# Oddest song controversies that you can remember. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 13, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575 "2014-11-13T22:36:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/61 "2014-11-15T00:50:54Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The best known one by far was “Stairway to Heaven”. The guitar solo is almost as good backwards as it is forward. (and: Here’s to my sweet satan!") ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/62 "2014-11-15T01:07:50Z")
> [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](#): > > The strangest censoring job I remember occurred in the late 1970s when Frank Zappa’s “Titties and Beer” was a staple of Doctor Demento’s Top 10. As expected, the FCC-rejected F and S bombs were bleeped. But most of the minor cuss words were unscathed. But there was one bleep I couldn’t figure out until I got ahold of the album. > > No bleeping… > Titties (many, many, many times) > whore > ass > son of a bitch > > Bleeped… > farted > > Huh??? I remember when “fart” was considered so bad, not only were you not allowed to say it on the air, you couldn’t even allude to flatulence. As George Carlin noted, it was worse than “fuck” because you could use synonyms such as “making love,” “sleeping together,” or even “having sex.” But you couldn’t use more innocent-sounding phrases such as “breaking wind,” “passing gas,” “tooting,” or even the clinical word “flatuence”. I think things started to cut loose (heh) with regards to “fart” in the 90s. ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/63 "2014-11-15T01:18:25Z")
My local CBS station did air the Seeger song but faded out the last verse. It was years before I finally heard the full version. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/64 "2014-11-15T02:08:50Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > When Pearl Jam’s _Jeremy_ video got pulled from MTV because everyone was afraid of the school shootings it would inspire, the radio station in Raleigh NC stopped playing the song as well. “Jeremy” was never pulled from MTV. When the video was released in 1992, fear of school shootings wasn’t that big of an issue. “Jeremy” remained in heavy rotation for a couple of years. I’d say it wasn’t until about 1997 (the year of the Pearl, MS and West Paducah, KY shootings) that there started to be a lot of public concern about school shootings, and by that time “Jeremy” was rarely played on MTV because it was _old_. It’s my recollection that it did continue to show up on “Biggest Videos of All Time” type specials on MTV even after the 1999 Columbine shooting. It’s true that there was some controversy about the “Jeremy” video depicting a school shooting, which is funny because the only reason viewers thought that was because MTV had censored the original ending! The song is about a boy who commits suicide in front of his classmates, and was inspired by a newspaper article about the 1991 suicide of a boy named Jeremy Wade Delle. In the original cut of the video, which I don’t believe ever aired on MTV, the actor playing Jeremy is shown putting the gun _in his mouth_. In the edited version the image zooms in on Jeremy’s eyes so you can’t see what he’s doing with the gun. This change was presumably intended to make the video seem less violent and to avoid encouraging copycat suicides. But since the video ends with an image of Jeremy’s blood-splattered classmates, this change made it easy to interpret the video as a much _more_ violent story about a boy who opened fire on his class. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/65 "2014-11-15T02:13:43Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Does anybody remember some of the other songs where the devil decided to do a backward solo? The beginning of “Empty Spaces” on Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It actually says 'Congratulations you found the secret message…". ETA: There’s that chick getting killed on “Love Rollercoaster”. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/66 "2014-11-15T02:51:26Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Does anybody remember some of the other songs where the devil decided to do a backward solo? ELO’s “Fire on High,” from _Face The Music_ has a backward bit that says **The music is reversible, but time…turn back, turn back…**. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/67 "2014-11-15T03:09:12Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > In the original cut of the video, which I don’t believe ever aired on MTV, the actor playing Jeremy is shown putting the gun _in his mouth_. In the edited version the image zooms in on Jeremy’s eyes so you can’t see what he’s doing with the gun. This change was presumably intended to make the video seem less violent and to avoid encouraging copycat suicides. But since the video ends with an image of Jeremy’s blood-splattered classmates, this change made it easy to interpret the video as a much _more_ violent story about a boy who opened fire on his class. Indeed, there were a couple school rampages where the shooter claimed to have been inspired by the (edited) “Jeremy” video! > [@Sampiro](#): > > Does anybody remember some of the other songs where the devil decided to do a backward solo? Judas Priest was famously sued by the parents of two suicidal teenagers who presumably were “encouraged” to kill themselves by a backwards message in the Priest song [“Better By You, Better Than Me.”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_By_You,_Better_Than_Me#Judas_Priest_version) The band was acquitted primarily because it couldn’t be proven that they had _intentionally_ inserted that message. :dubious: There have been numerous other crazy claims about so-called backwards masking in rock music. One of them, in Styx’s “Snowblind” (which allegedly said “Satan is in our voices!” when played backwards) got the band so cheesed off that they deliberately inserted a backwards message in their next album, _Kilroy Was Here_ – at the beginning of “Heavy Metal Poisoning”, James Young can be heard reciting the backwards phrase: [_“Annuit Cœptis, Novus Ordo Seclorum!”_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States) which probably confused the hell out of those devil-hating anti-music freaks. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/68 "2014-11-15T03:32:21Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Anyone else remember examples of the _Backwards Masking_ craze of the early 1980s? > > The only one I remember specifically without googling is Olivia Newton John’s _Let’s Get Physical_, which was supposed to say “I’ve Got Demons” when played backwards. > > My high school math teacher, a prototype for Dana Carvey’s The Church Lady, absolutely believed this and played us a cassette warning us about it in math class (it was a private school). It had other “examples” as well. > > Does anybody remember some of the other songs where the devil decided to do a backward solo? > [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](#): > > Can anyone actually understand messages recorded backwards? The Christian band Petra had one song with a backward message: “Why are you looking for Satan when you should be looking for the Lord?” ---
**Author:** ![Flywheel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Flywheel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flywheel)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/69 "2014-11-15T04:15:14Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > The Christian band Petra had one song with a backward message: “Why are you looking for Satan when you should be looking for the Lord?” Weird Al had one with the backward message “Wow, you must have an awful lot of free time on your hands.” (and another one with “Satan eats Cheez Whiz!”.) ---
**Author:** ![GrumpyBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bc8723/32.png) [@GrumpyBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrumpyBunny)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/70 "2014-11-15T04:25:04Z")
I remember a big brou-ha-ha over the Cure’s song “Killing an Arab”. Some groups thought it was anti-Arab. It was actually inspired by a pivotal scene in Camus’ book _The Stranger_. Robert Smith, the vocalist for the Cure, would sometimes sing the lyric as “killing an Englishman” to make a point. > [@Sampiro](#): > > Does anybody remember some of the other songs where the devil decided to do a backward solo? Nothing specific, but one of the frothier fundamentalists I used to know once told that Steely Dan had “sold their souls to the devil”. And I still think “for smooth jazz-rock?” ---
**Author:** ![Obeseus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbce88/32.png) [@Obeseus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obeseus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/71 "2014-11-15T04:39:55Z")
Not a problem on the radio version, but when singing _Look Good in Blue_ live, Deborah Harry would sometimes have an extra-long pause after the word ‘head’ in the following: _Yes, i could give you some head And shoulders to lie on._ ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/72 "2014-11-15T04:44:26Z")
> [@xizor](#): > > When Pearl Jam’s _Jeremy_ video got pulled from MTV because everyone was afraid of the school shootings it would inspire, the radio station in Raleigh NC stopped playing the song as well. > [@cochrane](#): > > Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” which was inspired by a Catholic girl Joel was in love with. In the song he’s pressuring Virginia to have sex with him with lines like “You Catholic girls start much too late” and “That stained glass curtain you’re hiding behind never lets in the sun.” Several archdioceses put pressure on radio stations not to play the song. He received death threats when he played the song in St. Louis and was advised against playing it on SNL. Joel explained the song wasn’t anti-Catholic so much as it was pro-lust and he points out that the girl never agreed to sleep with him and kept her virginity. The controversy has long since blown over and the song remains a staple of classic rock radio. Funny that “Only the Good Die Young” had some sort of controversy associated with it…a couple of years ago, some stations stopped playing Kesha’s “Die Young” after the Newtown school shootings.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/73 "2014-11-15T05:05:35Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > I wonder how Casey Kasem handled things when the Butthole Surfers had a Top 40 hit. 😛 When the Butthole Surfers played a concert in Birmingham, AL in the 90’s the radio ads for the show referred to them as the “B-Hole Surfers”. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/74 "2014-11-15T06:18:23Z")
> [@buddha\_david](#): > > at the beginning of “Heavy Metal Poisoning”, James Young can be heard reciting the backwards phrase: [_“Annuit Cœptis, Novus Ordo Seclorum!”_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Seal_of_the_United_States) which probably confused the hell out of those devil-hating anti-music freaks. Only the ones who hadn’t bought into the New World Order [del]Jewish[/del] Illuminati [del]Jewish[/del] Zionist conspiracy theories that said the [del]Jewish[/del] Eastern Bankers were running the world into the ground so Satan could lead us all into One World Government FEMA Concentration Camps replete with disposable coffins and black helicopters. Alex Jones rants about it now, but it was definitely part of the pre-9/11 CT mindset that flared up in the 1990s, from much older precursors. They would have found that to be right in line with their beliefs. Their Officially Not-Anti-Semitic beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/75 "2014-11-15T18:15:07Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > When the Butthole Surfers played a concert in Birmingham, AL in the 90’s the radio ads for the show referred to them as the “B-Hole Surfers”. Ca. 1990, there was a heavy metal band called the Reverb Motherfuckers. My brother was a college DJ at the time, and people could (and did) play literally anything between midnight and 6am. One of his DJs wanted to play a track from them and call them “Reverb MFs” but he said no, they couldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/76 "2014-11-15T19:08:00Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > [Is Broadway’s Jesus Christ Superstar sacrilegious?](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/06/27/is-broadways-jesus-christ-superstar-sacrilegious-poll/) You had to be around when it was released to remember the brouhaha surrounding that one. I do indeed remember. People forget that it wasn’t just Christians who objected. As with The Last Temptation of Christ and The Passion of the Christ, Jewish characters had a very prominent role in getting Jesus killed. You can’t get a more sympathetic portrayal of Pilate and more villianous of Caiaphas & Annas than in JCS. ---
**Author:** ![davidm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/davidm/32/225_2.png) [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/77 "2014-11-15T19:44:38Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > [Is Broadway’s Jesus Christ Superstar sacrilegious?](http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/06/27/is-broadways-jesus-christ-superstar-sacrilegious-poll/) You had to be around when it was released to remember the brouhaha surrounding that one. I remember that. On top of the overall “it’s sacrilegious” nonsense, people complained about “the beat”. “Oh it’s awful. Did you hear that beat?” I still have no idea how a beat can be offensive. It wasn’t even really rock. It was a Broadway Musical. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2014, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/78 "2014-11-15T20:23:17Z")
To this day Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al, et al. will take you up on _Brown Sugar_. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2014, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/79 "2014-11-16T04:32:34Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > The CSN&Y hit “Ohio” got NO airplay when it was charting in the rest of the country. I had some cousins my age who had never heard the song. Similarly, the song “Jesse Don’t Like It” (1990), making fun of North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms’ efforts to defund the Robert Mapplethorpe photo exhibit, got a fair amount of airplay in much of the country, esp. in my hometown of Washington, DC. But friends of mine went down to North Carolina with a CD of it and the people they were visiting were dumbfounded; they had no idea such a song existed. “The painting Jesse likes is the one of the clown/With a flower in his hand and a tear rolling down…” ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575/80 "2014-11-17T19:56:41Z")
One I remember here in the more prudish areas of the Midwest was Exile’s _Kiss You All Over._ Apparently the slightest hint of oral sex was enough for many radio stations to keep that off the air. > [@kunilou](#): > > These memories intrigue me, because. . . > > I was working at a radio station when “Having My Baby” came out. Our station manager pulled it off the air. To the best of my knowledge, no one had complained about it – it was the manager who objected to it. > > The stations I worked at also pulled “Take This Job and Shove It” (the owner’s wife objected to it); “Only the Good Die Young” (the Catholic priest in town objected, and the Protestant ministers backed him up); a Rod Stewart song called “The Killing of Georgie” (gay kid gets murdered); Loretta Lynn’s “The Pill” (the wife can finally get back at her cheatin’ husband); something by Pink Floyd that I can’t remember the title right now; and several other songs where trying to excise the offensive words or lines butchered the song so badly we gave up trying. I was music director at a radio station in Iowa in the late 80s, and I added XTC’s _Dear God_ to the rotation (yeah, I was waaay too out there for that gig, I know). After we’d played it for a week or so, one of the DJs pulled the actual record out of the studio and slid it under the station owner’s office door with a note decrying its blasphemous nature. Which means, of course, the guy didn’t actually **listen** to the lyrics … it’s far more anti-mankind’s-inhumanity than it is anti-God, but you have to pay attention to figure that out. > [@Soylent\_Juicy](#): > > There was a controversy a few years ago here in Canada about the Dire Straits “Money for Nothing” verse > > I read somewhere that the gays themselves aren’t offended, but my city’s local radio station still plays it without that entire verse. As mentioned elsewhere, the standard single/radio edit of _Money for Nothing_ cuts that verse. You have to actually get the album version to play the whole thing. > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > The Who’s “Who Are You” has always been played on the radio with the F bomb intact. At least around here, there’s a radio edit with “who the hell are you” substituted. So not _always_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oddest-song-controversies-that-you-can-remember/704575.md?page=5)