Entertainment For Lively Minds
Things you can't do in pop music anymore
Posted by David Hepworth on 28 January 2010 - 12:49pm.
We've got a Bee Gees Greatest Hits playing at the moment in the office. We're on to a track called "Fanny Be Tender With My Love". You wouldn't find a promotion man these days prepared to take that into Radio One. What else happened once in pop music that wouldn't happen any more?
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The Black And White Minstrels?
Musicians would agree
to be interviewed without any interference from their PR.
Songs about young girls sung by older men
Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen
You're Sixteen
etc...
Indeed
Was going to say same thing - see also mentions of 'school'.
"Sitting on a park bench...
...eyeing little girls with bad intent"
Aerosmith
"Schoolgirl sleazy with a classic kind of sassy, little skirt hanging way up her knees...."
Excuse me, Officer?
Sparks - "Young girls"
I know Ron has a habit of writing songs on dodgy subjects with his tongue lodged firmly in his cheek, but this is a little unsettling.
See also "White Women", with it's chorus of:
"As long as they're white
As long as they're white
As long as they're white from head to toe
As long as they're white
As long as they're white
As long as they're white I'll have a go"
Fetch the flaming torches
Young girl, get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run, girl,
You're much too young, girl
With all the charms of a woman
You've kept the secret of your youth
You led me to believe
You're old enough
To give me Love
And now it hurts to know the truth
Beneath your perfume and make-up
You're just a baby in disguise
And though you know
That it is wrong to be
Alone with me
That come on look is in your eyes
So hurry home to your mama
I'm sure she wonders where you are
Get out of here
Before I have the time
To change my mind
'Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far
Apparently
that is George Bush Jr's favourite song - eww, he's such a wrong 'un!
*grabs pitchfork*
quick, storm the castle and burn the beast!
that song has always made my skin crawl...
On a vaguely similar note...
...is it just me who feels slightly queasy listening to the Frank and Nancy Sinatra duet 'Somethin' Stupid'?
Always found it just a little... odd.
No it's not just you
I've always thought that there was something decidedly creepy about it.
.
.
I wonder if
Oliver's Army, which, regardless of the context, uses the n word, would ever get played these days.
Oliver's Army
Still gets plenty of plays on my radio. Although, in essence, you're right - a new track with that lyric would be a tough sell to mainstream radio.
Minipops
It would all end up like the final scene of "Little Miss Sunshine"
I was just
going to mention the MiniPops but there was no way on Earth I would post a YouTube clip, as the next post would obviously be a Pedobear (see http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pedobear)
There's a very good reason..
and the same reason why I didn't. Remember Kiddistare from the Day Today?
The Bee Gees, again..
"She's gypsy and she's trouble..."
"Err, Barry, there are 7 policemen, dressed in their militia fatigues, at the door".
"Gypsies, tramps and thieves.."
See "Bee Gees" above.
Should be
Travellers, people of no fixed abode and the socially disadvantaged...
I tell you, it's political correctness gone mad. Harumph!
Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport
'Let me Abos go loose, Lou
Let me Abos go loose
They're of no further use, Lou
So let me Abos go loose'
I know Rolf has since expressed regret, but I bought a kids' CD a couple of years ago and the version of TMKDS still contained those lyrics.
That Rod Stewart raincoat LP cover
...nooooo!
Weird...
I was uploading it just as you posted your comment!
13
by Big Star
Album covers like this...
Would Fat Bottomed Girls
get airplay on Radio 1 or 2 now, or 6music? Did it then?
Can't see what's wrong with this...
I was just a skinny lad
Never knew no good from bad
But I knew love before I left my nursery
Left alone with big fat fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me
Ah, ok...
also
laying down by the red firelight and letting it all hang out is a reasonable hobby in my book
guitar solos
.
Sax solos.
as I mentioned previously
'all dressed up for school ... ooh, what a turn-on'
Deemed 'unsuitable' for release when it was made in 1964, although, In context, it's not really pervy at all. It's not an older man ogling a young schoolgirl, but a contemporary noting that a tomboy-ish fellow pupil has scrubbed up well.
With regards Fanny, it wasn't a single in the Uk but was in the US, presumably because over there Fanny doesn't have quite the same meaning and is also a pretty common name. It's still played on the radio here though, as much as any Bee Gees oldie. It's a staple of Steve Wright's Sunday Love Songs.
Rock n Roll Nigger?
Despite the "context"?
Would Patti get away with the line "Jimi Hendrix, was a nigger..." nowadays, regardless of the Jackson Pollock and Grandma rubbish that follows it?
I'd love to hear a 3 way conversation with Patti, record company and agent if that was released in 2010.
Anything other than 4/4 time
Generally the bass drum has to have the bump, bump-bump pattern at the least, or more likely the bump, b-bum-bump hip hop feel. Very little deviates from this any more.
Good observation
Regrettable, and true. It's hard now to hear something like Hey Joe or Golden Brown and remember that pop music never used to sound homogeneous (sp??).
I doubt whether
The Cure's 'Killing an Arab' will be covered by an X-factor contestant or played on the Radio.
The Sun Has Got His Hat on.....
has some very dubious lyrics that may not be appropiate these days! It was accidenatlly played on Jon Richardsons show last year, made me stop my grinning and drop my linen.
Dubious lyrics
A friend of mine is a Telegraph reader, and dreaded his daughter going to school, as she will from September, because of the thought of her being manipulated by the dreaded Socialist state authorities. He was re-assured when being shown around his chosen school (though offers have not been sent out yet) when he found a classroom of children sing the aforementioned The Sun Has Got His Hat On with the original lyric.
What's dubious about...
"...he's been roasting peanuts
Out in Timbuktoo..."
Eh?
Oh.
Eenie Meenie Minie Mo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeny,_meeny,_miny,_moe
When I were a lad, in the dim and distant 1970s, I have to admit that this was the version we sung, completely unthinkingly, hard though it is now to believe.
Thankfully, the version my daughter now sings replaces the 'n' word with 'frog'. Although, come to think about it, possibly francophone?!
Baa Baa Black Sheep is still alive and well though, at the last count...
Hmm.
We always used "Ip, dip, dog-shit, you are not it, O-U-T spells out" when making important executive playground decisions.
AC/DC, Shake A Leg
Where do I claim my $5 ?
AC/DC? A little unfair......
Like shooting fish in a barrell!
I wasn't saying AC/DC couldn't do Shake A Leg
...it was the post quoting a line from the song... "stop your grinnin and drop your linen"...I was just being a smart arse (I get so few opportunities).
Not all their songs are dodgy...
they've got a nice one called Sink The Pink that's about snooker.
Shoot To Thrill
About Olympic Skeet Shooting.
Apparently.
Oh the shame
Yes, DougieJ, I too used the infamous n-word eenie meenie chant in the playground. We didn't think twice about it.
And... apologies if I'm being really thick here, but what's controversial about The Sun Has Got His Hat On? Seriously! Have I missed something?
Bloomin eck
It's ok, I've just googled it.
Bloomin' eck indeed!
I've just googled it as well. Just goes to show, you never can tell...
on a lighter note
Hopefully now I would never get 'Prince the talking dog' with 'Sausages' signed to EMI.
The evidence http://rowlandjones.squarespace.com/journals/
Please forgive me.
Well done sir, you were the
Well done sir, you were the Simon Cowell of your generation! The clip from That's Life still makes me laugh, although I don't suppose Esther Rantzen relishes the idea that, despite her Child Line achievements, this will be the one thing forever associated with her in people's minds
Bugger me
I have that record; is it a valuable collector's item? The Antiques Roadshow beckons!
Isn't that
a young Stewart Lee?
Happy Talk - Captain Sensible
The only artist to get the "C" word played in a song on the radio. I'm sure I've heard it but perhaps the lyric is an urban myth.
You're meaning the lyric
You're meaning the lyric "Golly baby, I'm a lucky cuss" surely.
It is "cuss"
Because it rhymes with "You and me are lucky to be us"
But it does certainly sound as if he says another word.
The one tune featuring the "C" word. Prominently. And deliberately. Country House. Emphasis very much on the first syllable, particularly when done live on TOTP.
Now then. Two songs which feature the word "fuck" which hit the top twenty and were played, uncut and unnoticed, again and again, by Radio 1. Name them and let's have the YouTube bits to confirm..
Hey Jude was the first
(although possibly not one you'll be thinking of)
Just about three minutes in, after '...let her under your skin...', one of the Fabs makes a slip and there is a very noticeable 'fuckin' 'ell' in the background.
Once you've noticed it, or had it pointed out, you'll hear it every time (and start singing it, if you're not careful).
Now that
is why I find this place so edukashunal. Hilarious. And you're right i can't stop noticing it now I've found it. 30 years of listening to that and something new leaps out of it.
Wings...
..."With a Little Luck" first line, allegedly changes one consonant.
The Kinks
I've always thought (without bothering to check) that Ray Davies sings "the air pollution is a-fucking up my eye" on 'Apeman'.
None yet..
I'm thinking of CW McCall's "Convoy" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life"
Now there I was,
quite smug in the knowledge my ring tones are all about oral sex and masturbation (Semi Charmed Life and Turning Japanese), getting everyone in the office humming along (so to speak).
Pretty Vacant?
No ambiguity as to where Johnny's pronounciation is inflected!
Unbelievable, EMF
Sample goes, "Woah! What the f- was that?"
Doesn't it?
Think so (***boring obscurity alert**)
though without the "whoah" - if my unreliable memory serves (and the source was reliable in the first place) it's a Last Poets sample used by Cathal Coughlan on one of his Only Losers Take the Bus remixes and borrowed by the producer who was also doing the EMF record.
Supertramp - Dreamer
They certainly changed the "stupid little dreamer" to something stronger when I saw them perform it on TV. I think.
Singing live
seems to have gone out of fashion. Or, if in a studio, singing without autotune appears to be a bit of a no-no.
Peppermint Lump
That's Pete Townshend and it's on Stiff Records..!
I had this single
But never felt seedy about it until now
Song For Swinging Lovers
marrying your cousin...
I would imagine marrying your 13-year old cousin, a la Jerry Lee Lewis, probably ranks quite high.
Three days of music for two quid?
Accrington Stanley?
...
Wahey! Country Jug are playing!
The bill is complete!
"Wouldn't it be nice"
I'm not sure these days you would imply that the only way to spend the night together was to be married - and then you'd be happy.
I love the lyrics though.
The naivete in 'maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true' is very touching. The post-modern, revisionist thing to do would be to say Brian was being ironic, but I like to think it was genuine.
Blind Faith
And whilst we're on the underage topic - how's about that Blind Faith sleeve then?
Novelty records
or singing puppets or mega mixes. Jive Bunny: Now there was a band
Dodgy album covers.
Houses of The Holy. That other one with the girl fondling the stainless steel plane thingy. The Sex Pistols one. Bow Wow Wow's Dejeuner Sur L'Herbe takeoff.. Probably Nevermind as well
They were all a bit iffy at the time.. now.. bloody hell..
that Radio 4
had an entire programme on the Hipgnosis sleeve for HotH the other day ... made by the young boy (now 40something?) who featured on the cover with his sister ... he interviewed his mum, his sis, the designer and possibly some other folk (but not page, plant or jones) ... weird thing was that in all those years, he'd never listened to the actual record (he claimed) but was unsettled by the apocalyptic tone of the cover
(reading between the lines, his sis just wanted him to get over himself because none of it seemed to bother her, although she acknowledged she wouldn't have her kids scrambling about naked on album covers now)
when the chap finally listened to HotH (opening track, the jolly Song Remains the Same) he was pleasantly surprised and "a weight lifted" or words to that effect ...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qfzbw
I listened to the programme in my car
enroute to somewhere dismal for work and sorry, but I just do not believe that he had never listened to the album or even heard any of the songs from it. I mean, come on - if you were pictured on the cover of a HOTHH album, even a second string one, would you not be a teeny bit curious as to what it sounded like?
agreed
sounded a bit unlikely to me too
Kinky Boots
Patrick Macnee's salacious interjection 'Sexy little schoolgirls!' would be catnip to today's tabloids.
Well..
2 that spring to mind - Icehouse "Hey Little Girl", bit dodgy, and David Crosby's "Tamalpais High (At About 3)", which he was quoted as saying is actually about perving on schoolgirls at end of school time. But that's just my mind of course.
On a similar theme...
Naming your band Teenage Fanclub...
Teenage Fanclub
Weren't they originally called Teenage Fanny? Or is that an urban myth?
Lemon Incest
This little ditty by Serge Gainsbourg in duet with his daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, might raise a monobrow today, to say the least.
Don't think so
it was meant as a provocative shock when it was released - and (at least in France) was treated as a real scandal, to the delight of Mr. Serge, obviously.
And as for all these examples like "sitting on a park bench, eyeing little girls with bad intent..." - can't you describe (supposedly) negative things in pop songs anymore? (It's not that Ian Anderson is saying "Come on, let's all sit on a park bench and...", is it?)
Most of these "shocking" PC-friendly quotes only work on the assumption that the singer is actually making a personal statement about his private life when he sings a song. That's like accusing Agatha Christie for multiple murders.
Anderson
I don't think the line is shocking at all - I just don't think the record would get made today, and that was the original question. Rightly or wrongly, it's a different emotional climate, and most artists will tailor their material accordingly. Like it or not, some subject matter still appears to be off limits.
Lemon Incest
This little ditty by Serge Gainsbourg in duet with his daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, might raise a monobrow today, to say the least.
Jim Dale - Twinky
You will not be able to release singles like this, taken from the film Twinky. Features Susan George as a 16 year-old schoolgirl and Charles Bronson as a middle aged writer of pornographic novels.
that
is genuinely sinister.
Some spade said "rock n' rollers..
they're all the same"