006, Etertainment Weekly placed Disney's "Aladdin" at #25 of their most controversial list - Click here for list

I personally do not think it deserves to be on a that list and I found a website that agrees with me.
            - Click here for list of 25 films more controversial then Aladdin.

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