Whitegirl Georgia Gibbs, covering Hank Ballard and the Midniters’ “Work with Me, Annie” changed it to “Dance with Me, Henry” to make it less sexy.
Elvis was hidden on Ed Sullivan from the waist down, because dancing like a “Negro” would have offended lilywhite America’s delicate sensibilities.
1960s. They accused Peter, Paul, and Mary of singing “Puff the Magic Dragon” to promote marijuana (but was the song actually censored?).
A Blue Meanie, i.e. a cop, kicked George Harrison off the stage at a Beatles concert in Cleveland (to the eternal disgrace of my hometown). (Postscript: in the film Let It Be, George refused to let the cops intimidate him again: when they were playing “Get Back” on the rooftop, and some businessmen called the cops, the other Beatles started to falter when the bobbies appeared on the rooftop. George saved the day by running to his amp, cranking the volume all the way up, and jamming harder than before. Everyone resumed the song and finished it unmolested. Yay George!)
Conservatives were outraged at the political content of Barry McGuire’s anti-nuclear war protest song “Eve of Destruction” and tried to have it banned.
Because John Lennon said the Beatles were “bigger than Jesus” the Ku Klux Klan organized mass burnings of Beatles records and threatened John.
The producer of Ed Sullivan ordered the Doors to change the lyrics to “Light My Fire” when they appeared on his show so nobody would think the word “higher” was a drug reference. Jim Morrison sang “higher” anyway and the Doors were never invited back again.
When the Stones appeared on Ed Sullivan, they were ordered to change “Let’s Spend the Night Together” to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together.”
1969? Jim Morrison was arrested at a Doors concert for saying “fuckin’” on stage. (If the Oliver Stone movie is to be believed.)
The Blue Meanies, I mean cops, raided Bag One Productions and seized drawings by John Lennon in which he had lovingly depicted his and Yoko’s sex life. At his trial for obscenity, he was acquitted. (OK, this was about art, not music, but still … we’re talking about John Lennon!)
Wendy O. Williams was arrested for showing her boobs onstage.
Parents Music Resource Center attacks many bands because of their lyrics and holds Congressional hearings to bring them under control. Frank Zappa calls them the “Mothers of Prevention” and spends the last years of his life promoting voter registration drives to protect First Amendment rights.
Several DJs announced a ban on playing Cat Stevens records because of his remarks on the Salman Rushdie controversy, and even staged mass destruction of Cat Stevens records (like a bad-trip flashback of the Klan burning Beatles records in the 60s).
Police associations demanded a ban on Ice-T’s song “Cop Killer.”
Police associations tried to ban Bruce Springsteen’s song “American Skin” about the slaying of Amadou Diallo.
Madonna’s Like A Prayer video was considered blasphemous and even MTV declined to put it on air during prime time. They would only play it late at night.
1968 - The MC5’s debut album Kick Out The Jams contains the stirring spoken introduction:
Electra records decide to clunkily drop in the phrase ‘brothers and sisters’ instead of the offending word.
1994 - Black Metal band Darkthrone’s Transylvanian Hunger LP comes out with the words ‘Norsk Arisk Black Metal’ on the back (meaning ‘Norwegian Aryan Black Metal’). Their English record label decides to drop the band, then removes the message from the back of future pressings. Darkthrone put out a press release criticising their critics for “Jewish behaviour”, then claim they didn’t mean it as a racial slur.
1986 - The Dead Kennedys put out a record called Frankenchrist which includes a poster of numerous willies. The record label offices are raided, and band and label are put on trial for obscenity which, although they win, destroys the band. To this day, CD reissues don’t have the willy picture.
I thought that Elvis’ dancing problem was to do with the fact it was so sexual, rather than that it was dancing like a black person.
I’d also heard that the story about Jim Morrison saying ‘higher’ on TV was made up by Oliver Stone, and that he’d actually muffled the line, as he was asked to (I’ve heard both versions, though).
I thought of one fake incidents of censorship, used by the band for promotion:
There was a rumour that Pink Floyd had to change the name of the newspaper mentioned in It Would Be So Nice from the real “Evening Standard” to the fictional “Daily Standard”. It seems that this isn’t true, as there has never been a version of the song discovered with the ‘Evening Standard’ reference.
In 1969, the Beatles’ “The Ballad of John and Yoko” was banned in South Africa because of the apparently blasphemous “Christ, you know it ain’t easy” refrain. I’d say unkind things about South Africa’s morals in the sixties, but they aren’t even necessary.
Nope. Like A Prayer was in heavy rotation all day long for months on MTV. Perhaps you are either confusing it with the Pepsi commercial that was only shown once, with the Erotica or Justify My Love videos that were either outright banned or only shown late at night.
Wendy O Williams (Plasmatics) was arrested for masturbating on stage with a sledgehammer.
Jane’s Addiction released the album ‘Ritual de lo Habitual’ featuring stocking puppets in semi-pornographic activities, which led to the white cover album as a protest by JA, after the original was pulled from shelves.
The Rolling Stones on Ed Sullivan had to change “Let’s Spend the Night Together” to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”. If you’ve ever seen a clip of this, it’s pretty funny. Mick is rolling his eyes in disgust as he sings the chorus.
Van Morrison had to change “Brown Skinned Girl” to “Brown Eyed Girl”. Don’t know if it was because people didn’t like interracial romances or because people thought “Brown Skinned Girl” was itself racist though (Wonder how “Brown Sugar” ever got released in either case).
The PMRC tried to ban just about everything (or so it seemed) in 1985 and succeeded in getting records labelled.
The elpee Jazz (late 70s) had a titillating fold-out poster of ‘fat-bottomed girls’ on ‘bicycles’ (uniting 2 of the album’s song titles) - this got removed by most recordshop shop owners, IIRC. Don’t know whether the current CD version has a miniature version of the poster - doubt it, though :rolleyes:.
They got into litigation over the lyrics in their song ‘Death on Two Legs’. I was intrigued about this for years - heard a rumour it was about Harold Wilson (British prime minister). Googled for it on the net a couple of years ago; apparently it was about a money-grabbing venue owner or something (far less interesting than the rumour!) On their live album, Freddie M introduces this song as “This is about a [bleep] [bleep]”. I’d love to know what he actually said.
Urban Legend. According to the history of the Sullivan show in American Heritage, Elvis was shown from the waist up because in rehearsals, he kept sticking a beer bottle between his legs despite being told several times to cut it out. The Sullivan show was not going to allow the phallic symbolism on the air, and since the couldn’t count on Elvis to cooperate, they showed him from the waist up.
Album covers:
The original Blind Faith cover was not used in the U.S. (except by special order) because it showed a nude preteen. Nowadays, it’d be child porn, I guess.
A talentless group known as “Mom’s Apple Pie” put out an album that showed a woman holding out an apple pie with a vagina in it. It was pulled and rereleased with a small brick wall covering the spot. However, since the group was managed by Terry Knight, it’s assumed that the entire episode was a cheap attempt to get some publicity.
