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What was the 1st song on radio that had the F-word in original recording?
- Thread starter wxman76
- Start date
J
Jeremy Scott
Guest
What I've always found interesting is the fact it took radio stations YEARS after the release of Pearl Jam's "Jeremy" to realize Eddie Vedder was saying "harmless little ****." Only in the past few years have I heard the edited version on terrestrial radio, and that song came out in 1991.
There's ways of....um, "saying it without saying it"......if you know what I mean... 
Case in point, the first single from Extreme's Extreme II: Pornograffiti album (not the monster hit ballad "More Than Words", that was actually the second single), was a number called "Get The Funk Out" (replace the "n" in funk with a "c"...) Pretty cheeky of those guys. And you can STILL play this on the radio. The lyric sheet of this song on the album had "funk", not the f-word printed on it, so any FCC questions can be instantly settled.
The song never became a hit (it stiffed pretty low in 1990 and the album looked doomed, but all that would soon change in a few months......)
"Get The Funk Out" was re-released later in 1991 after "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted" became huge hits, but didn't fare much better than the first time.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHIk2DTIsZ0
Case in point, the first single from Extreme's Extreme II: Pornograffiti album (not the monster hit ballad "More Than Words", that was actually the second single), was a number called "Get The Funk Out" (replace the "n" in funk with a "c"...)
Pretty cheeky of those guys. And you can STILL play this on the radio. The lyric sheet of this song on the album had "funk", not the f-word printed on it, so any FCC questions can be instantly settled.The song never became a hit (it stiffed pretty low in 1990 and the album looked doomed, but all that would soon change in a few months......)
"Get The Funk Out" was re-released later in 1991 after "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted" became huge hits, but didn't fare much better than the first time.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHIk2DTIsZ0
Kelly Watts said:
I doubt that L. Russell Brown and Bob Crewe would have put that into the song. Crewe controlled everything, writing, production, record label, and they were all about producing a product that, while edgy in some cases, could and would be played on the radio. Everyone thought Crewe's song "Lady Marmalade" said something bad in French, but from what I'm told, it translates to something in between innocuous and a double meaning.
Schroedingers Cat said:
i don't think so. "Voulez-vous couchez avec moi, se soir" (pardon if I've messed up the spelling) means "would you sleep with me tonight." So "sleep with me" in French is the same as English - 'have sex.'
While fairly racy for the time, it's not exactly profanity.
While slightly off the subject (the 'F' word), the controversy over the Ballad of John and Yoko about 1970 was interesting. John uses the Lord's name in vain ("Christ, you know it ain't easy..."). In Los Ageles, KRLA and the FM rock stations played in uncensored, KGBS played it with the "Christ" clumsily bleeped out, and KHJ never played the song at all, despite the fact that it was The Beatles, and a fairly big hit. I assume the song was never played on any Bill Drake consulted stations.
Didn't some stations try to avoid the controversy all together by playing the b-side, George's song "Old Brown Shoe"? I'm told that some stations played both, but I had also heard that some stations played only "Old Brown Shoe." Interesting that "Ballad of John and Yoko" would be recorded as a "Beatles" song at all, given that it was obviously about John and Yoko, their wedding day, and probably his drug busts as well. Especially interesting, given that Paul McCartney did not want "Cold Turkey" released as a "Beatles" song.Lkeller said:
...however, it's only Lennon and McCartney performing on "The Ballad of John and Yoko," as Harrison was off on a travel holiday and Starr was filming The Magic Christian. As I suspect Ono would complain about McCartney appearing on a track credited to the Plastic Ono Band, Lennon felt a Beatles credit was the only way to go...firepoint525 said:
On Sock it to me baby by Mitch Ryder he actally said "Puck". I know the first couple of times I played it on the air when it first came out I thoought for sure it was the f-word. Just listened again to Harry Nielson's your breaking my heard on youtube yesterday. I recall playing it from the lp off the air when it was released.
In 1973, The Spinners' "One Of A Kind" (Love Affair) dropped the F-Bomb in the first refrain after the instrumental bridge.
"One of a kind love affair, makes you want to love her, you just got to f**k her".
No ambiguity; it's well enunciated. And it was on the original Atlantic retail 45, radio versions had the entire line edited out. That's the version that appears on the Spinners' Greatest Hits and other compilations. I heard recently they'd shipped a substitute version with "you just got to hug her" but I only ever remember the entire line being either in or out rather than something being resung.
"One of a kind love affair, makes you want to love her, you just got to f**k her".
No ambiguity; it's well enunciated. And it was on the original Atlantic retail 45, radio versions had the entire line edited out. That's the version that appears on the Spinners' Greatest Hits and other compilations. I heard recently they'd shipped a substitute version with "you just got to hug her" but I only ever remember the entire line being either in or out rather than something being resung.
chas108 said:
Chas: Covered this one early on...page one of this discussion. It was "hug" from the beginning.
michael hagerty said:
I have the original 45 too. It was NOT the f-word. At all.
That song would NEVER get on Top 40 radio if you could clearly hear the f-bomb. And would forever marginalize The Spinners if they did. The Spinners worked hard for that 1972 breakthrough album at Atlantic, something they knew very well Atlantic could have easily turned down. I really don't think The Spinners would have deliberately done anything to screw any chance at radio airplay up.
But there WAS some public confusion at first. So they changed one of the lines. Just to completely clarify. Nothing more.
It's one of those crazy rock n' roll urban legends that have taken on a life of their own (like the roller-coaster death cry on "Love Rollercoaster". Or the "subliminal" pro-suicide lyrics of Judas Priest albums in the '80s. Just products of over-imagination..........
The Huey Lewis & the News song "Give Me The Keys (And I'll Drive You Crazy)" clearly has the f-word in the last verse: "When it gets a little dark, we'll find a place to f---." The lyrics sheets always said "park", but there's absolutely no ambiguity about what Huey really said.
Every top 40 station I know of played it unedited.
Every top 40 station I know of played it unedited.
Maybe not the first, but the first one I heard about was in "Mule Skinner Blues", by
The Fendermen. There was a question as to what was being said..."bucket", or,...well, you know...(It WAS 'bucket', BTW.)
Also, a song, by a group whose name escapes me, had a carefully crafted song title
that spelled out(sort of) the f-bomb. The song title: "If You See Kaye".
(Say it briskly to get the best effect.)
The Fendermen. There was a question as to what was being said..."bucket", or,...well, you know...(It WAS 'bucket', BTW.)
Also, a song, by a group whose name escapes me, had a carefully crafted song title
that spelled out(sort of) the f-bomb. The song title: "If You See Kaye".
(Say it briskly to get the best effect.)
April Wine...around 1982 or so
NoWayNoCC said:
The earliest I can remember is "Hell" in Jimmy Dean's "Big Bad John" (1961). After that, "damn" in Sammy Davis, Jr.'s "What Kind of Fool Am I" (1962). Next big one was probably "The Bitch Is Back" by Elton John (1974). There were songs with stronger lyrics, but the single versions that made the Top 40 were edited.
Somewhere I have an aircheck where the the Jimmy Dean "hell of a man" version was played....but I can only find my 45 with "big big man".michael hagerty said:
There was also in 1963? the Kingston Trio's "Green Back Dollar" where vocal of "I don't give a damn" was simply muted out in the radio on the vocal word damn only, with all the other parts of the mix there.
Tom Wells said:
Yep. Remember that, too...but Sammy beat them by a year.
I'm sure someone will cite the Stones' "Bitch" as being three years before Elton's "The Bitch Is Back", but it never charted on Billboard (it was the flip of "Brown Sugar". Cutting-edge Top 40s of the time like KCBQ, San Diego played it, mainstays like WABC, WLS and KHJ never did).
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