Getting Crap Past the Radar/Music: Difference between revisions

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* Several songs contain bits of profanity that no one notices:

** The Charlie Daniels Band has gotten away with several "ass" and "son of a bitch" instances in the lyrics of their songs ("asses" along with "fags" in 1973's "Uneasy Rider," and "son of a bitch" in 1979's "The Devil Went Down to Georia").

** In "Big Bad John," the concluding lyric in the offical release was "At the bottom of this mine lies one hell of a man ... Big John!" In 1961, even the mild profanity "hell," outside religious contexts, was considered a no-no by some conservative groups, so a second release was issued, containing the milder "At the bottom of this mine lies a big, big man ... Big John!" However, earlier in the song, there is the lyric "Through the dust and the smoke of this man-made hell ... ," which apparently did not raise any objections. As for the song, "Big Bad John" topped the Billboard Hot 100 (five weeks), Easy Listening Singles (nine weeks) and Hot C&W Sides charts (two weeks) at the end of 1961, marking one of the earliest No. 1 songs to contain (mild) profanity.

** If you're going to quote it, quote it ''all'': "You're a bum, you're a punk / You're an old slut on junk, lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed / You scumbag, you maggot / You cheap lousy faggot / Happy Christmas your ass / I thank God it's our last". Surely the greatest Christmas song of all time, it never fails to fill me with a warm glow. Not so much "getting crap past the radar" as [[Refuge in Audacity|"flying crap straight over the radar at top speed and launching heatseekers after anyone who wants to argue about it"]].

** The movie PS I Love You lampshaded it. The song was played at the funeral under the pretense that it was the main character's husband's favorite song. At the "You're a faggot" line the pastor started ''singing along''.

** There's tons of this in Beatles songs. In the "she's the kind of girl..." section of Girl, the background vocals are "Tit tit tit tit tit..." The "Eggman" in I am The Walrus refers to Eric Burdon of the Animals, called such because he liked to cover naked girls in egg yolk, Maxwell's Silver Hammer mentions Joan and her "late nights all alone with a test tube," Penny Lane mentions "fish and finger pie" (a modification of a [[British Accents|Scouser]] term for "heavy petting"). And of course, "Why Don't We Do It In the Road?".

** "Come together...Right now...Over me" I can't be the only one who thinks its describing bukkake...

** It wasn't as though it was subtle, as the video had numerous instances of the band holding up ''signs'' with the phrase. The only throw-off is the [[Lyrical Dissonance]], as the sweet, dreamy chorus makes the song sound like it's about a crush.

* [[Tori Amos]]' albums never have an Explicit Lyrics label on them, even though she sometimes curses in her songs. For example, "Professional Widow" from ''Boys for Pele'' has lines such as "slag shit", "starfucker just like my daddy", and "peace, love, and a hard cock". However, radio stations ''did'' refuse to play "Big Wheel", since she chants "I am a M-I-L-F" in it.

* Ladies and gentlemen, raise your hands if you honestly believe that "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1c0Lle01_M The Fast Food Song]" is about, well, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|fast food.]] And if it is, it has to be the most ''sexual'' depiction of fast food ever.

** That song is [[Older Than They Think]] - the basic lyrics have been a staple of long, painful bus journeys in the UK for ''decades''. The Fast Food Rockers version goes a little crazy with it.

** No. First of all, the band was an all-girl group called [[wikipedia:The Chordettes|the Chordettes]], and, second of all, the [http://www.elyrics.net/read/c/chordettes-lyrics/mr.-sandman-lyrics.html lyrics] specifically say "make ''him'' the cutest I've ever seen." So if the song is about asking for a wet dream, it's about a girl, not a guy, asking for a wet dream. Also, in this case, if you read the lyrics closely, what's flying under the radar is that she, the singer that is, isn't just asking for a wet dream; she's asking for a flesh-and-blood man with whom she's planning to have sex.

* [[Pearl Jam]]. The name of a band with plenty of MTV coverage, big hits and mainstream exposure, HAS A NAME THAT IS A EUPHEMISM FOR SEMEN.

** [[Nightmare Fuel|You don't even want to know]] where [[Limp Bizkit]] got their name.

* [[Aerosmith]] may have inadvertently pulled off a very difficult version of this. The beginning of the fourth verse of "Sweet Emotion" is (roughly, another troper can clarify) "Standin' in the front, just shakin' your ---". Yes, an innocent example, but WHERE this went is amazing ... when the Disney company licensed the music for Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, they just happened to pick this line ... uncensored... That's right, even though it's on an attraction not meant for kids, you can clearly hear this word on the ride. The best part? It's a RE-RECORDED VERSION.

* Back in [[The Seventies]] when homosexuals were very much [[Acceptable Targets]] and a favorite bogeyman of the [[Moral Guardians]], [[Judas Priest]] released a song called "Raw Deal", whose lyrics (written by homosexual singer Rob Halford) contained (very thinly) veiled references to a gay bar and the struggle for gay rights. The themes were so blatant it's a wonder how, especially after Rob Halford's later adoption of [[Leather Man]] attire, how ''anyone'' could have been surprised when he [[Coming Out Story|came out]] in the late nineties.

** "Eat Me Alive", although it [[wikipedia:Parents Music Resource Center#Actions|wasn't entirely successful.]]

* Goldfinger's "Here In Your Bedroom" has the singer saying, "One, Two" quickly before the bridge. At the end of the song, he says "Fuck you!" in the same manner, quickly enough to be mistaken for a simple count, and was never edited on radio. Although the modern rock station that used to play the song in my area was never strict in its editing.

* [[System of a Down]]'s "Chop Suey!" is somewhat of an example. The original song title was "Suicide", but they changed it, presumably due to the 9/11 suicides (they have said it wasn't due to record company discouragement). However, the song begins with three drumstick taps and the words "We're rolling 'Suicide'", which would have been extremely controversial in a time when suicides had just skyrocketed in number. (Also, the chorus is as follows: "I don't think you trust in my self-righteous suicide / I cry when angels deserve to die." Many people are surprised that SOAD managed to get away with this.)'

** Oh, for heaven's sake: his name is a euphemism for small man's bits.

** This was cleaned up ''just'' enough to meet broadcast regulations, but it didn't fool anybody, and they were mad.

*** How is that a better example than "make a pussy burn with a stroke of my hand"? The only crap that song gets past the radar is putting Ted's ''[[Squick|daughter]]'' on the album cover as the titular Miss Dangerous.

* Fanny (whose name is ''not'' an example, at least intentionally, since they didn't know what that word means in the UK until after the fact) slip the whispered line "So fucking hard..." into "Rock Bottom Blues".

* [[Led Zeppelin]] is quite good at this. Several songs, such as "Trampled Underfoot" get significant radio airplay despite consisting almost entirely of innuendo.

* Surprised to see no mention of [[Dire Straits]]' "Money For Nothing." The played-on-radio single version is unedited, so the second verse is

* [[X Japan]] had a quite amusing variant that combined this with [[Refuge in Audacity]]. The original version of "Stab Me In The Back" is [[Intercourse with You]] + [[Stuffy Old Songs About the Buttocks]]. It is literally begging to be the receptive partner in male-male anal sex. So, when the band had to do this song on an album that wasn't released by their own label, 1991's ''Jealousy,'' it of course had to be rewritten. And [[Yoshiki Hayashi|Yoshiki]] did so, rewriting the song to be entirely about ''using drugs'' (which was, at the time, ''an even bigger taboo'' in Japan than gay sex). This rewrite is the one that is on ''Jealousy.''

* [[Jojo]]'s second album "The High Road" was an exercise in this very trope.

** Their next single, Apeman, contains the line "this air pollution is ''fogging'' up my eyes". They knew it sounds like "fucking". We know it sounds like "fucking". And whoever produced the album knew it sounds like "fucking", since they very clumsily reduce that solitary word's volume so it's barely audible. Ironically, while everyone involved claims it's definitely "fogging", this makes it harder to decipher whether Ray Davies does actually sing "fogging" or "fucking".

* Even The Monkees managed this. Their song "Gonna Buy Me A Dog" is about a guy whose girlfriend has just broken up with him. It includes the lines "She used to keep me so contented / But I can teach a dog to do that!" This went right over my head at age 11; hearing the song again some 20 years later, my reaction was, "They said WHAT?!!"

* Steps were a very family-friendly pop group with many young fans, famous in Britain during the late 1990s-early 2000s. Their video for the song "Say You'll Be Mine" (a cheesy but clean love song) showed them re-enacting famous scenes from romantic movies, including the one from ''[[There's Something About Mary]]'' where Cameron Diaz spikes her hair up. We can only guess that young viewers weren't aware what she was using as hair gel in the original ...

* Every protest song during a dictatorship or totalitarian regime ever, if they want to get it past the censors.

* The music video for "Is Anybody Out There?" by K'naan and Nelly Furtado features 3 different examples of this trope. At the beginning, when the emo looking girl is inside of the comic book store and the man asks her if she's gonna buy something, she yells "Shit! Leave me alone!" at him. Later on, some other girl sees her looking in the window of the restaurant she's eating in and she says "What a skank..." and then shortly after that, the emo girl writes STFU on the window of a restaurant and flips the bird at everyone inside. This video gets regular rotation on [[VH-1]].

* Huey Lewis and the News' "Power of Love" is a cheerful little pop ditty about the [[Power of Love]], right? And certainly appropriate for the soundtrack of a PG-rated film like ''[[Back to The Future]]'' (although heaven knows that film has a pretty long entry of its own on the film sub-page of this trope), right? Except that one of the ways that the lyrics describe the [[Power of Love]] is as "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream...." So yeah, [[Blatant Lies|that's perfectly innocent]].

* [[Spice Girls|Spice Girl]] Emma Bunton's solo hit "What Took You So Long" sneaks in the line "I'll Suck You All Night" instead of the official "What Took You All Night", if you [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RpoAnnmgw4 listen closely] from around 2:00.

 

[[Category:Radar]]