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97.7 Guess FM Launches

Oops...

Flipped past the station yesterday. I heard them run the wrong version of Steve Miller/Jet Airliner.

I would probably fix that...

DE
 
There used to be no "wrong" version of "Jet Airliner." You could play them both! Damn political correctness!

Heard the Paul Pena (songwriter) version once. It would also be considered politically incorrect nowadays.
 
You might could have played them both, but in the day you would have faced the wrath of PD's who faced the wrath of GM's paranoid about losing the station license or paying a fine. John Landecker includes a memo from WLS PD John Gehron detailing the seven deadly words with a bold handwritten warning "DO NOT READ THIS MEMO ON THE AIR!!!" I was never entirely comfortable playing "Money" by Pink Floyd because of the similar barnyard epithet it contained.

In the old days of Rock103 (the days when the GM called Art Mehring and me in and chewed us out because McDonald's cancelled their account because we said "hump day"), the same GM stopped me in the hall and asked if I had played a record that said "We're gonna rape you." I thought for a second and said, Oh yeah, "We're Not Gonna Take It" from Tommy by The Who. Didn't really think anything of it, but someone did and called and complained. And I'm not even going into "Who Are You?" by The Who.

Now, the question remains, and DE would probably know this, did anyone ever actually pay a fine or lose a license for broadcasting dirty words? WBAI and the FCC took their battle to the Supreme Court, but I don't think they actually were ruled against, per se.
 
No. And, that was an important part of the decision in Pacifica.

The Supreme Court did find that Pacifica's broadcast was indecent (though, NOT obscene). But, the FCC never had imposed any sanctions on Pacifica. Thus, any issues of the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause were not imputed.

So, Pacifica was never sanctioned and the thorny issue of safe harbors began. I strongly suspect if the case came before the Court today, an even more pro-1st Amendment decision would result. Justice Thomas, for instance, has been very pro-1st Amendment in his decisions.

I could be wrong.

DE
 
"Hump Day" was offensive back in the day. Geico doesn't seem to have a problem with it now. I don't know what was going on with McDonald's back in the day. "Play Guitar" (John "Cougar" Mellencamp) and "Legs" (ZZ Top) were other songs with said objectionable word in it.
 
The Mellencamp song says it straight up. The ZZ Top song shades its indiscretion by saying we are only misunderstanding their pronunciation of "said."
 
"Said", "Sure", or that other word, hmm, I always thought it was the other word. To think on rare occasion when that song airs, I've always silenced that word. Perhaps, it's been unnecessary. Because Eliminator was recorded at Ardent, it's "very technically" Memphis music to me. Though, nobody from ZZ Top is from anywhere close to Memphis.
 
An associate I know who was working at Ardent in video production during the era assured me that a whole bunch of what we hear as ZZ Top was actually what Joe Hardy did in post production and mixing at Ardent. ZZ's would lay down the basic tracks and split, so there may be more "Memphis" in it than meets the eye. But that being said, Billy Gibbons did have a house in Frayser.
 
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