Hooked on an edit

[johnbasalla]

I'm sure many of you remember Blue Swede's version of "Hooked On A Feeling", a hit in 1974. This was the "Ooguh-chucka, ooguh-chucka" version. I remember one station (WHLO AM 640 in Akron, Ohio) that edited out the "ooguh-chucka" parts. It was a fairly easy edit since the song almost stops at the point that the "ooguh-chucka's" start. There was some controversy because some people thought that the "ooguh-chucka" too graphically simulated a sex act. Of course, that was the reason this version was a hit. Does anybody else remember a Top 40/CHR station that either (A) edited out the "ooguh-chucka" parts or (B) just didn't play the song at all.

 

[oldies76]

It would be a disgrace if ANY station in the day, or now, refused to play "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede.
Such a wonderful, memorable and feel-good song for the 70's and today. WHLO should be ashamed of editing that portion out. Sex act reference...how incredibly rediculous!

 

[firepoint525]

I was 10 years old when that one came out. Editing that portion would have taken away my entire reason for listening to it!

Aside from that, even without the edit, it still isn't all that long!

 

[John FL]

Interesting comments and one of the things I really love about R-I is that there is often varied opinions.

When I was growing up, the station I listened to the most in the 60s and 70s was WABC and I recall, on occasion, edits taking place on popular songs. I'm pretty sure it happened with the subject song as I remember two versions of it. The same thing happened to Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" where one version had the word "crap" taken out of it. Now today, many of us could express outrage at this but there were reasons.

There was actually a time in our country when families gathered together at the breakfast table before going off to work and school. The thinking was there were "sensitive" ears listening and a conservative approach was taken. (Rick SKlar discusses this kind of thinking in his book, "Rocking America") If we use the Kodachrome example, I recall that it wasn't until after 2 PM that things would loosen up. This wasn't always the case but most times in exisited in AM drive. Part of it was time-restraints but a lof of it had to do with protecting the license to operate and this was especially true for "flagship" stations. Like it or not, those who were running things were doing what they thought best served the listener and the station. I recall "Short People" was dropped only after having played for a day because of listener complaints even though the song was really about how stupid prejudice really is.

As far as hearing this subject version of "Hooked on a Feeling" today on 60s/70s/80s formats, it is limited in most cases to special programming and is not part of regular rotation. Sure, there are exceptions but in the many stations I listen to across the country, this is the case as well as it should be in my humble opinion. I never thought the song could hold a candle to B.J. Thomas's original song but that;s just my opinion, it doesn't mean I'm right. But that's what radio is all about, everything you hear is the result of making a decision, some are right, some may not be. But even in the past, it all came down to doing what was thought to be correct.

 

[hornet61]

I guess we were lucky that back in the 50's, 60's and 70's our stations never played edit versions.......they even played "Jungle Fever" by the Chakachas,probably the most sexually explicit(moaning and groaning) song ever, before the "Rap era". And of course the classic "Je T' Aime..Moi Non Plus" by Jane Birkin and Sergio Gainsbourg.Maybe we we too naive in this part of the country that It didn't matter.

I find It a stretch that some parts of the country banned such thing as:
Money Honey - Drifters
Rapsodhy In the Rain - Lou Christie
Wake up Little Susie - Everly Brothers
Louie Louie - Kingsmen
Dirty Water - Standells
Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer

I think this was a Northeastern thing, maybe ????????

 

[radioman148]

It would be a disgrace if ANY station in the day, or now, refused to play "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede.
Such a wonderful, memorable and feel-good song for the 70's and today. WHLO should be ashamed of editing that portion out. Sex act reference...how incredibly rediculous!

John Landecker on WLS would let "Oooga Chagga Oooga Oooga" go on for an extra minute or two to have fun with it either before or after the song. No banning of this on WLS which did edit some others like Kodachrome.

 

[SuperRadioFan]

I also remember "Pillow Talk" -Sylvia's 1973 million-seller was pretty "hot"

 

[swfl]

I remember Pillow Talk also. It came out about the same time that Charley Rich's song "behind Closed Doors" came out. Both were somewhat controversial at the time.

 

[radioman148]

I also remember "Pillow Talk" -Sylvia's 1973 million-seller was pretty "hot"

That is the same Sylvia who recorded the hit "Love is Strange" with Mickey in 1957.

 

[John FL]

Hornet, you can also add "My Ding-A-Ling by the great Chuck Berry as another song banned. And yes it was also WABC. Across the Hudson River in northern New Jersey, low-powered WWDJ was playing the song virtually every hour as it was #1 there for what seemed like eons. But then later that year, flipped to Gospel. So who knows?

We also can't assume lots of this kind of stuff occurred just in the past. Speaking of "Pillow Talk," I requested the song in the 90s on the local oldies station in Miami and remember the reply to this day - "I'm not going to play orgasms on the air."

And a few months ago I heard a PD in Birmingham Al edited the Eagles classic "Life in the Fast Lane." More market decisions I suppose.

 

[hornet61]

Pretty sad that My Ding-a-ling was his only #1 Hit. I was so young when these songs I mentioned were being played I didn't think of the point Johnjax made about sensitive ears, that is a very good point. Boy was I naive back then.

 

[Les Stock]

Back to "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Suede: A talk station in Oklahoma used that song as the theme for their Judge Donald Thompson updates, because the apparatus Judge Thompson used while he was presiding over court made an "oohgahshahkah" kind of sound. Google "Judge Donald Thompson" for the rest of the story.

 

[Silkie]

I'm pretty sure "Stay Awhile", by The Bells (?) if memory serves me correctly, came under the "Let's try not to play this too much" category.

Maybe the edits are some sort of a reverse psychology thingy.

 

[hornet61]

I'm pretty sure "Stay Awhile", by The Bells (?) if memory serves me correctly, came under the "Let's try not to play this too much" category.

Maybe the edits are some sort of a reverse psychology thingy.

"Stay awhile" is a great song........needs to played along with "Pillow Talk"

let's recap Top X-Rated songs:

Sixty Minute Man-Dominos
Honey Love-Drifters
Jungle Fever- chakachas
My Ding-A Ling- Chuck Berry
Pillow Talk - Sylvia Robinson
Stay-A-While - Bells
Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer
Roll With Me Henry - Etta James
Je T'Aime - Jane Birkin and Sergio Gainsborg
Work With Me Annie - Hank Ballard
Annie Had A baby - Hank Ballard
Good Rockin Tonight - Wynonnie Harris
Mighty Mighty Man - Roy Brown

 

[radioman148]

Pretty sad that My Ding-a-ling was his only #1 Hit. I was so young when these songs I mentioned were being played I didn't think of the point Johnjax made about sensitive ears, that is a very good point. Boy was I naive back then.

Very sad. Chuck Berry had so many great hits how could "Ding A Ling" be his biggest seller? Crazy.

 

[SuperRadioFan]

I also remember "Pillow Talk" -Sylvia's 1973 million-seller was pretty "hot"

That is the same Sylvia who recorded the hit "Love is Strange" with Mickey in 1957.

Oh yeah I knew that, Radioman148. But do you know what famous porno flick was that song featured in??

 

[phantom444]

let's recap Top X-Rated songs:

Sixty Minute Man-Dominos
Honey Love-Drifters
Jungle Fever- chakachas
My Ding-A Ling- Chuck Berry
Pillow Talk - Sylvia Robinson
Stay-A-While - Bells
Love To Love You Baby - Donna Summer
Roll With Me Henry - Etta James
Je T'Aime - Jane Birkin and Sergio Gainsborg
Work With Me Annie - Hank Ballard
Annie Had A baby - Hank Ballard
Good Rockin Tonight - Wynonnie Harris
Mighty Mighty Man - Roy Brown

"Lady Marmalade" by LaBelle has escaped scrutiny as far as I know, even when it was a current, even though a lot of us know "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi" is French for "Would you like to go to bed with me?"

 

[LKellerIII]

In the mid and late 60s, as pop songs got longer, Bill Drake consulted stations (KHJ, KFRC, CKLW, etc) edited songs for length. Those Were the Days by Mary Hopkin and MacArthur Park by Richard Harris were two that were missing entire verses.

Oddly enough - those same Drake stations would often run the long versions of Light My Fire, and Hey Jude, I assume because they were such giant hits. Generally, if songs had controversial content, Drake stations did not play them at all. One example was Ballad of John and Yoko because of the "Christ" in the lyrics.

Two later songs I remember edited for content on other stations were Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry (with the "white boy" removed), and The Joker by Steve Miller (with the "midnight toker" removed).

 

[firepoint525]

Pretty sad that My Ding-a-ling was his only #1 Hit. I was so young when these songs I mentioned were being played I didn't think of the point Johnjax made about sensitive ears, that is a very good point. Boy was I naive back then.

Very sad. Chuck Berry had so many great hits how could "Ding A Ling" be his biggest seller? Crazy.

Especially since it held "Burning Love" by Elvis out of the #1 spot! :'( That was one of the King's few "rockers" of the '70s, and had it gone to #1, it would have been his only #1 in the '70s!

 

[firepoint525]

In the mid and late 60s, as pop songs got longer, Bill Drake consulted stations (KHJ, KFRC, CKLW, etc) edited songs for length. Those Were the Days by Mary Hopkin and MacArthur Park by Richard Harris were two that were missing entire verses.

Oddly enough - those same Drake stations would often run the long versions of Light My Fire, and Hey Jude, I assume because they were such giant hits. Generally, if songs had controversial content, Drake stations did not play them at all. One example was Ballad of John and Yoko because of the "Christ" in the lyrics.

I believe stations were provided with the edit of "Light My Fire," but then chose to play the long version anyway. : For "Hey Jude," all they had to do was cut it sooner, if they wanted. I noticed with "Hey Jude," the na-na-na chorus starts just two and a half minutes into it, judging by what my CD player was reading. But it had also faded out by six and a half minutes, to the point that if you were playing it on the radio, you would have had to go on to something else, or you would have dead air! ;D

Don't know how true this is, because I am not old enough to remember, but I am told that stations flipped the 45 of "Ballad of John & Yoko" and played its B-side, "Old Brown Shoe" (a George Harrison song) instead. Back in those days, stations apparently still received commercial 45s, so they could do that, rather than the double-A-sided 45s that became common in the 70s.

Two later songs I remember edited for content on other stations were Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry (with the "white boy" removed), and The Joker by Steve Miller (with the "midnight toker" removed).

"Play That Funky Music" was edited anyway. The second verse was omitted. It went first verse-second verse-guitar solo, while the edit went first verse-guitar solo. The album version was also a little longer on the fade-out.

"The Joker" was a much simpler edit. Each repeated chorus was taken out, so that you heard it once each time, rather than twice.