In Tom Petty’s You Don’t Know How It Feels, the line “Let’s roll another joint” is changed to “Let’s hit another joint” for the radio version.
I kind of like it because it could *still *be a reference to smoking pot, even after being “cleaned up” to seem like it’s about going to a bar. Two meanings for the price of one! I also can identify with it more because I’m a drinker but not a smoker.
Let’s get it started is way better than let’s get retarded. So there’s one already mentioned.
I like both Fuck You and Forget You, but probably give a slight edge to Fuck You. I agree that 3 syllables actually sounds better than two, but I like the emotions more from Fuck You than from Forget You.
Tonight I’m lovin’ you is a terrible cleaned up version of tonight I’m fuckin you, because it completely contradicts the line right before it “Please excuse me I don’t mean to be rude…” Why would “tonight I’m loving you” be rude? It’s not. Tonight I’m fucking you is DEFINITELY rude, but he just can’t help himself. Dumb song either way, really.
Nay, the most epic, legendarily improved song from getting a clean radio edit, is the seminal Superman by Eminem. In one of the cleaned up versions the line “bitches they come they go” became “chickens they come they go” and turned a stupid vulgar song into an amazing allegory on the american chicken farmer.
Another one I remember is an Avril Lavigne song where she said “I’ll have to kick your ass and make you never forget” and the cleaned up version was “I’ll have to kick your arm and make you never forget.” Think about how hard that would be to kick someone in the arm! Makes her even more of a badass if she can pull that off.
How about one that’s not a song but an album cover? The US version of Electric Ladyland, with its dynamic image of a red and yellow-lit Jimi Hendrix looking like he was sculpted out of flames, is miles better than that murky and curiously un-sexy shot of a bunch of women who look like the only reason they’re nude is that they need a good bath.
The Dr. Demento Show used to play a censored version of George Carlin’s “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television” with unique sound effects in place of each curse word. I always felt the sound effects made the censored version sound more hilarious than the original.
As an aside, it’s funny how the radio edit of Green Day’s “Longview” will bleep out “you’re fuckin’ lonely” while leaving the word “masturbation” intact.
I’m going to have to go with The Bloodhound Gang’s Fire Water Burn.
The donkey sound makes a comedic song that much better, I think.
Slightly off topic, but the silliest edit I can think of was for Diamonds and Guns by The Transplants. On MTV they cut the word “guns.”
No joke, we’re talking about a drug reference, which was as taboo back in the 60’s as it was to Tom Petty in the 90’s. “Break on Through” was censored by Elektra at its inception; there never was a “radio edit” really, because the song as played on the radio was the song on the album. The original album version as released (and subsequently made familiar to classic rock fans for decades thereafter) did not contain the full line “She get high,” substituting instead “She get” (I believe Hopkins and Sugerman wrote about this in No One Here Gets Out Alive). It was only when the remastered releases came out that the original line was restored to the studio album track. Live versions of course feature Morrison’s full preferred lyrics, most notably on Absolutely Live, where he sings the album-version “She get” followed by an extended vamp of “She get high” joined by either Manzarek or Krieger on additional vocals. Wiki has a good piece on it. I too prefer the original version (sans “high”), but I’m not sure if it’s more to do with the meter or just the decades-old familiarity of it.
To the topic at hand, I have to say I prefer Cee-Lo’s original “Fuck You” for reasons previously stated - I’d posted the YouTube video to my Facebook page at the time pointing out the disparity between the tune and the lyrics.
What does Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” count as?
I have to disagree right back. Thisworks better than this. And “ain’t that some shit” works better than “shhh” or “stuff”.
Not sure if there actually is a non-clean version of Kid Rock’s “Cowboy”, but I always got a kick out of the line: “Cuss like a sailor, drink like a Mick, My only words of wisdom are just, “Radio edit””
It was recorded the same way for the album and for radio, so it doesn’t. If Reznor had recorded it that way for radio it would, but as I recall his radio version just said “I wear this crown of (silence)”.
Speaking on NIN, I do like the radio version of “Closer” which replaces the f-word with a synthetic whip-cracking sound.
I like Adam Sandler’s “Ode To My Car” better censored, mostly because they used car noises where he swore in the original.
Me too. I found it hilarious though that they actually managed to take a song almost entirely made of curse words and turn it into a passable clean one.
The movie Blazing Saddles has had to suffer numerous edits for TV, including one of the “Rock Ridge” song, sung by the townspeople:
…Should we stay or up and quit?
It’s nearing time for a decision
Our town is turning into [loud MOOOOOO! from outside]
I later saw saw the original with the last word intact. It wasn’t as funny. I suppose a casually dropped “shit” in a church song may have seemed delightfully risqué to the original theatrical audience, but to my jaded ears the moo-interruption actually works better.
I was going to mention that one myself. The song gets funnier and funnier as more and more honks and other noises pile up in the song.
I was trying to think of this one too. This was the first time I preferred a radio edit (no pun intended.) According to Wikipedia
but not having the album I can’t verify this.
Lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s book “Finishing the Hat” is a fascinating read on the changes to the WSS lyrics. Originally Officer Krupkie was going to end “Gee Officer Krupkie…FUCK YOU.” Sondheim and composer Leonard Bernstein were looking forward to being the first team to use “the F word” in a Broadway show.
Unfortunately, it was discovered that, in those innocent times, putting that word on the cast LP would make it unsellable and obscene. Sondheim was ranting about not being able to find a word to subsistute for Fuck when Bernstein sang out “Gee Officer Krupie…KRUP YOU.” And Sondheim agreed it was perfect.
Ans both of them were amazed that “schmuck” got censored for the movie. “Schmuck” is a Yiddish word that orginally meant “jewels” then became a euphanism for “penis” (i.e. family jewels) and now means a nasty person.
The only cleaned version I’ve heard has him saying something like “Let’s roll another down”. I’m willing to acknowledge that there’s other “clean” edits or I’ve just been hearing it way wrong though.
I agree, although I’m thinking of the Green versions of both rather than anything from Glee.
Which of course everyone immediately translates to “Cluck You”. 
I’ve got the album. It says “radio edit.” The unedited version probably only gets sung at concerts.