censored?

[rae121452]

i was listening to the oldies rock station in the car today (because i'm an oldie). The dj, another oldie, said that when this song first came out in 1973 the station he was working at had a really hard time with it, that they had to 'bleep' the hell out of it. this is the song:

Kodachrome
Paul Simon

When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder I can think at all
And though my lack of education hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away
If you took all the girls I knew when I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match my sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white
Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome
Leave your boy so far from home
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
Mama don't take my Kodachrome wuu
Mama don't take my Kodachrome away
O.K.
Songwriters: Paul Simon
For non-commercial use only.


now, except for the word 'crap', i can't figure out what in the hell they had to censor. in 1973. what am i missing? i had to come home and look up the lyrics, just to make sure.

 

[RoryN]

now, except for the word 'crap', i can't figure out what in the hell they had to censor. in 1973. what am i missing?

"If you took all the girls I knew when I was single
And brought them all together for one night"

^^^
They would have censored that on at least one station where I grew up.

I'd never heard "Red Red Wine" until my classmates got Walkmans with cassette players; it was banned from the radio.

Likewise, my only time hearing "Like a Virgin" on-air back in the day was during an episode of Gimmie a Break, in a scene where an old lady plays it on a piano.

 

[Paul_Chance]

It was crap. LOL - I also worked in radio in the 70's as a DJ and it depended on the radio station.

The FCC standard was anything related to excretion was banned.

Given the way the FCC worked - if a consumer/listener complained, the FCC would send an inquiry to the radio station, citing the word, when it was used, how many complaints they had gotten, and how did the radio station explain it. Station management had to respond to each individual complaint in writing.

LOL - it only took one FCC letter to make station managers ban things, in part because no one wanted to sit and fill out response forms for two hours because you played Kodachrome, so they'd bleep it or flat out ban it.

I never heard of anyone getting fined for Kodachrome, but at one radio station I worked for reacted to the complaint letters by overreacting and had a long list of songs people had complained about that we couldn't play. Another radio station a few miles away, where I also did a couple of shifts, had no problem with it.

I also did a couple of shifts at a non-profit non-commercial station and it was banned there because it contained a commercial trademark (Kodachrome) even though Kodak officially liked the song.

 

[LukSkyFokker]

KLOS and KMET used to play Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" with no censorship.

"I make her pussy purr with the stroke of my hand..."