Nursery rhyme rhymes became associated with the idea of political correctness. Most attempts to reform nursery rhymes on this basis appear to be either very small scale, light-hearted updating, like Felix Dennis's "When Jack Sued Jill – Nursery Rhymes for Modern Times" (2006), or satires written as if from the point of view of political correctness in order to condemn reform. The controversy in Britain in 1986 over changing the language of "Baa Baa Black Sheep" because, it was alleged in the popular press, it was seen as racially dubious, was apparently based only on a rewriting of the rhyme in one
Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes mentioned that "Machine Gun Blues" would be the album's first single and available for download via iTunes on November 16. Critical reviews of "Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes" were mostly positive. AllMusic's Mark Deming gave the album a rating of three-and-a-half stars out of five and states that it "is clearly the work of a band that still gives a damn about their rock & roll, no matter how familiar the surroundings. While 2004's "Sex, Love and Rock 'N' Roll" saw Ness digging deeper into personal concerns, Hard Times finds him stepping back a few paces; while 'Can't Take It