The Banned Plays On

The TV announcer warns that the following programme contains “scenes which some of you may find upsetting” and I brace myself for somebody putting pineapple on a pizza. In the event, though, it’s just some bloke being garrotted at the hairdresser’s. Phew! To be fair, these advance warnings are handy in helping us avoid anything we deem unpleasant, especially when a film is awarded the full set: Violence, sexual scenes, strong language, copious vomiting etc. Fun for all the family. Radio can’t accommodate similar alerts, of course. With an ‘edgy’ song broadcasters must decide: play or boycott. This came to mind recently while perusing a list of records banned from radio play in decades past to avoid giving offence. They mostly seem innocuous today and I wonder if even at the time the public was so prim as to need such protection. Or was it perhaps a reactionary establishment railing against changing social attitudes? I’m not wading in to the minefield debate around censorship here, merely bemused by some of the records targeted during those years.

George Formby released “With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock”, sounding as always like Minnie Mouse on helium. It was three minutes of juvenile innuendo but it so flustered the BBC that they blocked it from being performed on radio, thus sparing a grateful nation.

Or was it perhaps a reactionary establishment railing against changing social attitudes?

The 1960s of course was the boom-time for ‘dangerous’ songs. Among many others, The Rolling Stones’ “Let’s Spend The Night Together” was targeted for ‘promoting promiscuity’. However, “Je T’aime . . .Moi, Non Plus”, the classic heavybreather by permasmoking French icon Serge Gainsbourg and his English girlfriend Jane Birkin, while also banned, topped the UK charts. Evidently, you can’t always instruct people to be shocked.

Brian White lives in south Indre with his wife, too many moles and not enough guitars mediocre at best. However, I’m sure all these record companies were thrilled by the fuss. For every howl of complaint, read “Ker-ching!”. Outrage, even when manufactured, is usually profitable. Most of these examples are now regularly heard on radio and I wonder was it worth the controversy? I love the BBC but the affectionate nickname “Aunty” stuck for a reason. During the first Gulf War in 1990, for instance, the corporation assembled a list of records deemed ‘inappropriate’ for such a time. It featured everything from Abba’s “Waterloo”, “Imagine” by John Lennon, The Bangles’ “Walk Like An Egyptian” and even Lulu’s execrable Eurodrivel “Boom Bang A Bang”. But how many of us would have complained, even if we had made the connection?

More seriously, when it’s neither sex nor drugs but politics, a ban acknowledges music’s colossal power to mobilise. The 1942 film classic “Casablanca” has a pivotal scene in which the patrons of Rick's Café Américain drown out the singing of the German soldiers with a defiant rendition of “La Marseillaise”. Director Michael Curtiz filled the bar with actual French refugees from Nazism, when the fate of France was still uncertain; the character of ‘Yvonne’ yelling a tearstricken “Vive La France!” still gets me every time.

Jazz, freedom, and individuality in musical form, was declared ‘verboten’ in 1930s Germany and similarly banned for decades in the Soviet Union. Western music in its entirety is embargoed today in several hard-line countries (some, in a sort of twofor-one deal, outlaw dancing as well). The first move for many authoritarian regimes in silencing the voices of those they oppress, is to ban indigenous music. This visceral power was understood even three hundred years ago when Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher wrote “Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws”.

Most commonly, songs were denied air time due to overtly suggestive lyrics. In 1937, for instance, the British ‘entertainer’

A plethora of songs contained actual or perceived drug references, although sometimes the ban only drew attention to it. (Pete Townsend claimed The Who’s “I Can See For Miles” was merely a song about a man with exceptionally good eyesight). Elsewhere, the BBC refused “I Am the Walrus” by The Beatles, not for hallucinogenic imagery but because it contained the word “knickers”. I mean, really? This heavy-handedness often bestowed a notoriety on records that were

A ban usually arises from fear and I’m generally in favour of the people’s right to choose for themselves. Okay, if I had to make an exception, I believe the world could do without George Formby’s entire recorded works but that would be my limit. And Robbie Williams, obviously. Plus any boy/girl group calling themselves ‘a band’ when none of them actually play anything – that’s got to stop. Okay, while we’re at it, hang on, I have a list here….

THIS MONTH IT’S ALL ABOUT THE SEASONAL PRODUCE THAT IS APPEARING IN OUR POTAGERS