• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

INDECENT SONG ON THE RADIO?

T

ThomasFiscoe

Earlier this week, I heard a song by a local band air on a radio station here in Western New York. The name of the song is "The Naughty List," and it aired completely uncensored during the middle of the afternoon. The band describes the song as "a holiday song for lovers." Keeping that in mind, here are the lyrics to the song in question:

They say Santa only comes round once a year
But not for me
I got to get ready
I wanna trim your tree
I get so excited when I hear your voice
Those cookies I made aren't the only thing that's warm and moist

What do I got to do
To put you on the naughty list?
What do I got to do
To put you on it?

I wanna be your stocking stuffer and your
Christmas lover
I wanna get busy
From Thanksgiving to Christmas eve
and then it's lights out lights out
Santa's gonna get his list out
and write your name down you've been a bad bad girl

They say Christmas only comes round once a year but with you its like 365
This ain't no jive
I put my turkey in your oven
So you can take me for a nice sleigh ride
I'll have you drinkin' egg nog all night long
I'll have you drinkin' egg nog all night long
I'll have you drinkin' egg nog
drinkin' egg nog
drinkin' egg nog

Gonna do it for Kwanza
Gonna do it for Hanukkah
Gonna do it for New Years
Gonna do it for Christmas

So my question is this: considering the context of the song, do you think the FCC would consider it indecent for radio broadcast?
 
Not unless somebody complains and makes a convincing case to the FCC that it violates local indecency standards.

Thomas, have you heard - recently played on numerous CHRs here and elsewhere:

Blah, Blah, Blah - Ke$ha
What's My Name - Drake and Rhianna (paying particular attention to the opening by Drake)
 
No bad words in it so they'd probably let it slide. A better thing to do would be complain to the station's sponsors...money talks!
 
Doesn't even come close to indecent. Yeah, there's innuendo there, but that ain't gonna get you cited. It's more in how you interpret the content than anything th content says on its own.
 
You wanna be indecent on the radio, that's the way to do it.
It has to be innuendo to be "indecent", not just crass, to potentially have any redeeming value.
There's plenty of even-lower based "music" out there which is the real problem.
Since there seems to be no limit to how low we will sink, there's no scale anymore where merely suggestive can seem indecent.

There have always been naughty songs, the more modern "abusive and sadistic" strain is a troubling development.

Listen to this one from 1939. WJSV recorded an entire day of broadcast on Sept 21.
At 10:30 all the dance bands broadcast remotes from hotel ballrooms started. These went out on the network.
Listen to this lovely rendition of " Shoot the Sherbert to me Herbert ".
"Sherbert" was a slang term for a certain kind of wild jitterbug jazz the "bad kids' of the day enjoyed.

If "The Naughty List" is indecent today, this must have furrowed a few eyebrows in 1939:


http://www.sendspace.com/file/0wnzw9

Not much going on here but shooting sherbert. ::)
 
This thread has me laughing! Ever heard the lyrics to "60 Minute Man" by the Dominoes? It was a Beach Music classic when I was working in the Carolinas, and it leaves little to the imagination. I don't believe it ever got a station busted by the FCC.

I'm also recalling in the early 70s when Jim Quinn was still doing nights on 'KB, and the NY State legislature was debating a bill that would have made the beaver the official state animal. Quinn's bit was "Beaver Week," tons of tasteless double-entendre, and I recall in particular his passing the advice that if you were going to keep a beaver as an indoor pet, make sure to keep a pan of water on the radiator, because as eveyone knows...

"...a moist beaver is a happy beaver."

I almost drove off the road. I remember thinking later, "and Hamberger got fired for "how's your Aspen?'"
 
Considering Missy Elliot and Ludacris got away with "a hard #$%! makes the sex last" in 2001's "One Minute Man", this is tame. To be fair most of "dick" was cut from the line but the lyric was obvious.

Ludacris also had that gem "What's Your Fantasy" 'bout that same time.

Then again Eric Carmen screamed "You're gonna love screwing me!!" in the bridge of the Rasberries "Go All The Way". In 1972. 'KB banned it, Debaser stated so in the opening of the 1972 Top 100 year-end countdown.

There is nothing new under the sun.
 
Tom Wells said:
Listen to this one from 1939.  WJSV recorded an entire day of broadcast on Sept 21.
At 10:30 all the dance bands broadcast remotes from hotel ballrooms started. These went out on the network.
Listen to this lovely rendition of " Shoot the Sherbert to me Herbert ".
"Sherbert" was a slang term for a certain kind of wild jitterbug jazz the "bad kids' of the day enjoyed.

If  "The Naughty List" is indecent today, this must have furrowed a few eyebrows in 1939:


http://www.sendspace.com/file/0wnzw9

Not much going on here but shooting sherbert.   ::)
Click to expand...

A piece of the above song made it's way into the 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon "We The Animals, Squeak", which was aired on TV uncensored, aimed at kids, for many years.

6:48 in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTNyWPWCe0c

Still less overt than Li'l John's "skeet skeet skeet" lyric from "Get Low" (which usually airs uncensored).
 
Obtuse1 said:
A piece of the above song made it's way into the 1941 Warner Bros. cartoon "We The Animals, Squeak", which was aired on TV uncensored, aimed at kids, for many years.

6:48 in:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTNyWPWCe0c

Still less overt than Li'l John's "skeet skeet skeet" lyric from "Get Low" (which usually airs uncensored).
Click to expand...

I think the 1930-48 Warner cartoons were released for TV broadcast in 1956, by which time I'd presume no kid would understand what the lyric meant. When they were originally shown in theaters, the intended audience was adults. Directors Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng had all stated so on more than one occasion. Warner Bros. was the king of racy content in cartoons, but they'd only slip it in for a few frames...only upon repeated viewings would you notice.

Now back to the thread with this little unrelated tidbit: It wasn't shown in "We The Animals Squeak", but usually when a radio mic appeared in a WB cartoon, it was flagged "KFWB".
Keep Filming Warner Bros. I believe CBS has it for sale today to keep within market ownership limits.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom