Why doesn’t the FCC blow a fuse everytime that Chumbawamba soprano sings, “Pissing the night away”? I thought that was a forbidden word.
Short answer here, because I don’t have time to go into detail. The FCC does not have obscenity police listening to every radio station every moment of the day. They respond to complaints. If no one complains, no problem. If someone complains, they investigate it and decide not to go forward, they won’t follow up on subsequent complaints.
George Carlin to the contrary, there is no list of automatically forbidden words, although the F bomb comes pretty close.
Besides, with Clear Channel running every station in the country, the word is probably edited out anyway. If they Could do it to The Who, they could do it to Chumbawamba.
Which Who song? I was going to come in here to say that, when it first came out, I remember hearing the “Who the fuck are you?” line from “Who Are You?” on the radio over and over.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, Michael Stipe, istead of singing “I never understood the frequency” as he had throughout the rest of the song (“What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?”), on the very last line, switching it to “Don’t fuck with me”, which also made it onto the air.
That was what I was referring to. It has been years since I actually heard that line in the song over the air. Not saying it’s that way everywhere.
I actually thought why stations are allowed to play it (in the US anyway) is that pissing is being used as a euphemism, and the meaning in the lyrics is not pissing as in urinating, but as in fucking off. Sort of like you call someone a dick, but not refer to your dick on radio.
Actually, pissing in this context refers to drinking.
This is one of my favorite bar topics, and I can say that after plenty of recent scrutiny that the “Who the fuck are you” line from “Who Are You” as well as the “Goody-good bullshit” from Pink Floyd’s “Money” have dissappeared from the radio as of late. I blame myself for pointing out that they get away with all sorts of shit on the oldies stations that they can’t on the modern rock stations. I’m truly sorry.
I’ve heard the “seven dirty words” on rock radio stations for decades.
In addition to “Who Are You” and Pink Floyd’s “Money,” you’ll hear “funky shit going down in the city” in Steve Miller’s “Jet Airliner” (it’ll be “funky kicks” on oldies stations that still use the edited, single version).
Guns ‘N’ Roses’ song “Mr. Brownstone” contains the line, “But that old man, he’s a real motherfucker.” For years and years, I’d hear this line unedited on my local rock station. Recently, however, they’ve begin to censor it.
Disturb’s “Down with the Sickness” still gets away with saying “you’re fucking it up” in the refrain. Ironically, they blank out a line at the beginning that might be “Oh, shit” (it’s kinda hard to understand) but IMHO sounds more like “Push it.”
I figured it was because no one could understand what they were saying.
Star 98.7 plays “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow but changes the line “I’ve got a fucked-up job” to “I’ve got a crummy job”.
KROQ, however, makes no changes to the line “Should I fly to Los Angeles/find my asshole brother” from Bush’s “Everything Zen”.
Ha! Move up here! Everything seems to be allowed. It’s a real hoot to watch an episode of our Trailerpark Boys on American TV. There’s barely a line left intact.
On a slightly related note, my band is playing in Vancouver on Nov 11. We’ve got an opening band that I’ve voted the Least Likely To Ever Get American Airplay - the Fuc*stixxs. Yes, they include the “c” - I’m just not getting banned for it!
http://www.billiondollarbabys.com/Shows/Web%20The%20Red%20Room%20-%20Nov%2011.jpg
That’s the poster that we’re supposed to plaster around town. Um, yeah…
That would be the “k”, okay?! :smack:
You mean banned from here? You must be kidding.
My friend is producing a band called Shiny Toy Guns - their CD is coming out in a week or so - lots of pre-orders so it is generating a lot of buzz.
MTV wants to show the video for the first single “Le Disko” - but at the end of a verse there is a line that ends “…with loaded guns.” The song is not about using guns, the line is meant to be like “and we really mean it” - but MTV is making them edit out the line before they’ll show the video. And it’s a killer because it comes at the end of a verse, so there is this random stop in the vocal, then a shift to the chorus. Very very complex to mix around…
I hear a story that MTV made Everclear edit out the line “But I’m happy in hell with my heroin girl” to “But I’m…in hell with my heroin girl” Of course, not having watched videos for 10 years I can’t say.
Speaking of which, it was a long time before I knew that the line from Semi-Charmed life by Third Eye Blind was “Doin Crystal Meth’ll lift you up until you break” – some stations scratched it out, and some didn’t. But I couldn’t undertand the lyrics anyway until I saw someone karaoke it and it displayed on the monitor. If I coudln’t understand it anyway why censor it? 
I had no idea they were saying “pissing.” Maybe that reduced the complaints.
The last nail in the coffin of MTV’s cultural relevance.
You can say Fuckstixxs in Cafe Society. There ain’t no obscenity police on the SDMB.