Selective Edits

[BostonRandy]

/mode RANT on

Post-Janet Jackson, many playlists had to air "edited" versions of their top tracks, including Dark Side of the Moon, Jet Airliner, Who Are You and numerous others. Even Eddie Money's "Shakin'" and Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels" spins are of the edited variety because of drug references.

Yet, The Eagles "Life in the Fast Lane" airs without an edit of the "G-D" in it?

I'm more offended by that than the other songs.

Just my $.02.

/mode RANT off

 

[firepoint525]

"Life in the Fast Lane" is indeed censored here. Haven't heard it uncensored in quite a while. Even AC stations are playing it now.

"Money for Nothing" was played uncensored until recently. Now either the "******" lyrics are censored out, or the second verse is dropped entirely. Kinda stupid, considering that we heard it UN-censored for 25 years!

Now I am hearing "Jet Airliner" censored more often these days, with the "shit" line reversed, so that it says "funky TISH goin' down in the city." Why don't they just play the "funky kicks" version (the one from the single, and the greatest hits album) and be done with it?

The most censored song that I have heard recently is "Rock Star" by Nickelback. Every drug reference is bleeped out of it! If you are going to censor it that many times, why even play it at all?

Political correctness abounds!

 

[fordranger797]

In "Money For Nothing", the second verse is dropped out entirely on most of the stations which play it where I live. Mark Knopfler did not even intend for the lyrics to be a slur.

 

[kevtronics]

In "Money For Nothing", the second verse is dropped out entirely on most of the stations which play it where I live. Mark Knopfler did not even intend for the lyrics to be a slur.

I have the original "Money For Nothing" promo 12-inch single from 1985, and it has three versions: the album version, the single version with the second verse (intended for the U.S.), and the single version with the second verse edited out (intended for the UK, where the word in question means something entirely different, and wouldn't have made sense in the context of the lyrics).

So, the edited version isn't something new; it is as old as the song itself.

And as for "Jet Airliner", I've never understood why stations play the version with the S-word partially edited out ("funky sh...."). It just disrupts the flow of the song. The "funky kicks" version flows better because of the repeated K's. Same thing with "The Devil Went Down To Georgia"... the "son of a gun" version sounds better, because it rhymes!

 

[firepoint525]

As far as I know, "Devil Went to Georgia" (the single version, the "son of a gun" version) is only available on CD on the Billboard Top 10 Hits of 1979 CD. And for all I know, even that one may be out of print now.

 

[FightingIrish]

I rarely hear the edited version of "Who Are You" by the Who.

 

[firepoint525]

I have the original "Money For Nothing" promo 12-inch single from 1985, and it has three versions: the album version, the single version with the second verse (intended for the U.S.),

That version was referred to as the "long edit" on the 45, which I still have.

and the single version with the second verse edited out (intended for the UK, where the word in question means something entirely different, and wouldn't have made sense in the context of the lyrics).

Evidently, that is the "short edit." The term "long edit" implies the existence of a "short edit" as well.

So, the edited version isn't something new; it is as old as the song itself.

But was it ever played (stateside) prior to about 2010? I don't recall ever hearing that version until political correctness forced it on us.

 

[kevtronics]

But was it ever played (stateside) prior to about 2010? I don't recall ever hearing that version until political correctness forced it on us.

The short edit was the version that Dire Straits chose to include on their 1988 and 1998 greatest hits compilation albums.

Classic Rock stations still usually play the long version of "Money For Nothing", while Oldies/Classic Hits stations usually play the short verison -- as they typically do with most songs, except sometimes when the short version is a disjointed hack-job edit, like the 2-minute version of Chicago's "Beginnings".

 

[firepoint525]

Classic Rock stations still usually play the long version of "Money For Nothing", while Oldies/Classic Hits stations usually play the short verison -- as they typically do with most songs, except sometimes when the short version is a disjointed hack-job edit, like the 2-minute version of Chicago's "Beginnings".

But even they now snip out the word "fagget" (gonna try to see if intentionally misspelling it gets past the censors here) from the second verse, although they were among the last to start doing so. (Most edits traditionally cut down on the number of repeated "I want my MTV"s sung by Sting.)

As I said previously, political correctness abounds!

 

[kevtronics]

As I said previously, political correctness abounds!

There are instances of that, but I don't think it applies here. For example, I think it would be political correctness to not play "Walk on the Wild Side" because it includes the phrase "colored girls". But when it comes to editing out a word that many people today consider to be a highly offensive slur, that's not political correctness; that's just common human decency.

 

[firepoint525]

There are instances of that, but I don't think it applies here. For example, I think it would be political correctness to not play "Walk on the Wild Side" because it includes the phrase "colored girls". But when it comes to editing out a word that many people today consider to be a highly offensive slur, that's not political correctness; that's just common human decency.

But again, "Money For Nothing" was played UN-censored for 25 years. How else would you explain it? By the way, thanks for the heads-up about the greatest hits albums. Now I know to avoid those.

I still hear "Walk on the Wild Side" and yes, it is still uncensored. Agree with your point, but have never heard anyone else make an issue about that one.

 

[kevtronics]

But again, "Money For Nothing" was played UN-censored for 25 years. How else would you explain it?

Partly changing public attitudes, spurred by recent high-profile awareness campaigns; partly younger listeners (the iTunes generation) having less of a "purist" approach to the music than the old-timers who had it on LPs when it was new; partly the corporatization of playlists and music libraries (if Cumulus has the edited version on their master music server in Atlanta, then that's what all Cumulus stations will play); and partly the 2011 CBSC ruling that the unedited version of the song was unacceptable for airplay.

 

[firepoint525]

I found some live versions of "Money for Nothing" (supposedly from 1985) on youtube in which Mark Knopfler changed the word to "queenie." Whether there were already objections to the song back then, I don't know, but I never heard of any of them at that time. And I am guessing that CBSC is something Canadian, because I remember much more of an objection to the song there than here in the states. At any rate, that horse had already left the barn, so to object to something that was already 25 years old made no sense to me.

You also brought up "Walk on the Wild Side." While I have heard it many times, I really did not remember WHEN it was a hit, so I had to look it up. 1973. I was in third grade at the time. 'Splains why I don't really remember it from then. But I would say that 1973 was definitely toward the end of the time when black Americans were referring to themselves as "colored." So why Lou Reed got away with that, I don't know. Maybe he himself took a "walk on the wild side." Also don't know why there was never any objection raised from the black community against that one.

Similarly, there was never any objection raised by the feminist community against songs like "If You Wanna Be Happy" by Jimmy Soul. It could be argued that that one predated the feminist movement, but it could also be argued that the song (and others like it) did not actually give rise to the feminist movement.

 

[BostonRandy]

Regarding "Money for Nothing" and the use of the word "queenie", Mark Knopfler used that word instead of the original lyric when performing at "The Prince's Trust All-Star Rock Concert" in 1986 that was wildly popular. (side note - IIRC, when Paul McCartney performed, he forgot some of the words to "Get Back" and was assisted by Bryan Adams)

During my time at WCIB (Cool 102) in Hyannis, we added Bob Dylan's "Hurricane" to the playlist (day-parted, of course). While the context of the use of the "n-word" by Dylan was not derogatory from him (it was a recounting of others' commentary), we felt it was unnecessary to edit the word when the deletion of the entire stanza was determined to not be detrimental to airing the song.

 

[firepoint525]

Our Cumulus classic hits station (when we had one) played "Money for Nothing" UN-cut. And our Clear Channel classic rocker was one of the last holdouts, playing it UN-censored until sometime within the last year or so. And all that they did was remove the offending word from the backing track, leaving that backing track intact. If you have absolutely got to censor something, at least that is the LEAST intrusive way of doing so. I believe the "bullshit" from Pink Floyd's "Money" was similarly removed.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Now I am hearing "Jet Airliner" censored more often these days, with the "shit" line reversed, so that it says "funky TISH goin' down in the city." Why don't they just play the "funky kicks" version (the one from the single, and the greatest hits album) and be done with it?

Memories used to play this song, if I'm not mistaken. I'll bet they censored it.

That's the format which in 2006 merged with Timeless Classics to become Timeless Favorites. So far, Dial Global America's Best Music hasn't evolved to the point where it even sounds like Timeless Favorites, much less Memories. We can only hope!

 

[rnigma1]

The bit that got censored from "Walk on the Wild Side" was usually not the "colored girls" line, but the verse mentioning "giving head."

A more recent song censored to death is "What It's Like" by Everlast, where words like "drugs" and "weed" get covered up.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Not a rock station, but I was amazed at what I heard on the local morning show of my Dial Global America's Best Music station. The man who owns the station is back at work after several weeks off for surgery, so it's not like someone's doing this without his approval.

"Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes" aired unedited. Although Harry Anderson's version of the movie "Harvey" aired with a TV-G rating despite also using an expression abbreviated SOB.

 

[TriangleTriadMediaNews]

A more recent song censored to death is "What It's Like" by Everlast, where words like "drugs" and "weed" get covered up.

Most stations I've heard censor the entire song, however WBBB in Raleigh (when it was 96rock and now as Radio 96.1) air a mostly unedited version of the song, only censoring the F and S bombs. Do any other stations play the light-edit version?