Absolutely Gagging For It

Was a usual Sunday this week for me (hangover, couch, paper, roast, pornography, etc, etc). Need a serious lifestyle change I reckon.

One thing really did stand out for me on this rather mundane of Sundays that absolutely baffled me though. Don’t laugh now, but I was watching the top 20 Dumb Ass Videos on MTV2 for a bit of a laugh as some of them are actually quite funny and it does beat Songs of Praise or Heartbeat doesn’t it? Anyway, about half way through up popped a video by a band I really do like, it was Hash Pipe by Weezer and to my amazement every time the singer sang the word ‘Hash’ in Hash Pipe, it was blanked out by MTV! HASH!!!! Un-f*cking-believable!! But, it gets better, when the song had finished and they then went onto show the title of the song and the artist, it came up … Hash Pipe, Weezer. How I f*cking laughed!

Another thing I noticed on the same show was a song by Franz Ferdinand called ‘Do you Wanna’. Now, this song contained the rather risqué lyrics of “he’s ye friend and I blew him before ye”. Obviously a reference to male oral sex wouldn’t you agree and plainly ‘ok’ for MTV to show on the national day of rest?

So my point is this: Why is it ok to show naughty words, but not ok for them to sing it? And who on this great big massive earth, apart from Mary Whitehouse (who is dead by the way) or some religious fanatics would be offended by someone saying ‘hash’? Weezer hardly said C*nt or Tw*t or “stick this smack loaded needle into my helmet now you aids-ridden crack whore c*nt” now did they? What will they ‘muffle’ next? Knickers? Bottom? Breast? Nipple? Bum? Bloomers? Golly Gosh?

We have come a long way though if you compare it to 40 years ago.

At the height of their popularity, The Doors and The Stones both appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in the mid sixties and were told to ‘change’ their lyrics in the ‘interests’ of their viewers (mainly fundamental Christians who were used to burning these bands’ albums as the deluded f*ckers used to think they were actually the devil re-incarnated). The Doors were told to change the lyrics in Light My Fire from “girl we couldn’t get much higher” to “girl we couldn’t get much better”. The Stones were asked to change the lyrics in Lets Spend the Night Together to “let’s spend some time together”. Strangely enough it was The Doors who never appeared again on the Ed Sullivan show as they refused to compromise over the lyrics, The Stones, on the other hand did compromise. Very un-stones like wouldn’t you say? However both situations are utterly pathetic and damn right patronising to both bands to even suggest such a drastic change in lyrics which were hardly, let be honest here: extremely risqué. But, it is usually America and Britain were most of these ridiculous censors come from who both claim to stand for freedom and democracy. Free countries? Don’t make me f*cking laugh!!

It’s not just swearing & sexual pastimes that have been censored when it comes to lyrics, some bands that have a certain political belief can also have their lyrics censored.

I take it everyone remembers the uproar caused by Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s Relax during the eighties? Pretty close to the knuckle lyrics I’m sure you would agree, but the band were censored for the second time when they released Two Tribes. I’m not too sure it was the contents of the song that was banned, but the video certainly caused some controversy (it was a satirical look at a fictional fight between President Reagan & President Gorbachov in case you didn’t know) and was subsequently banned. Can you imagine stuff like that being allowed today? Too right you could! You only have to look at an Eminem video to see how much has actually changed!

But going back to my initial point about Weezer and the mention of drugs is just plain and utter nonsensical. The way I see it is when it comes to censoring lyrics, swearing and other ‘naughty’ words, they are part of the social make-up of most of the decent songs history has ever produced. These words are real, people do say them. So why do the powers that be have to take this away from us and demonise them? I’m not saying swearing is the be all and end all of a typical conversation in today’s working class society (although I’m still yet to hear Stuey swear, or see his feet to that affect), but sometimes it just seems natural to curse in the style of someone on a documentary about Tourettes sufferers with your mates when your down the pub.

I know I do it far too much as I’m regularly reminded by my mother, but if this continuous ‘action’ against bad language persists, what is the future of music as we know it now? Are we going to see a generation of kids starting bands singing and writing songs for the religious channels on television and singing in churches instead of gritty spit-and-sawdust music venues? Are we going to be flooded with goody-two-shoes singers like Aled Jones & Gareth Gates singing about bunny rabbits, being touched by god (not down below though) and all things generally nice about the world? It’s a sad and f*cking pathetic state of affairs if you ask me! And the way I see it is that the more you ban it, the more people are gonna do it.

So, without sounding like Hugh Fearnly Wittingstall, I’ve decided to start another campaign. It’s called the ‘Go and Get F*cked’ Campaign. It’s aimed at people who are thinking about starting a band. The idea is that every band should have a profanity in one of their songs and the title of their band.

Whose up for it?

No one?

Ok, f*ck ye then

Mol