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Song you wondered how they they ever got played on Top 40 radio

The topic is “Songs you wondered how they ever got played on Top 40 radio”, not “Name every mildly racy song that became a hit.”

For example: I was surprised at how fast and how universal Top 40 accepted Elton John's "The Bitch is Back".

The only sorta-precedent for it was that *some* (by no means all) Top 40s flipped "Brown Sugar" (usually at night) and played "Bitch", but the vast majority of them didn't say the title, which in 1974 was not a word used in polite company, much less on the radio (outside FM rockers) on a regular basis.

I was at KSLY in San Luis Obispo, and for the first week, I made a point of not front-selling it, and on the back, I did this:

ELTON: "Bitch!"

ME: "WHAT??"

ELTON: "Bitch!"

ME: "Oh!"

ELTON "The bitch is back..."

ME: That's the title folks. Elton John on K-S-L-Y..."


By week two it seemed silly, I just said it and we never really had an issue.

I'm sure some stations sat out (it peaked at #4 in Billboard, when the previous two records had been #2 and #1) but there didn't seem to be a lot of debate for most of the country.
 
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secondchoice said:
I sure them are a lot of these songs but here are a couple:

Brewer and Shipley's "One toke over the line"

I can only guess someone didn't know what "toke" meant, or they hear "sweet Jusus" am thought it was a religious sing.


Blood Rock's "D.O.A."

I can't guess why anyone would call up and request this. Unless it's another station trying to sabotage the competition..
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There's an old Casey Kasem episode where Casey explains that toke can be "token" like a subway token
 
secondchoice said:
I forgot my favorite cannibal song:

"Timothy" by the Buoys.

Written by Rupert Holmes who also wrote "Escape The Pina Colada Song"
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Rupert explains that yes it was about cannibalism. The promoters tried to walk it back by claiming Timothy was a goat, but, nah, baby, nah. Rupert was watching Julia Child cut up chickens, while working on an arrangement of "16 Tons" for Andy Kim, which I'm pleased to have never heard.
 
kevtronics said:
It also included the word "Hell" which some considered taboo in 1970, and some stations did ban it. In response, the record company insisted that Timothy was a mule, not a human. When that didn't work, they released a version that changed the lyrics and/or bleeped out "Hell".

And there's "Angie Baby", which hints at a mentally ill girl possibly abducting someone and keeping him as a "secret lover".
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Written by Alan O'Day.
 
kevtronics said:
It also included the word "Hell" which some considered taboo in 1970
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Some still do. There are some audio-only talk networks on Galaxy 19 (Ku) that sound like WWCR in terms of their conservative content. One, a health show run by two religious guys, cannot bring themselves to say that word outloud unless they substitute it with "H - E - double hockey sticks".

Every time they do it, I hear it in Ned Flanders' voice...
 
michael hagerty said:
The only sorta-precedent for it was that *some* (by no means all) Top 40s flipped "Brown Sugar" (usually at night) and played "Bitch", but the vast majority of them didn't say the title, which in 1974 was not a word used in polite company, much less on the radio (outside FM rockers) on a regular basis.
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"Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates and "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka.

I miss Good Time Oldies.
 
vchimpanzee said:
"Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates and "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka.
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Both of which came after "The Bitch Is Back"---"Bad Blood" by about a year and "Rich Girl" by three years. So the barrier on "bitch" for Top 40 was long broken, and---bonus points---unlike "The Bitch Is Back", the DJ never had to say the word on the air.

The next time that happened was 1979---Rod Stewart's "Ain't Love a Bitch". And that was an even bigger barrier, as some Adult Contemporary stations played it. I was programming KOLO in Reno at the time and struggled with whether to play it, mostly because it would mean our jocks---who, apart from me and one other guy only two years before were MOR personalities----would have to back-announce it.

Also it was kind of a pastiche---a callback to "Maggie May" was in there as well as a limp ripoff of David Bowie's "ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry" line.

Beyond the language, it just felt lukewarm to me, so I waited. It stalled out at #22 on the Hot 100 and never made either Billboard or R&R's AC chart.


Unless I'm wrong, the word "Bitch" didn't show up in the title of a mass-appeal hit again until 1997 and Meredith Brooks' "Bitch", which peaked at number two.
 
Oldbones said:
"Once You Understand" - Think. This actually charted twice, once in 1971 and again in 1974.
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It peaked at #23 in its first release (end of 1971 into early 1972) and at #53 in 1974, so how much radio play did this ever actually get? I'm guessing it got at least a little the first time around, but maybe not the second time since there are plenty of songs in the bottom half of the Hot 100 that were pretty much ignored by radio.

Since I'd never heard of it, let alone heard it, I got curious enough to look up the lyrics and to skim through the song on You Tube. Based on that, while I know they were trying to get what they considered an important message across, the way they did it just seems like it was cause listeners to change stations with all those voice overs and the sobbing at the end.

On the other hand...the first half of the seventies was a time when a lot of songs about death made it onto the radio. A couple have been mentioned here, but adding to the list would be Terry Jacks with "Seasons in the Sun" (a huge hit at the time), Austin Roberts with "Rocky", Hot Chocolate with "Emma" (so different from their subsequent hits), and David Geddes with "Run Joey Run" and "The Last Game of the Season". So in that sense, "Once You Understand" wasn't completely out of place for its era.

(As an aside, the last time I heard "Seasons in the Sun" on a commercial radio station was probably in late 1986, when 94.9 had recently flipped to rhythmic-leaning CHR/Top 40 as KHYI, Y-95. They were running jockless and commercial free for their first several months, with aggressive ("Get out of the way, wimp!") and sexually suggestive ("Lock in and jerk your knob off") station liners interspersed between the songs. And somehow amidst all that, on one occasion I heard "Seasons in the Sun", albeit from a single that had obviously seen better days as I could hear the scratches. I never heard it again, and I never have understood exactly what the point of playing it was...)
 
There were a lot of death songs (most involving car crashes) in the 60s as well. "Tell Laura I Love Her", "Last Kiss", "Leader Of The Pack" and "Dead Man's Curve."
 
TexasTom said:
On the other hand...the first half of the seventies was a time when a lot of songs about death made it onto the radio.
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You have to remember we were drawing to the end of the Vietnam War era, in which hundreds of young soldiers were losing their lives every week. Many grew up in fear of being shipped halfway across the world to be killed in some God-forsaken jungle. The possibility of death was always on their minds.
 
Yeah, "Leader of the Pack" in particular came to my mind -- with the histrionic female vocals interspersed into the song, it feels in many ways like the inspiration for "Run Joey Run".
 


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