Changing lyrics for the radio

Cafe Society
1

The death of Jimmy Buffett reminded me that lyrics for ‘Margaritaville’ were changed for radio broadcast.

Original:
Nothin’ to show but this brand new tattoo
But it’s a real beauty
A Mexican cutie
How it got here I haven’t a clue

Radio version:
Nothin’ to show but this brand new sunburn
But it’s a real beauty
A Mexican cutie
How it got here I haven’t a clue

I can’t find the alternate lyrics online, but I distinctly remember them from a long time ago. Apparently, someone didn’t want kids to think it was cool to get tattoos. (I wonder how that worked out?)

Then I thought of The Eagles’ ‘Life’s Been Good’.

Original lyrics:
I have a limo ride in the back.
I lock the doors in case i’m attacked.

Radio version:
I have a limo I ride in the trunk
I lock the doors in case I get drunk

Neither change makes since. A sunburn is a cutie? Ride in the trunk if you’re intoxicated… in a limo?

Any others?

2

Devil Went Down To Georgia was “told you once you son of a gun” on AM radio, instead of SOB on FM radio.

I’m pretty sure I remember Who Are You using “hell” on AM, but the other word on FM.

I think they bleeped out “satellite radio” in Boom Boom Pow when played on terrestrial radio.

3

I’m pretty sure the ‘… ride in the back / I lock the doors in case i’m attacked.’ lines are from the studio version of the song, and ‘… I ride in the trunk / I lock the doors in case I get drunk’ is from a live version that got a fair amount of radio play. So it was a humorous live alt-take, not a radio edit.

4

CeeLo Green’s “Forget You.”

5

The Steve Miller Band’s “Jet Airliner” – the album version has the line:

The AM radio version changed this to:

6

Agreed; I’ve only ever heard the studio versions of the song (which is originally from a Joe Walsh solo album), and I’ve not ever heard the “trunk/drunk” version, only the “back/attacked” lines.

Here’s the lyrics from the original album version, with “back/attacked”:

And, here’s the lyrics from an Eagles live album from 1980 (two years after Walsh originally released the song), which have the “trunk/drunk” lyrics, as well as a variant on the “They write me letters, tell me I’m great” line, rewritten to poke fun at his fellow Eagles bandmates.

7

There’s the radio edit to Van Morrison’s ‘Brown Eyed Girl’: instead of “makin’ love in the green grass / behind the stadium with you’ a previous line was edited in: ‘laughin’ and a runnin’, hey hey / behind the stadium with you”.

8

“Kodachrome” by Paul Simon

When I think back at all the crap I learned in high school

The second verse begins
If you took all the girls I knew when I was single

Some radio stations took the “girls I knew” in the second verse and spliced it onto the first.

When I think back at all the girls I knew in high school.

Famously, the BBC had Ray Davies fly back to London from New York to record the line:

tastes just like Coca-Cola

to

tastes just like cherry cola

The BBC didn’t allow the name of commercial product. The album version had “Coca Cola,” but the single used “cherry cola.”

9

Regarding Margaritaville: I can’t seem to find any mention of the lyric change you have brought up. Could you have just misremembered? Also, “sunburn” and “clue” don’t rhyme.

10

Taylor Swift’s song “Karma” has the line “Flexing like a goddam acrobat” changed to “Flexing like a Vegas acrobat”.

Dire Straits had the lyrics in “Money for Nothing” changed from “That little faggot got his own jet airplane, that little faggot he’s a millionaire” to “That little boy got his own jet airplane, that little boy he’s a millionaire”. There is also a version of the song where the word “faggot” is just silenced.

I haven’t heard the edited version, but apparently Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” had the lyrics “P-p-p-poker face, p-p-poker face” edited to “P-p-p-poker face, face, face, face” because some radio stations thought she was saying “f-f-f*ck her face”. I have heard the radio edit to her song “Applause” where they censored out “Koons” from “One second I’m a Koons fan, suddenly the Koons is me” because people mistakenly thought she was saying the C word.

11

I don’t remember ever hearing a “sunburn” version, either. This Youtube link is to what appears to be the original 45 RPM single release of the song, which is sped up a bit, and omits a verse and an instrumental break, compared to the album version, but the “tattoo” line is in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQkPxI3JISw

It’s possible that certain radio stations did their own edit to take out “tattoo,” I suppose.

12

These days I hear both versions on the radio, depending on the station.

13

Agreed. “Classic rock” stations tend to play the “funky shit” version, but as an example, the “70s on 7” station on SiriusXM, on which they attempt to emulate the sound and format of a 1970s top-40 station, usually plays the “funky kicks” version – I imagine that it’s because that’s the version you would have actually heard on a top-40 station back then.

14

I heard the edited version of “Poker Face” today. I was paying close attention as the “fuck her face” is the version I know and had thought I recently heard an edited version of it. (I did not know one was out there.) But she’s, IMHO, definitely sneaking a “fuck her face” in there in the original. I had thought she even admitted it, but I could be wrong.

15

I recall hearing it as “that little queenie’s got his own jet airplane, that little queenie he’s a millionaire.”

16

The two I recall hearing recently
“Shakin’” by Eddie Money
Original:
“Got so high we had to pull to the side”
Radio:
“Music so loud we had to pull to the side”

And with “Teenage Dirtbag” by Wheatus, the censoring makes me laugh
Original:
“Her boyfriend’s a dick, he brings a gun to school”
Radio:
“Her boyfriend’s a dick, he brings a ____ to school”

17

This is a local example. There was a radio station, call letters WDRQ, that did a few cutsie edits to get their “Q” highlighted.

Original lyric (Brownsville Station, “Smokin’ in the Boys’ Room”)"

WDRQ lyric:

Original lyric (Rod Stewart, “Maggie May”)"

WDRQ lyric:

mmm

18

My experience is that when I was a kid (80s and 90s) it was played uncensored, but starting some time later, like after the turn of the millennium or so, it was replaced with the censored version. The same with Bob Seger’s “Shit, I’ve known that for ten years!” in his babbling about Detroit rock fans being the best in the world on one of his songs from Live Bullet. The same for “bullshit” in Pink Floyd’s “Money”. The list probably goes on.

Given the testimony in this thread though, I’m now coming to think that there were always multiple versions, but the radio station at some point decided to start using all the censored versions, since I really only heard this stuff on one specific radio station. It might coincide with an ownership change, maybe a switch to all-digital where their supplier provided the censored version only, or maybe a fine being levied. I don’t know.

19

I remember a gold digger that didn’t mess with “broke broke”.

20

Jefferson Starship’s Miracles has some lyrics that never make it to radio. I think they just cut the whole sections of the song that contains them:

“I had a taste of the real world (just a drop of it)
When I went down on you, girl,”

and

“You ripple like the river when I touch you (let me touch you)
Then I pluck your body like a string (show you what I mean)
Then I start dancing inside you”