The twisting and distorting that goes on to get certain songs on the radio amuses me, to a small degree. Can't say way, really, as a rule it hurts the song involved.
The most common form of trimming deals with damping out the offensive portion of the lyric. An example of this would be in the Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know" lyric, "Are you thinking of me when you **** her". Though why they mute out the word "kiss" is beyond me.
...
Yeah, that wasn't as funny as I thought it'd be.
Anywho.
Another example, at least where I live, would be Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels". In my state, at least, they changed it into an actual sound, which was bizarre. Every time I hear the song, I hear it, even when the word "joint" is allowed to be used.
(All that over-sensitivity on the word "joint" is another case of PC run amok, I'd say. But leave us not get too distracted from the essay)
In songs like "You Oughta Know" and "You Don't Know How It Feels", such helpful trimming comes and goes without too much notice. You get a song like D12's "My Band", where every other word seems bleeped, and it gets ridiculous. It make it hard to follow the lyrics and is ruinous to the music.
Every now and then, a group will come out with a "clean" version of a song. An excellent example of this would be Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". The original version had a stronger lyric than "I told you once, you son of a gun, I'm the best that ever been". One with kick.
In this day and age, the obsession with cleanliness goes to extremes. The best example of this that I can think off (ignoring Weezer for a moment) would be The Black Eyed Peas.
Changing "Don't Phunk with My Heart", already a decent euphemism to my mind, to "Don't Mess with My Heart" really doesn't make sense to me.
(Small aside - This might only be the video version that has this change. The point, though, remains the same.)
Sometimes, and I hesitate to say this, sometimes the censor's dastardly deed even helps the work. This, of course might be personal preference, but I like the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" far more than the original "Let's Get Retarded," despite the fact the changes doesn't effect the rhythm of the song that much. No doubt this is do to my growing more (PC?) sensitive to the word "retarded". Which is MASSIVELY hypocritical of me due to the number of times I used the word as an insult, but that's okay...
On a similar note, I prefer Radiohead's "Creep" far better in its radio edit than it's original version. The lyric "I wish I was special/you're so very special" is smoother to my ear than "I wish I was special/you're so ****ing special." You find yourself tripping over the -ck. Like a brick wall.
Which is why**** is the most powerful of the curses. It's so damn brutal.
The most common form of trimming deals with damping out the offensive portion of the lyric. An example of this would be in the Alanis Morissette "You Oughta Know" lyric, "Are you thinking of me when you **** her". Though why they mute out the word "kiss" is beyond me.
...
Yeah, that wasn't as funny as I thought it'd be.
Anywho.
Another example, at least where I live, would be Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels". In my state, at least, they changed it into an actual sound, which was bizarre. Every time I hear the song, I hear it, even when the word "joint" is allowed to be used.
(All that over-sensitivity on the word "joint" is another case of PC run amok, I'd say. But leave us not get too distracted from the essay)
In songs like "You Oughta Know" and "You Don't Know How It Feels", such helpful trimming comes and goes without too much notice. You get a song like D12's "My Band", where every other word seems bleeped, and it gets ridiculous. It make it hard to follow the lyrics and is ruinous to the music.
Every now and then, a group will come out with a "clean" version of a song. An excellent example of this would be Charlie Daniels Band's "The Devil Went Down to Georgia". The original version had a stronger lyric than "I told you once, you son of a gun, I'm the best that ever been". One with kick.
In this day and age, the obsession with cleanliness goes to extremes. The best example of this that I can think off (ignoring Weezer for a moment) would be The Black Eyed Peas.
Changing "Don't Phunk with My Heart", already a decent euphemism to my mind, to "Don't Mess with My Heart" really doesn't make sense to me.
(Small aside - This might only be the video version that has this change. The point, though, remains the same.)
Sometimes, and I hesitate to say this, sometimes the censor's dastardly deed even helps the work. This, of course might be personal preference, but I like the Black Eyed Peas' "Let's Get It Started" far more than the original "Let's Get Retarded," despite the fact the changes doesn't effect the rhythm of the song that much. No doubt this is do to my growing more (PC?) sensitive to the word "retarded". Which is MASSIVELY hypocritical of me due to the number of times I used the word as an insult, but that's okay...
On a similar note, I prefer Radiohead's "Creep" far better in its radio edit than it's original version. The lyric "I wish I was special/you're so very special" is smoother to my ear than "I wish I was special/you're so ****ing special." You find yourself tripping over the -ck. Like a brick wall.
Which is why**** is the most powerful of the curses. It's so damn brutal.
Next, we'll move a wee bit away from the music business and hit topics closer to topic for this site. Namely, the movies.
1 comment:
You know, while I think the ARTISTE shouldn't have any barriers to the full expression of his/her vision...nevertheless, a few barriers are pretty essential for the exercise of creativity. I mean, that's why we have poetry in the first place, yes? To say the straigtforward in a less straigtforward, more evocative way?
I've always thought Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" had utterly splendid use of language, but to be truthful, it could all be boiled down to "Let's F***." and that would be that.
Music exists as a human activity because we need euphemism. The straightforward gets boring, and none of us non-football hero guys gets any otherwise.
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