This evening, Nick and I entered possibly dangerous broadcasting territory, as we listened to controversial songs. Throughout popular music history, some broadcasters or even governments have banned or restricted certain songs that they believed would offend, upset, and threaten the ‘public good’ in some way. So tonight’s show offers an opportunity to look at the way music was perceived through the ears of the past – and to get an insight into the dramatic shifts in social, cultural, and political thought over the past century. Some artists deliberately court controversy, using their work to advocate for social change; others get their work banned through no fault of their own. Tonight’s playlist features songs that have been deemed problematic because of political, sexual, or social content. And some are really surprising!
To get an idea of how times have changed, here’s the BBC’s guidance from 1942, as stated by the BBC’s then head of music, Sir Arthur Bliss:
“The BBC’s policy is to encourage a more virile and robust output of dance music to accord more closely with the present spirit of the country […] To this end any form of anaemic or debilitated vocal performance by male singers will be excluded. Performances by women singers will be controlled to the extent that an insincere and oversentimental style will not be allowed. No numbers will be accepted for broadcasting which are slushy in sentiment or contain innuendo or other matter considered to be offensive.” • Sir Arthur Bliss, 1942
It’s easy to look back and chuckle at the apparent prudishness, but times were different, and there was a war on. No doubt the BBC censors who banned “Deep In The Heart of Texas” (worried that factory workers might bang their tools too hard in time with it) thought they were doing the right thing.
Playlist – banned songs, and Bobby McFerrin v 4 Non Blondes
Our first bit of social history is Chuck Berry’s Brown Eyed Handsome Man (1956);, which was considered controversial for its playfully provocative discussion of interracial relationships. The lyric’s conceit is that white women are looking to get together with black men, and the narrator leads us through 3000 years of history, saying that it has always been so. Berry’s musical tone was generally appropriate for the civil rights movement, with adolescents joining together to dance and share music and subsequently, share in their culture. His sound, endorsed by the sly lyrics, promoted a racial equality that many at the time saw as outrageous – this was 8 years before the Civil Rights Act. The song has since been covered by celebrated artists such as Buddy Holly and the “Million Dollar Quartet“: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley in a jam session on December 4, 1956.
My favourite part is verse 5, where the judge’s wife gets in on the act – clearly Berry is deliberately poking the cage of the establishment here:
Arrested on charges
Of unemployment
He was sitting in the witness stand
The judge’s wife called up
The district attorney said you better
Free that brown eyed man
If you want your job you’d better
Free that brown eyed man
Bitter Pill?
Loretta Lynn’s song The Pill (1975) is a linchpin of second wave feminism, and all the more remarkable in coming from a Country artist (rarely at the time known for social activism). Lynn narrates a semi-autobiographical story of a woman continuously falling pregnant (she had six children, four of whom were born before she was 20), who celebrates her newfound freedom. The chorus celebrates the protagonist’s triumph:
All these years I’ve stayed at home
While you had all your fun
And every year that’s gone by
Another baby’s come
There’s a gonna be some changes made
Right here on nursery hill
You’ve set this chicken your last time
‘Cause now I’ve got the pill
The ban of the record from a number of radio stations caused ‘The Pill’ to stall at number five on the country charts, but reinforced the notion that there is no such thing as bad press, with Lynn earning more commercial attention than anything recorded prior. Country music was not a particularly progressive environment for women during the 1970s, and this was a rare liberal stand from a normally socially conservative and Christian Lynn; she once proudly recounted that ‘The Pill’ was incredibly useful to rural doctors in highlighting the availability of birth control in isolated areas.
Elton John’s song All the Young Girls Love Alice (1973) marked the first time Elton sang about a gay character – which means, of course, that the story comes from lyricist Bernie Taupin. Released four years after the Stonewall riots (1969), the song talks about the brutal and exploitative nature of identifying as a young, gay woman in the 70s. Like many of the choices in our playlist, this open critique of the treatment of sexual minorities is an example of how a song is controversial due to its message, not as a result of objective problematic material. Interestingly, same-sex relationships between women have never been illegal in the UK (whereas male relationships had the death penalty until 1861, and were still punishable with imprisonment until as recently as 1967).
Really? Ebony and Ivory?
Perhaps the most musically surprising ‘banned’ song on our list is Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder’s Ebony and Ivory. The lyric aligns the black and white keys of a piano keyboard with the theme of racial harmony and subsequently was banned in South Africa during apartheid for promoting equality. The South African Broadcasting Corporation also disapproved of Wonder’s endorsement of a then-incarcerated Nelson Mandela while accepting the Oscar for ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ (1984). That song was not allowed to be played until Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990 and apartheid ended.
Fun musical fact – the song is in E major, so if you play the melody section “Eb-on-y” if falls on the third and second of the major scale (G#-F#-E#)… and the rising “I-vor-y” maps to A-B-E. Black notes and white notes. McCartney has said it’s a happy coincidence, but you have to admit it’s kind of beautiful when music theory adds additional social commentary to a song!
If you were to listen to the first of 0.51 seconds of Mercyful Fate’s Into The Coven (1983) you would be forgiven for being confused regarding its inclusion on this list. It’s my personal favourite from the famous “Filthy Fifteen” – a list of songs deemed objectionable in 1985 by the Parents Music Resource Center. The PMRC cited these 15 songs as examples of the kind of song lyrics that should not be accessible to children. They advocated for labelling of music recordings according to sexual, violent, or occult categories. After testimony to the US Senate by Frank Zappa, Dee Snider, and (to the surprise of many) John Denver, a compromise was reached, resulting in the Parental Advisory sticker that we still see today.
Here’s the full list of the Filthy Fifteen:
“Darling Nikki” • Prince, “Sugar Walls” • Sheena Easton, “Eat Me Alive” • Judas Priest, “Strap On ‘Robbie Baby'” • Vanity, “Bastard” • Mötley Crüe, “Let Me Put My Love Into You” • AC/DC, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” • Twisted Sister, “Animal (F**k Like a Beast)” • W.A.S.P., “High ‘n’ Dry (Saturday Night)” • Def Leppard, “Into the Coven” • Mercyful Fate, “Trashed” • Black Sabbath, “In My House” • Mary Jane Girls, “Possessed” • Venom, “She Bop” • Cyndi Lauper, “Dress You Up” • Madonna
XXX by Kendrick Lamar feat. U2 (2017) grapples with spiritual dislocation in America, and voices the very real duality of living as a black man in America, especially with regards to gun violence in urban areas. The song features samples of “America” by Bēkon and “American Soul” by U2, and faced bans from some conservative U.S. radio stations due to its critique of both gun control laws and institutionalised racism. ‘XXX’ still charted in multiple countries despite bans from various radio stations, and its treatment as a cultural artefact served in many ways to amplify and underline the very message Lamar communicates.
Let’s Talk About Sex by Salt-N-Pepa, is a song promoting safe sex, which seems unremarkable to 2024 ears, but was a big deal in 1991. The song encouraged honest conversations surrounding sex, at a time when there was an increased stigma and scaremongering of AIDS and HIV. Given the censorship of sex in the American media, the song addressed topics that were deemed taboo. The song is built on a sample of The Staple Singers’ 1972 civil rights anthem “I’ll Take You There”. This song was also considered to be one of the most ‘pure’ and highly religiously regarded commercial successful gospel songs, so the poignant sampling combined with the all female sex-positive African American hip-hop group formatting makes for an advocacy light years ahead of 1991 prejudices. The lyrics walk the line between sincere messaging of care with that signature Salt-N-Pepa wit underpinning the tone; resulting in an incredibly authentic but soft tone of concern for young people. An alternate version of the song, “Let’s Talk About AIDS”, was released to radio as a promotional single.
What’s Up With Being Happy?
Our soundslike this week explores the musical similarities between Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ (1988) and ‘What’s Up’ by 4 Non Blondes (1993). As with any two songs with the same chords (A-Bm-D-A) it’s possible to mash them up nicely, especially as they’re very close in tempo (69 and 67 BPM respectively). Bobby’s in B major, so we pitch-matched Linda’s team up a whole step, extracted the vocals, and made mischief. To be clear it is not particularly significant when two songs share a chord loop (as Ed Sheeran honourably proved in a Manhattan courtroom in 2023), although in this case, there are a few phrase similarities that suggest that there might have been a modest influence on the melodic shape.
For the quiz you will need to identify six famously banned pop hits from their intros alone – we’ll give you the year, and the reason for the objection. Name the song.
As always, find the show and blog at joebennett.net/5live, with occasional Instagram extras at @joebennettmusicology. And you can find our Spotify mega-playlist, which contains all (584!) songs ever featured on the show, here:
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Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly and Maddy Plummer
Audio production and mashup wizardry: Rafi Waters and Joe Bennett
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