Back in the day, I remember being amazed at the obscene words that sometimes were allowed to slip onto the radio.
Pearl Jam’s “Jeremy”: clearly I remember pickin’ on the boy seemed a harmless little fuck
although sometimes you’ll hear the radio edit version, which just drops the “fuck”.
Alice in Chain’s “Man in the Box”: I’m the man in the box buried in my shit
I think I’ve also heard a radio version of that song in which “shit” is replaced with “spit”.
Tool’s “Prison Sex”: I have found some kind of temporary sanity in this Shit, blood, and come on my hands
The subject matter of the song is not something you hear too many musicians tackle, either
One of our local classic rock stations, back when they still played “deep cuts” and non-singles used to get away with playing “Some Girls” by the Stones quite often.
I was always surprised how many stations used to play “Rough Boys” by Pete Townsend. I never heard a comment about it or a DJ make a joke about the gay theme of the song until after that minor uproar in the early 90s when Townsend talked about his own homosexual experiences, then it was open season. But you rarely heard the song on the radio (around where I live anyway) after that.
And I’ve been wondering lately, would the Hank Williams song “Kaw-Liga” be considered offensive by Native Americans these days?
a friend of mine who is in the radio business told me that the FCC does not directly get involved in what can and cannot be said or sung on a local radio station…
rather, it is the local community themselves that have the right to complain and possibly restrict content on the station
Does anyone listen to DMX on their digital cable or satellite systems? I listen to the Hard Rock channel and some of the songs leave in the profanity, while others have the profanity muted or cut out altogether. I find this inconsistency rather odd. The web site even warns that on the Hard Rock channel that the songs contain explicit lyrics.
I don’t know the song or the band, but there’s a line:
It’s been awhile, but I can still remember just the way you taste
Okay, so maybe he’s talking about her saliva. But somehow I don’t think that’s it.
And I had no idea there were so many “dirty” lines in “Semi-Charmed Kind of Life” – the only one I knew was the How do I get myself back to the place where I fell asleep inside you part.
Compared to what is played on the radio today, Brown Sugar is tame and utterly harmless. Plus, Jaggers vocals are purposefully buried so far down in the mix that it’s hard to discern them at all.
I just love that when he is asked about Brown Sugar in interviews, Jagger says that he isn’t sure what the lyrics are, as it’s been nearly 30 years since the song was recorded.
Right.
here’s a song that you’ve probably performed in concert no less then 700 times and you rehearsed the damn thing over a 1000 times, yet for the life of you, you can’t remember the lyrics.
As Polairis said, the FCC is not in the business of checking the lyrics of every song played on the radio anywhere in the country against some list of forbidden words. It’s only if listeners complain to the FCC that radio stations will be fined.
So, what can and cannot be heard on the radio is due to community standards and the decisions of whoever is setting the playlist. But, as has been mentioned, if an artist records a track with potentially offensive lyrics the record label will often see to it that an altered version (the “radio edit”) is released as the single.
It wasn’t just the single, but it was only on American pressings of the song. It was a typo, and didn’t mean anything, but some people–what you might call the “Paul is dead” crowd–took it as some kind of racial message.
There are quite a few Led Zeppelin songs:
Whole Lotta Love “way down in side, woman, you need love” “I’m gonna give you every inch of my love”
Lemon Song “Squeeze my lemon, til the juice runs down my leg, squeeze it so I fall right out of bed”
The entire song “Trampled Underfoot”
