"Jackass" deemed "inappropriate"

[Laurence Horn]

At 3:01 PM -0400 8/8/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Back in the '60's, there was a popular proto-salsa tune named "El
>Pussycat." Look for it on iTunes and you'll find "El P***ycat." ITunes
>also marks tunes as CLEAN or EXPLICIT. A CLEAN tune is an EXPLICIT
>tune that has had the good parts bleeped out. Among the CLEAN tunes is
>a '40's Christmas record named "Sleighride." Given that this is an
>instrumental, what words did iTunes find to bleep? OTOH, the hiphop
>tune, "I'm Sorry," which has the words, "I'm sorry I fucked yo' bitch,
>man. I'm sorry I fucked yo' bitch," is left completely unmarked.
>Ridiculous!
>
>There's an early example of P.C. In 1964, Jan & Dean recorded
>"Sidewalk Surfin'." The original recording has the line,
>
>You'll probably _eat it_
>The fist time you shoot the curb
>
>Later versions have
>
>You'll probably _wipe out_
>The first time you shoot the curb
>
>-Wilson

and it's not just (quasi-)obscenity (or what passes for it) that
earns lyrics a remake.  The classic Neil Young song "After the Gold
Rush" contains the lines

I was lyin' in a burned out basement
With a full moon in my eyes
I was hopin' for a replacement
When the sun burst through the skies
There was a band playin' in my head
And I felt like getting high
Thinkin' about what a friend had said,
I was hopin' it was a lie

And I've heard at least two relatively recent covers, by Linda
Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, in which the antepenultimate line has
become "And I felt like I could cry"--an eloquent testimony to the
shift in the cultural milieu over the intervening decades.

Similarly, the Rolling Stones' version of "Wild Horses"--

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie,
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried,
Let's do some living after we die

is cleaned up in someone else's relatively recent cover (Alicia Keys,
for one, but I've heard another) by replacing the last phrase with
"before we die".

No drugs, no morbidity (or less morbidity, anyway).

LH

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