# Expected censorship vs. unexpected censorship
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 15, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612 "2020-11-15T04:24:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/1 "2020-11-15T04:24:06Z")
As I mentioned in another thread, Kid Rock’s _Cowboy_ has been stuck in my head ever since Four Seasons Landscaping. That song has one editing built-in, where he intentionally puts “radio edit” from the beginning. But in my area at least, there is one real instance of censorship, where stations bleeped out part of the line about painting the wife white (I think just the word “white”?). Except sometimes they didn’t bleep it. So I’m wondering about other instances of censorship that the creator didn’t actually see coming. Or maybe about things that were censored in some markets but not in others? There’s some sort of thread in here somewhere.
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [November 15, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/2 "2020-11-15T16:54:31Z")
Wow, I always thought that Cowboy song was terrible, but reading the lyrics gives me even less respect for Kid Rock than I already had.
My example is not censorship but shameless self - promotion. As a kid, I used to listen to our local country music station, WITL.
There was a popular song with the lyrics
_I wanna hear a love song and dance real slow_
The radio station always played the song with a badly - dubbed,
_I wanna hear WITL, best in the country!_
They didn’t even try to match the voice or rhythm of the original line. It basically ruined the song, which wasn’t that great to begin with.
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### Author:  [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2020, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/3 "2020-11-16T23:14:52Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#):
>
> There was a popular song with the lyrics
>
> _I wanna hear a love song and dance real slow_
>
> The radio station always played the song with a badly - dubbed,
>
> _I wanna hear WITL, best in the country!_
I remember, when I was a kid, the Pointer Sisters had that song, “Fire”, and the line, “You turn on the radio”, would be changed to, “You turn on KGW”. It did actually sound like the original singer’s voice, and was done in a way that didn’t sound awkward, which made me wonder if they’d officially done a bunch of custom edits for various radio stations.
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### Author:  [@Dark\_Sponge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dark_Sponge)
#### Post date: [November 16, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/4 "2020-11-16T23:42:40Z")
I liked ‘Cowboy’ before I read the lyrics. I think it was the, ‘I can smell a pig from a mile away’ line which amused me the most. It is catchy.
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### Author:  [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/5 "2020-11-17T15:48:34Z")
If I understand the OP correctly, Lola by The Kinks must be the poster child for this thread, at least in the UK. From [the Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_(song)):
> [@](#):
>
> Originally, “Lola” saw controversy for its lyrics. In a Record Mirror article entitled “Sex Change Record: Kink Speaks”, Ray Davies addressed the matter, saying, “It really doesn’t matter what sex Lola is, I think she’s alright”. Some radio stations would fade the track out before implications of Lola’s biological sex were revealed…
>
> **The BBC banned the track for a different reason** : the original stereo recording had the words “Coca-Cola” in the lyrics, but because of BBC Radio’s policy against product placement, Ray Davies was forced to make a 6000-mile round-trip flight from New York to London and back on June 3, 1970, interrupting the band’s American tour, to change those words to the generic “cherry cola” for the single release…
My bold.
j
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/6 "2020-11-17T15:57:57Z")
Zac Brown Band-[Toes.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPsA5psiS8)
The line “I got my toes in the water, ass in the sand”, I’ve heard on some stations and it’s changed to “I got my toes in the water, toes in the sand” (which is a contortion in more than one sense) on others.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/7 "2020-11-17T16:04:10Z")
> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> If I understand the OP correctly, Lola by The Kinks must be the poster child for this thread, at least in the UK. From [the Wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lola_(song)):
Another poster child, I’d think, would be Dire Straits, Money For Nothing. Two versions one with the word faggot, one without. Which one you’re going to hear when it comes on the radio seems to be a coin flip. I know for a while some countries (Canada, maybe?) and some radio stations banned one version, but I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of consistency to it these days.
Also, Who Are You, by The Who. Will they say Who the fuck are you or will you get the edited version?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2020, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/expected-censorship-vs-unexpected-censorship/925612/8 "2020-11-17T16:30:41Z")
Paul Simon’s “Kodachrome” had at least three versions due to censorship. One of the lines is “When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school.”
In the official single version, there was a bleep over “crap.”
But some stations replaced “crap I learned” with the lyrics “girls I knew” from the second verse.