I bought a CD compilation of his stuff and the version of that song was AM-bawdlerized. They just left out an entire stanza, left it behind the stadium. I suppose it may have been a completely different recording specifically for radio, because, if it was edited, they did a really good job.
As to the other meaning of the title, well, uh.
And Big Joe Turner’s “TV Mama” was the one with the “big wide screen.”
Let’s Spend the Night Together didn’t receive as much airplay as the other A side, “Ruby Tuesday” but it did reach #55.
It did get censored by Ed Sullivan, story in the link.
So the censors were not all that active.
Now I know just how heaven feels
When she reach beneath my big old steerin’ wheel
Dyna flow, power glide
Bored and stroked, I’m satisfied
When I take my baby for a ride
‘Let it Roll’.
Spot-check Billy got down on his hands and knees
He said “Hey mama, hey let me check your oil all right?”
She said “No, no honey, not tonight
Come back Monday, come back Tuesday, and then I might”
‘Fat Man in the Bath Tub’
I remember reading an interview at the time, probably in New Musical Express, where one of the adults involved with Musical Youth was very open about the process of bowdlerising the song to make it suitable for kids to sing*.
The Wiki page addresses the story of the change from dope pipe to cooking pot.
j
George Carlin’s 7th dirty word was “prick”, not “tits.”
I’ve always heard the Who’s “Who Are You” with that F-bomb at the end left intact and uncensored.
sorry, no, it was tits
And possibly Carlin was extremely high at the time, to include both fuck and motherfucker? In that case, the seven could have been fuck, motherfucker, fuckhead, fuckface, fuckwit, dumbfuck and buttfucker? Or at least it implies any other variation than the two he mentioned were acceptable?
Interesting diversion, but I don’t think he ever put them to music and/or said them on the radio uncensored.
Back on track: Lou Reed’s Walk On The Wild Side:
“Candy came from out on the island,
In the backroom she was everybody’s darling,
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head”
see post #1 
That’s why I said “back on track”. Although most of the time I heard it those lyrics were censored, how was it he got those lyrics to play on the radio at all?
I didn’t hear the song in its hey day, but in the ‘90s, when I got around to stations that played this music, I don’t ever recall hearing it censored. That said, I feel like I hear more censoring now than before. Am I nuts or misremembering? Like I hear lines abou& masturbation being censored now, but I don’t recall that happening in the 90s. Like the Greem Day line: “when masturbation’s lost it’s fun, you’re fucking lonely,” my memories are only the “fucking” being censored but not the “masturbation.” There’s a number of songs like this where I hear non-obscene sexual words being cut out, where before they were aired. I assume this is just some corporate policy stuff, but my impression is that one is more likely to hear songs edited now on the radio than at least since when I grew up (the 80s.)
It was censored out when I heard it on the Mighty KMET in the late 70’s.
And what about “good golly, Miss Molly, you sure like to ball?” I mean, by the 60s, “balling” referred to sexual intercourse. I assume this was the case with this late 50s lyric, especially given the euphemistic tradition of a lot of blues and r&b, but I haven’t quite found a definitive answer on that one. I mean, sure, there’s the interpretation of “sure like to [have a] ball” or “sure like to dance,” etc, but this is Little Richard, so I’ve always assumed the more lascivious interpretation. But I don’t know if the verb “to ball” had the meaning at the time.
Wait, actually, etymonline says jazz slang for “to ball” meaning to copulate goes back to the 40s, so it seems quite likely to me that the meaning was known and intended by Little Richard.
Well, maybe not…
I mean, I’m no virgin, I’ve been listening to those lyrics since they came out, and until your OP it never occurred to me that any of it had to do with “fingerbanging”. So perhaps this scandalous subtext was not as obvious to many of us as it was to you?
I don’t know about the UK, but in the US censors were probably too busy hunting for lyrics with drug references to notice a rather obscure reference to finger fucking in a song so cheery and bright.
Ever read the lyrics to Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”? You would be hard pressed to find another song from that time period that had so much naughtiness. True, Jefferson Starship’s Miracles had Marty Balin crooning, “I got a taste of the real world when I went down on you girl”; however, that line only appears on the longer album version and not on the hit single.
He may have offered different variations in live performances; however, I had the record and the 7th word was, in fact, tits. He went on about how that word did not even belong on the list since it is such a friendly word and sounds like a brand of snack food (not the kind of snack you are thinking about, you pervert 