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Kluv and The Eagles "Life in the fast lane"

L

lfede9

I was listening to KLUV the other day when "Life in the Fast Lane" came on. I stopped what I was doing to listen to the song. To my astonishment when it came to the line "we've been up and down this highway haven't seen a goddamn thing",
the word Goddamn was replaced by silence. I love this song and have never heard it censored on ANY radio station before now.
I contacted KLUV and their program director Peter Z informed me that the Eagles released a censored version of the song in the 70's so that the song could be played on the air. since KLUV follows the format of playing the songs the way they were originally broadcast in the 70's that is the version the station plays.
Did the Eagles really release a censored version of "Life in the Fast Lane"?
I am dubious about the authenticity of this statement and wondered if perhaps it was an urban legend.
 
There was a censored version released in the seventies -- it was also edited down for a shorter running time. I assume that it was the 45 RPM version of the song.

I vaguely remember that the "goddamn" was edited down to "damn".

This was far from the only song that was edited in such a manner back in the seventies. "Cinderella" by Firefall got similar treatment, with the lyric "Goddamn girl, can't you see, I didn't want your company..." being edited to "Damn girl, can't you see, I didn't want your company...". In the Charlie Daniels Band song "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", he calls the Devil a "son of a bitch" in the album cut, but it's changed to "son of a gun" in the 45.

While these words weren't prohibited by the FCC, there were some stations and markets that weren't compfortable with such language, so the edits did get played. Where I lived at the time (Tacoma), the top 40 stations were more likely to play the edits, while the album rock stations had no problem with the uncensored lyrics.
 
So using the logic of the aforementioned Charlie Daniels Band song, would Hall & Oates have put out an alternate version of "Rich Girl" featuring the lyric, "It's a gun, girl"? One wonders...

By the way, another CBS-owned classic hits station in Tampa (Q105) has played the same edit of that Eagles song - in fact, if you listen to Q105 online and look at the title of the song as it plays, the player reads "Life In The Fast Lane [OK]". I'm assuming "OK" means "no GD".
 
I was listening to KLUV the other day when "Life in the Fast Lane" came on. I stopped what I was doing to listen to the song. To my astonishment when it came to the line "we've been up and down this highway haven't seen a goddamn thing",
the word Goddamn was replaced by silence. I love this song and have never heard it censored on ANY radio station before now.
I contacted KLUV and their program director Peter Z informed me that the Eagles released a censored version of the song in the 70's so that the song could be played on the air. since KLUV follows the format of playing the songs the way they were originally broadcast in the 70's that is the version the station plays.
Did the Eagles really release a censored version of "Life in the Fast Lane"?
I am dubious about the authenticity of this statement and wondered if perhaps it was an urban legend.
Click to expand...

When I was at KDOK, Tyler, Top 40 format, the music director TRIED to edit the song to eliminate that line of the verse. There was really no way to do that and it sounded awful since time was off. I went into production, dubbed it to tape, cut out the piece of tape, goddamn was on, turned the tape around and spliced it back in. It was much less noticeable than trying to edit a verse.
 
dakareedog said:
When I was at KDOK, Tyler, Top 40 format, the music director TRIED to edit the song to eliminate that line of the verse. There was really no way to do that and it sounded awful since time was off. I went into production, dubbed it to tape, cut out the piece of tape, goddamn was on, turned the tape around and spliced it back in. It was much less noticeable than trying to edit a verse.
Click to expand...

I used to have a cassette with horrible edit from WKY in Oklahoma City where they edited out "they were good in bed. She'd say, 'Faster, faster..." to make it "They had one thing in common, The lights are turnin' red" along with the whole "GD" line. But they spliced it together without any care if the beats matched and it sounded like a record skipping. Most of the other Top 40 stations I listened to (KOMA, KAKC, KTFX and KELi) just dayparted it for late afternoons or evenings.
 
Back when the song came out, KILT Houston garbled the "goddamn".

Currently, both KKRW and The Eagle in Houston garble it....although they DON'T garble The Who's "Who the f*ck are you". ???
 
cowboybud said:
Currently, both KKRW and The Eagle in Houston garble it....although they DON'T garble The Who's "Who the f*ck are you". ???
Click to expand...

Not true. KGLK doesn't edit Life in the Fast Lane, but they do edit Who Are You. The F-bomb is reversed in both places in the song (the pro tools equivalent of flipping the tape), but it's a tight enough edit that it's not obvious.

I've heard the Life in the Fast Lane edit on KKRW, and I think they remove the "who the f*ck are you" line completely.
 
I've worked for a number of major radio corps and none of these issues were of any concern...until NIPPLEGATE! The company I'm currently with took Pink Floyd's "Money", The Who's "Who Are You", Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane" and all other questionable lyrics and sliced the shit heck out of them. Thanks Janet.
 
lfede9 said:
I was listening to KLUV the other day when "Life in the Fast Lane" came on. I stopped what I was doing to listen to the song. To my astonishment when it came to the line "we've been up and down this highway haven't seen a goddamn thing",
the word Goddamn was replaced by silence. I love this song and have never heard it censored on ANY radio station before now.
I contacted KLUV and their program director Peter Z informed me that the Eagles released a censored version of the song in the 70's so that the song could be played on the air. since KLUV follows the format of playing the songs the way they were originally broadcast in the 70's that is the version the station plays.
Did the Eagles really release a censored version of "Life in the Fast Lane"?
I am dubious about the authenticity of this statement and wondered if perhaps it was an urban legend.
Click to expand...

Editing song lyrics is stupid, but will go on till the end of radio. What really amazes me is that you got a PD to respond to your question. Do you know him personally? Most of the PD's I've known never even check their public voice and e-mail accounts.
 
Just found another GD song: "Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger. The one that goes "I'm not sick but I'm not well."
 
Triple Fake Jerry said:
GD is not one of the seven dirty words, so that's up to station policy.


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Summer of '73, I walked into the campus station at the University of Tulsa to find a couple of students grumbling while they were in the process of editing the word "crap" out of "Kodachrome" by Paul Simon so they could play it on the air. Yeah... I couldn't believe it, either.
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Click to expand...
 
dfwupallnight said:
Editing song lyrics is stupid, but will go on till the end of radio.
Click to expand...
The one I don't understand is Jack FM editing Supertramp's "Breakfast In America" from
"I'm hoping to join a commune but there's not a lot I can do" to
"I'm hoping to join a come true but there's not a lot I can do"
by lifting lyrics from elsewhere in the song. It renders the lyrics meaningless.
 
Now that's just dumb. Do they edit the Stones' "She's So Cold" for the same reason that stations edit "Life in the Fast Lane"? The last time I heard it on Jack, they didn't.
 
My personal favorite is the editing of "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" from "you son of a bitch" to "you son of a gun"

If you can't call the devil a son of a bitch, who can you?
 
The best one I can share happened in the late 60s. I lived in Denton but often listened to one of the AM Top 40 stations out of Sherman at night. Can't remember the call letters.

Imagine my surprise when I heard the intro to Steppenwolf's The Pusher. If you are not old enough to know the song, John Kay sings "G.D. the Pusher" at least 14 times in the song. I was even more surprised to hear all of the 14 "GDs" edited out. Talk about a butcher job on a piece of music. I heard it on more than 1 occasion.

Song never charted, but this AM Top 40 in Sherman/Dennison played it in all of it's edited glory.

What were they thinking 40+ years ago?
 
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