The global musicto community talks censorship
This month’s global musicto community playlist, CENSORED, is all about — you guessed it — censorship. Almost all of the songs on this playlist have, at one time or another, been censored or outright banned by the powers that be — whether governments, regulatory boards, or whoever it was that wouldn’t let those kids dance in Footloose. However, there are two fascinating exceptions. Listen to the playlist to guess which two songs, or find out by reading the words of those who chose the songs on this playlist.
Censored songs and more from the musicto community
José Afonso – Grândola, Vila Morena
“03/26/1974. By superior order, all pieces written by José Afonso […] or, although written by others, performed by the same, shall be removed from the lineup. All related recordings shall be transferred to the restricted archive.”
— Note from the Censorship Service to Emissora Nacional, Portugal’s national radio broadcasting organisation.
Twenty-one minutes after midnight on 25 April 1974, the first stanza of “Grândola, Vila Morena” began to play on the radio. Broadcast nationwide, the song was heard by military forces that lay in wait throughout Portugal. It was the signal that set in motion an operation to overthrow the dictatorship that had ruled the country and violently silenced its detractors for over 40 years.
Folk singer-songwriter José Afonso had already had plenty of run-ins with the regime’s secret police and official censors. Several of his songs were banned from public radio in the late 60s and early 70s, many of his scheduled performances were forcibly canceled, and he himself was arrested on multiple occasions because of his subversive music.
It was only fitting, then, that José Afonso and “Grândola, Vila Morena” became symbols of the Carnation Revolution that put an end to one of the longest-surviving authoritarian regimes in Europe and ended decades of censorship in Portugal.
Pierre Barouh – Hasta Siempre
Che Guevara, love him or hate him, is someone who brings impact, creates debate, represents something that the vast majority of the people don’t even understand. This song celebrates Che and this particular version by Pierre Barouh takes your mind to the past and to the Latin America conflicts. The special sauce is the parts sung in French.
Kate Bush – Army Dreamers
I don’t know many pro-war songs – maybe Toby Keith’s “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American)” – his knee jerk reaction to 9/11 could probably qualify, but for most artists, war inspires horror.
I remember reading the war poets at school, Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce Et Decorum Est” still resonates with its stinging rebuke to the romanticism of war. And while “Army Dreamers” deals more with the socio-economic reality of who typically ends up at the front lines, the end result is still the same: young men’s bodies in coffins.
As an Air Force “brat” myself, I’m under no illusion as to the necessity for defense: people are bullies, someone with a bigger stick can always come and eat your lunch. It’s when we send our future to fight for murky political reasons that it all gets kinda messy.
Kate Bush’s “Army Dreamers” was banned from BBC radio when the first Gulf War started in 1990. Apparently the government thought that having certain songs playing that maybe didn’t portray the Army and even War in a terribly good light wasn’t great for public perception and morale. In hindsight it’s kinda laughable, particularly considering the good censors at the BBC sought to include another 67 tracks including such legendary sedition inducing tracks such as:
Paper Lace’s “Billy Don’t Be A Hero,” Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier,” Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule The World” and Billy Ocean’s “When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Going.” You can read the full list along with a load of other censored and banned songs here.
Carte de Séjour, Rachid Taha – Douce France
Rachid Taha’s version of “Douce France,” the English title of which is “Sweet France,” was originally sang by Charles Trenet as an anthem to the greatness of the French nation. However in 1987 Taha and his band Carte de Séjour covered the song in an ironic punk style as a protest against the racism and exclusion in French society, resulting in the song being banned from French radio.
Fela Kuti – Zombie
Another track that would be perfect here is “Zombie,” by Fela Kuti. Most of Fela’s output was banned at some point by the authoritarian Nigerian government at the time, however this track in particular, released in 1976, led to a military raid on Fela’s recording studio and home, resulting in horrific violence and the murder of his mother. The track “Zombie” criticised the Nigerian army as zombies, uncritically doing whatever the government commanded them to do.
Radiohead – Creep
“Creep” was initially banned on major radio stations like BBC because it was found too depressing. The label then re-released the song one year after and the song became a major worldwide hit. I love this song, by the way, and it was my introduction to Radiohead and Thom Yorke, one of my favourite bands and musicians ever. Other famous examples of songs that I like and that were banned are “Lola” from the Kinks, “Light my Fire” from the Doors and “Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine, which was banned in both the US and the UK.
Madonna – Justify My Love
The first song I remember being censored was John Travolta’s “Greased Lightnin’,” as a pre-teen in the 1970s.” I wouldn’t notice music censorship again until radio stations started bleeping portions of Canadian band Rough Trade’s “High School Confidential.” In 1980, it was the most sexually explicit LGBTQ song to reach the top 20 on Canadian pop charts. Looking back, many of the songs I personally remember being censored revolved around morality or sexual explicitly issues, “Greased Lightnin'” included.
However, I’ll move away from radio censorship into the realm of television, where music videos from Madonna felt like they were being banned from video show programming, including America’s MTV and Canada’s MuchMusic stations, on a near constant basis. Of course some of her videos up until 1990 caused controversy, but, in Canada at least, none were outright banned.
But in 1990, both MTV and MuchMusic did ban Madonna’s “Justify My Love” video. Online articles mention that the depictions of sadomasochism, voyeurism and bisexuality and nudity were too much for the time. But having lived in that time, I assure you that those depictions were only too much for puritanical old fuddies heading up regulatory boards.
To my friends and I, university students at the time, the video, directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, was one of the most amazingly artistic videos we’d ever seen. Additionally, it reflected our own longing for freedom of our sexual desire and expression as young women, while at the same time the lyrics encouraged open communication about desire among sexual partners. It was brilliant and timely, hardly scandalous, except as an affront to patriarchal desire, perhaps. The video should have been lauded and played in sex ed classes! Okay maybe not, but it certainly shouldn’t have been banned.
Fortunately, in response, Madonna released the video on VHS. In the end, despite the censorship on cable and pay channels, or perhaps to spite the censorship, “Justify My Love” became, and remains, the biggest selling single video in the United States. In Canada, MuchMusic found a work-around, airing it on a midnight show called, Too Much 4 Much in 1991, although the entire video didn’t get airplay on America’s big music video station, until 2002, on MTV2.
N.W.A. – Gangsta Gangsta
I was 11 years old when Parental Advisory Labels (PAL for short) were invented. Like a moth to a flame, I immediately became interested in the music they didn’t want me and my friends to hear. Copping a cassette tape with a Parental Advisory sticker was slinging crack for suburban kids who were rebellious, not reckless. Too Short was the local champ of vulgar in the Bay Area, but all that sex stuff was not relatable to prepubescent me. Ghettos, gangs, police brutality, and the obscene life of growing up on the other side of the tracks is what caught my interest. Enter N.W.A., AKA The World’s Most Dangerous Group.
FBI tracked, banned music videos, police security strikes at concerts. Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella took music censoring and made it part of their brand. And took me into a world I was blessed to be able to experience sonically, not actually. N.W.A. showed me that the highest levels of art can come from the lowest of circumstances. The proverbial rose growing out of concrete. Taught me that creativity doesn’t need affluence or privilege, every story told well is a story worth telling. And Ice Cube told stories as well as they could be told, unlocking the urge to follow my own creative path. Thanks, PAL.
Mylo – Destroy Rock and Roll
Whilst there are many cases of artists being banned from performing, whether for the colour of their skin or for encouraging riotous/revolutionary behaviour, it’s a rare thing for an individual song to be legally prohibited in modern Western culture, thank goodness. Some of the most memorable bans are not much more than unilateral editorial decisions knowingly blown out of proportion by record company marketing departments. The rabble-rousing of The Beastie Boys, Sex Pistols and Franke Goes to Hollywood all spring to mind. John Lennon swore that Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds had nothing to do with LSD, but the debate earned The Beatles plenty of column inches. The legendary censorship of Elvis Presley’s swivelling hips on the Ed Sullivan Show never really happened, but Sullivan had stirred the publicity pot two months earlier by telling the press: “I wouldn’t have him on my show at any price.”
In many other cases, the call for censorship of rock’n’roll music has emanated from the prudish, priggish and prurient — that section of society whose stock response to anything challenging the status quo is to be horrified and appalled. Some, rather than just being quietly shocked, have condemned some of music’s greats as damaging to society. The lasting legacy of this belief is in the form of the Parental Advisory stickers introduced as a result of campaigning by activist Tipper Gore, which helped tell Eighties teenagers which albums were the best. But other campaigners have been far more extreme, claiming that rock music is not just a bad influence, but a channel for satanic forces. For example, the nutty, apocalyptic sect of Christian preppers, The Church Universal and Triumphant in Montana.
And so to my chosen track, Destroy Rock & Roll by Scots producer Myles MacInnes, aka Mylo, from his 2004 album of the same name. The pounding, repetitive dance track features a comical sample from Invocation For Judgement Against And Destruction of Rock Music, lifted from the long deleted Sounds Of American Doomsday Cults Volume 14 (Faithway International). The po-faced, deluded and ill-informed preacher recites a list of internationally famous pop stars of the Seventies and Eighties, which most memorably includes “David Boo-wee” and “Cyndi Looper,” euphemistically calling for them all to receive “the judgement of the sacred fire of this hour before the throne of almighty God.” The Devil does indeed have all the best tunes.
The Kunts – Boris Johnson is a Fucking Cunt
And its sequel: Boris Johnson is Still a Fucking Cunt
While I was doing me research for this wee entry, sat on a train from London after 3 hours sleep, I stumbled upon what can only rightfully be described as an utter gem.
I haven’t listened to this song (I don’t have earbuds and I’m in the quiet carriage), but I don’t need to. Never has a track title spoken to me with such profundity. Never have I agreed with a sentiment so readily. It’s poetry, surpassed only by its sequel, “Boris Johnson is Still a Fucking Cunt.”
Both tracks were censored by the BBC, despite SFW versions existing (in which Boris is merely a sausage roll, a harmless comparison and indeed, for fans of Greggs, perhaps even a compliment). The track performed incredibly well in the charts, so there was no good reason to ignore it, other than of course to protect Boris’s feelie weelies.
Maybe don’t lie to the nation if you don’t want people writing nasty songs about you (that raise money for charity on top of being searingly relatable).
My favourite part of this debacle? The pound went up in value once Boris handed in his resignation. Though we all know what happened after that right…
Check out our musicto community’s previous playlisticles: 15 Great Songs for your Vampire Ball, 11 Powerful Songs in Flim, and 7 Top Cowbell Songs!