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Song you wondered how they they ever got played on Top 40 radio

Ed Nielson said:
That was Paul Simon's "Kodachrome." WBZ in Boston did an edit of the first verse, putting in a line from the second verse. It became "When I think back on all the girls I knew when I was single..." It was a bad edit, as it put an extra beat into the song.
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Someone duplicated it:


It's not good, but it's way better than KHJ's hack job.
 
michael hagerty said:
Maybe. Although, KHJ in Los Angeles edited that, too. The line is:

"When I look back on all the crap I learned in high school"

...and the KHJ edit was brutal, cutting out "the crap" and creating an obvious jump and break in the beat to make it:

"When I look back on all I learned in high school"

I have no idea what KHJ was thinking. Every other Los Angeles radio station just played it with "crap".
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Drake-Chenault did that for a while, at least on the Contempo 300 (AC) format reels. By 1979 they were using the unedited version again. But "Kodachrome" was a hit right about the time Bill Drake was parting company with RKO, so perhaps the KHJ edit was an influence (especially given his own personal sensibilities).

For the life of me, I couldn't tell you which version was in the KIQQ (K-100) library, and the one guy who would remember (Jim Carson) passed away within the last year.
 
K.M. Richards said:
Drake-Chenault did that for a while, at least on the Contempo 300 (AC) format reels. By 1979 they were using the unedited version again. But "Kodachrome" was a hit right about the time Bill Drake was parting company with RKO, so perhaps the KHJ edit was an influence (especially given his own personal sensibilities).
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It actually debuted a week after Drake left. Paul Drew was KHJ's PD and did the edit. KFRC played the single unedited.

K.M. Richards said:
For the life of me, I couldn't tell you which version was in the KIQQ (K-100) library, and the one guy who would remember (Jim Carson) passed away within the last year.
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K-100 and KKDJ both played the unedited 45.
 
michael hagerty said:
In 1975, KKDJ in Los Angeles decided it wanted to play the Isley Bros. "Fight The Power", which says "bullshit", instead of the radio edit, which had an annyoing bleep. Production Director Don Elliott took the unedited record into the production room, laid it onto reel-to-reel tape, then took the stretch of tape where "bullshit" was, cut it out and then spliced it back in backwards. No profanity, no break in the beat, no problem.
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I did the same thing to Prince's "Housequake" for a station that wanted to play it as an album cut, and I initially used the exact same method as Don. (Of course, by then he and I were well-acquainted and I had learned a lot of tricks from him ... all of which became obsolete along with the splicing block and razor blade.)

Later, I realized that there were completely identical measures in the song with the same melody/beat but no vocals, and I spliced one of those into the two places where Prince said "bullshit". Sounded even more natural that way.
 
secondchoice said:
I lived in the Bible Belt at the time and IIRC nobody that I listened in Nashville, Chattanooga, or even Biloxi MS edited out "crap". Kinda surprised that more "liberal" markets like Boston or California would have and issue with "crap"
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I can’t speak for Boston, but L.A. was one station, KHJ, with a PD, Paul Drew, who was infamous for editing songs, if not for content, then for time.

It was especially ludicrous, because at that time, KHJ was running ads every couple of hours for “Deep Throat” at the Pussycat Theater.
 
michael hagerty said:
When the record was new, the edit was rare. We were still in an era where radio listeners resented edits, and beyond that MTV was driving the music culture.
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I wonder if there are any stations still playing the unedited version today, considering the political climate. The unedited version used to be common all over Los Angeles radio, at least.

We are sadly just in the midst of a new wave of overall prudery. I had the opportunity to extensively watch linear cable at a relative's house in 2022, and was shocked to see how much censorship existed in all the reruns of the classic "big three" network shows -- shows formerly considered family friendly in the 1980s. I remember specifically being shocked by the relentless muting of words during the reruns of The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel. What kind of world are we living in where that show is now offensive to people? :(
 
yeoldeschool said:
I remember specifically being shocked by the relentless muting of words during the reruns of The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel. What kind of world are we living in where that show is now offensive to people? :(
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The Hallmark Channel and its associated subnetworks are probably the most conservative entertainment-based network in existence. They would probably bleep "darn" and "heck".

I'm inclined to think that they do all that unnecessary bleeping to protect their "wholesome" image based on their greeting cards ... which, if you think about it, are pretty saccharine.
 
yeoldeschool said:
That was a lightning quick find!

Alas, the censorship I was observing was happening on several basic networks. Hallmark was just the worst offender. (K.M., agreed on their greeting card empire being the obvious reason for that, yes...)
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Most basic cable networks have looser standards than before in terms of editing....not the other way around. Watch the basic cable version of We're the Millers and you'll see.
 
yeoldeschool said:
I wonder if there are any stations still playing the unedited version today, considering the political climate. The unedited version used to be common all over Los Angeles radio, at least.

We are sadly just in the midst of a new wave of overall prudery. I had the opportunity to extensively watch linear cable at a relative's house in 2022, and was shocked to see how much censorship existed in all the reruns of the classic "big three" network shows -- shows formerly considered family friendly in the 1980s. I remember specifically being shocked by the relentless muting of words during the reruns of The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel. What kind of world are we living in where that show is now offensive to people? :(
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Hallmark and several religious type stations are the only ones with those kinds of edits. My CHR bleeped the word "drug" in Rockstar by Nickelback in 2007...now they sponsor Green Light Dispensory and their "Masters of Marijuana" staff.
 
yeoldeschool said:
I remember specifically being shocked by the relentless muting of words during the reruns of The Golden Girls on Hallmark Channel. What kind of world are we living in where that show is now offensive to people? :(
Click to expand...
Hallmark is very prudish. Given how Blanche would talk, I'm surprised anyone would call that show family-friendly.
 
michael hagerty said:
I can’t speak for Boston, but L.A. was one station, KHJ, with a PD, Paul Drew, who was infamous for editing songs, if not for content, then for time.

It was especially ludicrous, because at that time, KHJ was running ads every couple of hours for “Deep Throat” at the Pussycat Theater.
Click to expand...
I wonder how widespread ads for that movie were?
 


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