naughty, naughty......very naughty

[good2skull]

Could someone please tell me how on earth that pleasant skiffle combo The Shamen in their hit single "Ebeneezer Goode" managed to sing "E's are good" over and over and not get banned ? Also, can anyone think of other "naughty" songs that slipped through the net ? I live in Sweden where the is no censorship on state radio or TV and I sort of miss people like Simon Bates getting all flustered over risque song lyrics.......

[andy hughes]

OK, first question first - The Shamen advised when ever asked, that the lyric was "....ezer Goode ...ezer Goode, he's Ebeneezer Goode ..." and since they managed to keep their faces straight each time, they got away with it. As for other records getting by - Lou Reed's 'Walk On The Wild Side' which states quite clearly that Candy "...never lost her head, even when she was givin' head ..." is still given an oocasional airing on BBC radio. One assumes that the powers-that-be at the time - 1973 - must have not realised what was meant, and are now to embarrassed to own up! James' 'Laid' from 1993 makes no bones about advising that "She only comes when she's on top ..." which doesn't leave a lot of room for manoevre in the misinterperetation area, and it received healthy airplay, and was a hit single. Sadly, the unequivocal message of Wayne County And The Electric Chairs, which was clearly heard to be "F**k O**!" was not missed, no airplay, no hit, but a great party icebreaker all the same! If I think of any more, I'll come back to you, but these questions usually gather a healthy response from other Visitors, so let's see what we can all come up with ... if you catch my meaning!

[Waterwolf]

Babybird's 'You're Gorgeous' springs to mind as a song with rather suggestive lyrics that people ignored because of the candy-pop tune: "You told me to hitch my knees up, and pushed my legs apart ..." Then there are songs about drugs, like The Stranglers' 'Golden Brown' or the less subtle "Something For The Weekend" by the Super Furry Animals: "First time, did it for the hell of it, stuck it on the back of my tongue and then swallowed it." (And then they released a song containing the F-word 52 times -- but strangely enough, that was banned!)

[Lord Panda]

"You're Gorgeous" doesn't actually count. It's about a model and a photographer. You could sing it as a female/male duet, it's just that it was done with Stephen Jones [is that the right name, Andy?] singing both parts. The line quoted is followed by "You took an instamatic camera". I'm not sure how we got this far without mentioning 'Relax', though!

[Waterwolf]

I remember an interview with Stephen Jones where he said that 'You're Gorgeous' was deliberately intended to reverse gender stereotypes, i.e. the model in the song is male. The lyrics are still a bit risque, though ... And 'Relax' didn't slip through the net -- wasn't it banned from Top of the Pops?

[Waterwolf]

I may now have an answer to how 'Laid' by James slipped through the net. There is a copy of the video on the band's website, and the soundtrack goes "She only sings when she's on top," so perhaps the lyrics were changed for the single release. Interestingly, in the video, singer Tim Booth is quite clearly miming the original version of the line in question -- and the preceding couplet of "This bed is on fire with passionate love / The neighbours complain about the noises above" survives intact.

[andy hughes]

Thanks Waterwolf for the additional info on the James track - not being a big TV watcher, I did miss the TOTP in question, but it sounds like you saw what was going on. In the more innocent 60s, both Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger were advised to sing 'adapted' lyrics on TV shows, - The Doors were plugging 'Light My Fire', and The Stones were doing 'Let's Spend The Night Together'. Both being clean-living eager-to-please boys, it was a massive shock to all concerned when both of them not only sang the words they had written, but actually made a point of emphisising them really heavily, in case anyone was about to miss the message! Rock'n'roll, eh?

[Waterwolf]

I was actually talking about the promo video for 'Laid' -- see it for yourself on http://www.jamesonline.co.uk/ But Andy's answer reminds of more recent censorship on TOTP, like the not entirelysuccessful fading out of 'pi*sing the night away in Chumbawamba's 'Tubthumping'. Or the time when The Divine Comedy performed 'National Express' -- where the line "when your ar*e is the size of a small country" contained a few seconds of dead silence. Cue an insightful letter to the Radio Times pointing out that the dancers for another act had been all but showing the body part in question, so was it a case of you can show it but not say it ...?