Pop songs that somehow got past the censor, 1955-1985

Cafe Society
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In other words, songs that were played on the radio intact, despite highly “offensive” lines. For example, the AOR station I listened to in the 70’s always played the album version of the Jefferson Starship song “Miracles” intact, complete with the line “I got a taste of the real world/When I went down on you girl”- I didn’t know it was dirty at the time, though.

One that did not get passed the censors is funny, so I’m told- I don’t remember it. Supposedly some stations changed the line in Jethro Tull’s “Locomotive Breath” from “got him by the balls” to “got him by the fun” for airplay.

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Not sure about pre-1985, but I notice with a little amusement that some local radio stations here in Belfast play songs unedited that BBC Radio 1 would carefully edit for somewhat naughty lines, even during the day :slight_smile:

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The Wikipedia says the line for Good Golly Miss Molly: “Sure likes to ball” predates “ball” meaning “sex,” but the OED disagrees*. In any case, stations continued to play the song long after the sexual meaning was established.

*1955 W. GADDIS Recognitions II. i. 308 He used to bring her down here to shock her, and then take her home and ball her…{em}Edna? said Otto, unable to swallow.{em}With him?

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Who are you…Who the fuck are you?

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One thing to keep in mind is that some of the “offensive” words and phrases in old songs didn’t become “offensive” to the general public, and therefore not the censors, until well after the records got to be hits. In some cases the words would be code in some subculture that had yet to make it into common parlance.

Of course, after the man in the street became aware that things like “baby, you sure love to ball” didn’t actually refer to an affinity for dancing, then the powers that be got up in arms about how lewd and corruptive these vile lyrics were.

It takes reference sources like Urban Dictionary to give you the real lowdown on what some popular word or phrase means to the subculture using it before it gets to be mainstream.

I suggest that this feature of lyrics writing continues to elude censors’ abilities to keep up with the language.

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Blondie: Rapture. Debbie Harry stretches out the words “finger fucking” to the point where you can’t really tell what she’s saying unless you read the lyrics. I was pretty shocked when I learned that, after hearing Rapture played so much.

Vlad/Igor

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White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane snuck drug references by the censors.

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For that matter, “rocking and rolling” started as a euphemism for sex.

The way you’re rockin’ and a-rollin’
Can’t hear your momma call

That whole song is not-too-subtle double entendre.

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Vlad/Igor- if you are referring to the part of the song I think you are, it is actually finger popping.

But another Blondie one, if they ever played it on the radio, is from “Look Good in Blue”- “I could give you some head and shoulders to lie on”, with a slight pause after the word “head”.

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Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way”

“You ain’t seen nothin’ 'til you’re down on the muffin.”

The song references, among other things, having a threesome with his neighbor and her sister and her cousin.

Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll”

*Rag doll, livin’ in a movie
Hot tramp, Daddy’s little cutie…

Hot time, get it while it’s easy
Don’t mind, come on up and see me
Rag Doll, baby won’t you do me
Like you done before

Old Tin Lizzie, do it 'til you’re dizzy…*… etc.

Well, just about every Aerosmith song ever. :wink:

The Knack’s “My Sharona”

*Running down the length of my thighs, Sharona
Never gonna stop, give it up. Such a dirty mind.
Always get it up for the touch
of the younger kind. *

The Beatles’ “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road”

The Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down”

And from the first time that she really done me
Oo she done me, she done me good
I guess nobody ever really done me
Oo she done me, she done me good

Madonna’s “Like a Virgin”

And during the bridge of her 1983 hit “Lucky Star” her voice drops really low and sultry and she sings, “Shine your heavenly body tonight.” I think we all know where she was going with that one.

Oh, i guess citing Madonna songs is cheating… :wink:

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No particular references at hand, but doesn’t this pretty much describe Psychadelic Rock as a whole? They generally used metaphors rather than saying, “I took this really good acid and saw some really cool hallucinations, man,” but drug references abounded nonetheless.

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FWIW, and in the same spirit as my earlier post here, I have yet to learn the true meanings to a large portion of Steely Dan’s lyrics. I love their music, but tend to ignore the lyrics. I do that with most music, though. Lyrics rarely get my attention. That may be why the nonsense syllables in early RnR songs (like be-bop-a-lula and a-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom) impressed me as much as the lyrics that tended toward sense.

What I truly love those is how some “songs” can grind out three minutes worth of sound on one and two syllables. Heard one just the other night that had maybe three. Would you believe I don’t even remember what the three words were? It did have a decent beat, though. And whoever was singing it really felt the impact of those words because she almost had an orgasm. Or so it appeared.

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“Not me baby, I’m too precious; fuck off” as snarled by Chrissy Hynde in the Pretenders’ Precious. I heard it on KROQ in LA many times when it first came out, usually whilst being driven to school by my dad :eek: I doubt they still play it that way now.

One that I’ve been hearing lately is the Offspring’s shameless ( well, shameful, really) rip-off of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, in which one line says “my friend’s got a girlfriend and he hates that bitch” and another which says “my friends got a boyfriend, man she hates that dick”. I know we’ve been hearing “bitch” at least since Elton sang about her being back, but when did it become commonplace to say “dick”? I ask this as I listen to Everlast’s “What its Like” with the word “whore” safely edited out. WTF?

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*Pictures of Lily

Rattlesnake Shake

Rosie*

All get airplay, and all are about masturbation.

Not to mention Money:

Money, its a hit.
Dont give me that do goody good bullshit.

Although the single, radio version blanks out the last syllable. But they seem to have stopped playing that version years ago.

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The Rolling Stones - “Let It Bleed”:

Yeah, we all need someone we can cream on
And if you want to, well you can cream on me

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I always fantasize that if I were a DJ, I’d do a “Curse Words Weekend” and just play all the songs that have one or two little bad words in them. There are scads of them that get played all the time…Leroy Brown, Dirty Laundry, Rich Girl, Bad Blood, etc.

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Let’s not forget Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever

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Chuck Berry’s My Ding-A-Ling

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I’ve read that Paul McCartney kicks off “I Saw Her Standing There” from the Please Please Me album with the words, “One, two, three, FUCK!” I’ve listened to this a lot to try and confirm it in my own mind, but I am not so sure I agree. I have, however, decided to believe that it is true, based purely on the coolness factor.

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National Lampoon’s album “Radio Dinner” exists in two editions, due to obscenity. On the track, “Magical Misery Tour”, which parodies an angry John Lennon, the lyrics are mostly obscenities. I’m not sure why it was then re-pressed with all the obscenities bleeped out. There are so many bleeps you can’t tell what the song is about!

The Who actually made a single version for public release and radio, in which Roger redid the lyric to say “who the hell are you?”, but I don’t think it gets much play nowadays. I suspect many have never heard it.

Odd how you can still hear Styx’ “Light Up”, but nobody plays The Monks’ “Drugs In My Pocket.” The latter is not even listed in Billboard (not only did it not enter the Hot 100, it didn’t even Bubble Under), but it was #1 in several markets in Canada. Incidentally, I played that record on a station where Dusty Springfield’s “Son Of A Preacher Man” was banned from airplay. WTF?