Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 5 of Several

Essay: "Music Censorship", Part 5 of Several

  [Note: The original version of this essay first appeared in Eastern Connecticut State University's Campus Lantern student newspaper in the early '90s and as part of my unpublished manuscript  "In Mediocrity We Trust... In Debt We Die" And Other Essays before record labeling was imposed nationwide.]

       Anything could potentially be considered offensive to somebody. Take the Rolling Stones: In over forty years, the Rolling Stones have written and recorded many songs which could make certain people cringe. In 1967, during their psychedelic period, the Stones released  "Their Satanic Majesty's Request", which had nothing that I know of with Satan or Satanism. On their album "Hot Rocks", the song  "Sympathy For The Devil" wasn't really about Lucifer per se either.  "Sympathy For The Devil" is actually about the evil that exists in the world. The only Sympathy For The Devil that the Stones had was hiring the Hell's Angels motorcycle club for their tragic December 7, 1970 free concert at Altamont Speedway (1 fan stabbed, 2 drowned, 1 hit by a car).  

       Perhaps  "Brown Sugar" and a few of their other songs could be construed as racist. One song on the  "Black and Blue" album was banned from many radio stations for the lyrics:  "Scrape the sh-t right off your shoes. Similarly (or not), the nearly unintelligible lyrics of the Kingsmen's  "Louie, Louie" were once banned from radio airplay. Many years ago, on  "The Ed Sullivan Show", the Rolling Stones had to change the lyrics: "Let's Spend the Night Together" to  "Let's Spend Some Time Together". Likewise, when the band The Doors performed on "The Ed Sullivan Show", they were supposed to change the lyrics of the song "Come On Light My Fire" to exclude the word  "higher"; apparently due to its 'high on drugs' connotation. By the way, although The Doors promised to change the offending lyric, they played the original version anyway.  (to be cont'd)