Wow. I've known that song as long as it's been around and never heard those lines that way. Why would New Yorkers Simon and Garfunkel be drawling in the first place? Are those really common mondegreens for "The Sound of Silence" or just someone's one-time submission to amirite.com or a similar site?
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Radio stations that edit songs either more conservative or more lenient?
- Thread starter tall_guy1
- Start date
Even with living in the South I never heard that song edited on the top 40 stations I listened to (WHBQ and WMPS in Memphis and WLS).
I don't know specifically what the lyrics were on that station, but WAVO in Charlotte played this. You don't get more conservative than WAVO. That station's music has been on WHVN for the past year and if you want to see what conservative is there's a thread under Charlotte, North Carolina.
I've heard a similar edit in "All of Me" from John Legend. Some AC stations completely omit one of the main verses of the song, despite the fact that there is no objectionable content in that verse.
On the topic of Simon and Garfunkle, I've heard similar opinions expressed about their song, "The Boxer." It seems like some people don't particularly care for their line about seventh avenue in New York City. It seems like the common consensus is that this line is not objectionable, however.
In the case of "The Boxer," there's no mishearing involved. The word "whores" is in the lyrics. TBH, I'm surprised there isn't a bleeped version of this song out there somewhere.
I think it's a combination of the slur (where he holds the "I" sound and changes notes) in "might" ("mi-ight") and the percussion/electric guitar accompaniment that makes it sound that way on the recording, plus any processing the station/audio player may be using. I don't think he's actually drawling.
I don't know since I haven't actually run a search, though the first time I really heard it up close and paid attention to the lyrics (meaning: on headphones rather than on car radio speakers or a crappy portable radio) on AM Only as a teenager in the late 90s, I did a doubletake. "WHAT did he just say?"
"Just to come home from the war zone, Seventh Avenue".
I also have a DMX Music "Classic Hits Blend" aircheck recording from around 2001 that includes the line, unedited. On a business music service, yet.* NSAT&T Digital Cable at the time was also severely bitstarved, including the DMX simulcasts (they had been trying to cram too much into too small a QAM constellation and the results were pretty abonimable) and it's a wonder one could make out any lyrics at all above the MP2 timebase artefacts.
[ * Will be posted to Archive someday, once I find my old worn-out cassette.... I did reconstruct the block at one point so that may get uploaded as well. Stay tuned. ]
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Now THAT'S a mondegreen. The line is, and always has been, "just a come-on from the whores on Seventh Avenue." It meshes perfectly with the lines preceding (about looking for a job and getting no offers) and following (about being so lonesome he takes comfort there).
I don't think that "whores" was ever considered a license-endangering term. The base for that, based on one case, was the "Seven Dirty Words" in the comedy bit by George Carlin. Other than that specific case, there is no "official" list of profanities that the FCC might or could find offensive. Further, every year we have new words that are just as "dirty".
The '7 Dirty Words' Turn 40, but They're Still Dirty
Four decades after George Carlin's legendary monologue, the law still can't decide how to handle publicly broadcast swearing.
In fact, if you look at a street dictionary for synonyms for the F-word, you'll find about a hundred. And people wonder why the movie "Free Willie" was the subject of many jokes in England...
Why Britain Is Having a Whale of a Laugh Over 'Free Willy'
The Warner Bros. summer-hit kids' movie, "Free Willy," about a boy who helps return a captive whale to its natural habitat, is to open in Britain in February--but English audiences are already reacting.
www.latimes.com
True, but "chicken rock" stations in several cities were so squeamish about "crap" -- which also was not on Carlin's list -- in Paul Simon's "Kodachrome" that they spliced "the girls I knew" from the second verse ("the girls I knew when I was single") into the spot in the song where "the crap I learned" was originally sung. WBZ Boston was one of those stations.
Didn't Paul record a version that substituted the line "all the stuff I learned in high school"?
That's an official Radio Edit published by the record company. It's a minute and a half shorter than the album version:
John Legend - All Of Me
View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 2013 CDr release of "All Of Me" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com
Going back some years, record companies putting out edited/slightly redone versions for airplay--
--Devil Went Down to Georgia, Charlie Daniels--sonofagun vs sonofabitch
--Romeovoid,Never Say Never--that man could give a (F word)about the grin... Edited version substitutes
a drumbeat
--What It's Like, Everlast--substitutes sound effects for swears
Spoken word: talk host Jerry Williams used to play the Howard Beale rant from Network:
"you've got to say,I'm a human being, goddamn it! My life has value!" "Goddamn it" was edited out.
--Devil Went Down to Georgia, Charlie Daniels--sonofagun vs sonofabitch
--Romeovoid,Never Say Never--that man could give a (F word)about the grin... Edited version substitutes
a drumbeat
--What It's Like, Everlast--substitutes sound effects for swears
Spoken word: talk host Jerry Williams used to play the Howard Beale rant from Network:
"you've got to say,I'm a human being, goddamn it! My life has value!" "Goddamn it" was edited out.
Yes, I remember hearing that version on WHBQ in Memphis. I always thought that was a local edit because I don't remember hearing it anywhere else.
This made me remember another edited song on WHBQ. They played a version of Steely Dan's FM with FM deleted and replaced with the instrumental portion. They were the top AM top 40 station in Memphis at the time and they weren't about to promote FM.
I also remember them playing the edited version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia.
Johnny Cash also used the B word in Boy Named Sue, and they put a "bleep" over it for Top 40 airplay.
That's funny. I was in eastern Arkansas at the time and remember WHBQ's rivalry with WMC-FM, which had become its only Top 40 competitor after WMPS(AM) flipped to country. I don't recall the censored "FM," though. I wonder if any AMs in other markets that were facing FM competition did the same thing.
If you listen closely, "son of a gun" was actually the original version of the song. The album version had the "SOB" line edited in from a different take.
One of the seven isn't even dirty any more.I don't think that "whores" was ever considered a license-endangering term. The base for that, based on one case, was the "Seven Dirty Words" in the comedy bit by George Carlin. Other than that specific case, there is no "official" list of profanities that the FCC might or could find offensive. Further, every year we have new words that are just as "dirty".
The '7 Dirty Words' Turn 40, but They're Still Dirty
Four decades after George Carlin's legendary monologue, the law still can't decide how to handle publicly broadcast swearing.www.theatlantic.com
The word "sex" is a no-no word, at least when it comes to 106.1 Kiss FM in Dallas playing Bruno Mars' That's What I Like.
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