I’m starting to think the whole Casey Kasem/“Killing an Arab” thing is an urban legend. I tried researching it after a few of you questioned it, and couldn’t find anything. I swear, I heard the story from at least three different people when I was in college. Three gullible people, apparently. Ignorance fought! However, it does seem that the song has been used (stupidly and out-of-context) as an anti-Arab song, to the extent that Robert Smith has recently performed the song live as “Kissing an Arab” and has changed lyrics in the first verse.
As for “Justify My Love,” like I said, it was the video that was controversial rather than the song itself. The video was pretty racy and explicit for its day. I contained a little nudity, and some dudes kissing. MTV banned it, and it was a big enough deal that they ran it on Nightline and followed it with a discussion about it. The Wikipedia article has a little more detail.
I can see how the UL got started about this. Billie Holliday’s recording of it is one very depressing song.
Here’s my sarcastic take on controversial songs:
Record company exec to publicist: “Madonna’s latest single isn’t getting enough airplay. Do something about it now or you’re fired!”
Publicist on phone to American Family Association: “Hello. You know that new Madonna song? The one that all the kids are listening to? Did you realize that song is about masturbation? Listen to it carefully. In the first line, she uses the word ‘beat’ and in the second line, she uses the word ‘meet’. That’s a secret code for the teenagers.”
Rev. Wildemon (?) to secretary: “Get WFART TV on the phone. Tell them we’ll be be down at Sinful Record Store at 6:00 to protest the Madonna song. Then get Billy Joe Bob and Mildred on the phone and tell them to bring their signs from last time.”
Live at 6:00 at Sinful Records, the WFART TV (owned by the same company that produces Madonna’s record) reporter reports: “We’re here live at Sinful Records where …”
The camera man discretely avoids panoramic shots that would reveal that there are only four protestors. The reporter tactfully avoids asking anyone if they’ve actually listened to the song. Everyone goes home happy.
Then someone starts a recreational outrage thread about the whole thing in the Pit.
They changed the lyrics to appear on Ed Sullivan. Not so Dylan, who walked out when at the last minute the Sullivan staff told him he couldn’t play “John Birch Society Blues.”
Never released officially until the bootleg series, but I have a copy of the version that was supposed to go on Freewheelin’. They’ve all got different jokes.
Maybe because I was in New York, but I never heard any controversy about The Pusher. It is so clearly anti-drug that only a deaf lamebrain could think it is calling for the use of drugs. Don’t Step on the Grass, Sam, a pro-weed song, would be a different story.
When I was in grade school (late 1970s), my classmates & I heard a lot about Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” having the lyrics “My Sweet Satan” playing backward in it.
My friends & I played that song backward on a reel-to-reel player (remember those?) and heard nothing but garbled noise. We were majorly disappointed.
Yeah, I’ve heard that. Someone on the Web transcribes the backward lyrics as “There was a toolshed where he made us suffer/My sweet Satan.” If it’s Satanism, it’s hilariously lame.
The Smiths had a couple songs that offended the offendable back in their day. Actually, Suffer Little Children (all links from wikipedia), the very first song Morrissey and Johnny Marr wrote together sparked a reaction:
Reel Around The Fountain and The Hand That Rocks The Cradle were dubbed as paedophilic by at least one newspaper. And on his own after the Smiths broke up, Morrissey was accused of racism due to The National Front Disco and Bengali In Platforms.
I remember the big flap that happened when The Doors were asked to change the line ‘Girl we couldn’t get much higher,’ to ‘Girl we couldn’t get much better’ in Light My Fire for the Ed Sullivan Show because, oh, that might an evil scary drug reference! :rolleyes: Only Morrison didn’t, and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it as the show was live. Sullivan refused to shake their hands afterwards.
In light of this thread, it was amusing to go to an elementary school concert last night and hear both “Louie, Louie” and “Stairway to Heaven” as interpreted by the Cadet Band and Orchestra.
Also, let’s not forget the ruck over Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before on the Strangeways album. The line referring to mass murder was considered insensitive after the Hungerford massacre. Probably one of the few times that Morrissey wasn’t trying to be provocative, but fate intervened.
I don’t think it was the “message” so much as the actual lyrics that got this song frowned upon.
“I said goddamn
god damn
the pusher”
At least I know it got us thrown out of the First Baptist Church basement when we played it live. And we were only rehearsing!
Obligatory Alice Cooper - “Only Women Bleed”. You wouldn’t believe how many people take that one literally! It’s not about menstruation, it’s about abuse. “Dead Babies” is along the same lines, being about child neglect.
Some paens to drugs that were disguised as lovely pop songs:
“There She Goes,” by The La’s
“Golden Brown,” by The Stranglers
“Perfect Day,” by Lou Reed
New Order’s “True Faith” originally contained the lines “When I was a very small boy/Very small boys talked to me/Now that we’ve grown up together/They’re all taking drugs with me.” Producer Stephen Hague suggested the change at the last minute, but I heard the original lyric when I saw it performed live at the Hammerstein Ballroom.
I think the beauty of these songs, though, is that it isn’t at all obvious to the average teenager that they’re about smack or E. At least it wasn’t to me. And therefore… not very controversial at all, I suppose!
Well, not obvious until the nearest adult handwringer pointed it out
Seriously, though, you’re probably right. I’m 41 years old, and just a couple months ago I heard The Eagles’ Life in the Fast Lane (a song I first heard as a teenager) on the radio and suddenly realized, “My god! This song is all about cocaine!”
What music thread would be complete without tossing in a couple of country-music examples?
(Yes, country music can be controversial, even to country fans!)
Toby Keith wasn’t allowed to play his 9/11-reaction hit The Angry American (Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue) at the big ABC concert because of the line “We’ll put a boot in your a**, it’s the American way!” Remember, this was only weeks after 9/11, and looooong before his thing with the Dixie Chicks.
Also, superstar Tim McGraw did a song about abortion, Red Rag Top , and took a lot of flak for Indian Outlaw, which, in a three-verse song contains about every Native American cliche known to man!
I remember this. It was Peter Jennings who…ahem…put the boot in Keith’s plan to play that song. I remember Keith retorting, “Isn’t [Jennings] Canadian?”
“Indian Outlaw” may be the dumbest country lyrics I’ve ever read. :eek:
