Getting Crap Past the Radar/Music: Difference between revisions

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** 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.

* [[Censor Decoy|The version where one gets the censors to focus on one thing in order to let another through]] was pulled off beautifully, though inadvertently, by [[The Kinks]] with ''Lola''. The BBC was so busy getting them to change the mention of Coca-Cola (something about not being allowed to advertise) that they completely missed the fact that the song was about a ~~transvestite~~.

* [[Censor Decoy|The version where one gets the censors to focus on one thing in order to let another through]] was pulled off beautifully, though inadvertently, by [[The Kinks]] with ''Lola''. The BBC was so busy getting them to change the mention of Coca-Cola (something about not being allowed to advertise) that they completely missed the fact that the song was about a crossdresser.

* 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.

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* 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.]]

** It just wasn't common to see ~~gays~~ in metal at the time, so it wasn't something one would expect, and he sold it so well that he was able to go onstage in bondage gear while making a lot of fisting motions, and nobody thought twice. He also was very publicly dating Penthouse Pet [[wikipedia:Cheryl Rixon|Cheryl Rixon]] around the time of ''British Steel'', so yay, publicists.

** It just wasn't common to see gay people in metal at the time, so it wasn't something one would expect, and he sold it so well that he was able to go onstage in bondage gear while making a lot of fisting motions, and nobody thought twice. He also was very publicly dating Penthouse Pet [[wikipedia:Cheryl Rixon|Cheryl Rixon]] around the time of ''British Steel'', so yay, publicists.

* 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.)'

* Little Richard's career is about this trope. While "Tutti Frutti" was originally "Tutti frutti, good booty," much of the song was left intact. "She rocks to the east, she rocks to the west" was not about geography. And why was "Long Tall Sally" bald-headed? Maybe because she was really a ~~transvestite~~? "She's got everything that Uncle John needs." Then there's "Lucille": "You won't do your sister's will." And "I woke up this morning, Lucille was not in sight/I asked my friends about her, but all they did was cry, "Lucille!" What were all his friends doing in his bedroom?

* Little Richard's career is about this trope. While "Tutti Frutti" was originally "Tutti frutti, good booty," much of the song was left intact. "She rocks to the east, she rocks to the west" was not about geography. And why was "Long Tall Sally" bald-headed? Maybe because she was really a crossdresser? "She's got everything that Uncle John needs." Then there's "Lucille": "You won't do your sister's will." And "I woke up this morning, Lucille was not in sight/I asked my friends about her, but all they did was cry, "Lucille!" What were all his friends doing in his bedroom?

** 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.

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* [[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.

* Lola by [[The Kinks]] was censored by the BBC not for its lyrics about a sexual tryst with a ~~transvestite~~, but for its use of the brand name Coca-Cola. This was duly changed to "cherry cola". Probably more a case of [[Letting Crap Past The Radar]].

* Lola by [[The Kinks]] was censored by the BBC not for its lyrics about a sexual tryst with a crossdresser, but for its use of the brand name Coca-Cola. This was duly changed to "cherry cola". Probably more a case of [[Letting Crap Past The Radar]].

** 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?!!"