Are Radio Stations Right to Censor the Eagles? (goddamn-Life in the Fast Lane)

[RamboLiberal]

If you're one of the 16 million people who bought the Eagles' album "Hotel California," or if you've spent any portion of your life somewhere other than the underside of a rock, you've heard the song, "Life In the Fast Lane." For 33 years it's been a staple on classic hits radio stations like WBPT 106.9 FM in Birmingham, Alabama.

Recently, some radio stations have begun to censor the song. You probably know the line:

We've been up and down this highway/
haven't seen a goddamn thing.

WBPT program manager Mike Schoenherr, a.k.a. "Hurricane Shane," replaced "god" with a snippet of lyric-less music from elsewhere in the song. Another Alabama station, WGMZ in Glencoe, uses a "sanitized" version that replaces "goddamn" with silence.

This is not per any FCC policy or any other regulation.

"It's everybody's policy," said WBPT's station manger Ray Nelson, a veteran of nearly 40 years in radio, explaining his decision. "People find it offensive."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/keith-thomson/poll-are-radio-stations-r_b_171646.html

If you want to take Birmingham Weekly Poll: https://bhamweekly.wufoo.com/forms/poll-in-the-fast-lane/


Oh good grief! Idiots! I'm sick of the goddamn fundies with their shorts in a twist!

[Occam Bandage]

1. I'd censor it because it's a terrible song on an otherwise good album.

[zagging]

5. I 'd collect every Eagles album, CD, mp3, etc and destroy them.

The suckiest of suckiest worst crap bubble gum poppie pop bands ever in the history of the universe including the Brady Bunch with their Keep On song.

They deserve to be censored and censured.

Throw them all in the ocean with the sharks. Steve Miller, too.

[conscious evolution]

9. Are you gonna sell tickets to that

through ticketmaster?

[KamaAina]

23. Aw, drat! Steve Miller was just out here this weekend.

We've got plenty of ocean, and lots of sharks. :evilgrin:

[hfojvt]

32. whatever. And you are probably a Hendrix fan

If there was crap I never wanted to hear again Hendrix and Zeppelin would be on the list.

[Johonny]

19. shrug

song sits in fine with the motif of the album. I guess someones never observed Life in the Fast Lane to appreciate the lyrics.

[RobinA]

31. Well...

I'd get rid of the whole album, and I love the Eagles. Talk about overplayed.

[babylonsister]

2. Another example of this country reverting to the dark ages of

ridiculous censorship.

And who finds it offensive? What a bunch of malarky.

[baldguy]

3. I find censorship offensive, immoral, anti-American & un-Christian.

Can I sue?

[hlthe2b]

4. Oh, for God's sakes...

I hope they all go belly up with this level of stupidity.

[MadHound]

6. Puhlease, this is just another excuse for the fundies to drag us back to the Dark Ages

When this song first came out, there was no censorship of this song. Hell, I doubt that there was censorship of this song five years ago, though since I've given up most commercial radio stations I really couldn't tell you. But really now, this is the first time I've heard anybody making a fuss about it.

This is just more idiotic radio stations buckling under to the fundies.

[Cerridwen]

7. It's only censorship when the gov't does it.

It's not censorship when business, i.e., radio and cable stations do it.

Unless you're part of the r/w then it's censorship when radio and cable do it to them. It's businesses' 1st Amendment rights when they do it to us.

Unless you're part of the left and we protect the 1st Amendment for business interests so we can't censor the right leaning lies and spin and justify them refusing our words because businesses have a right to 1st Amendment protection.

Clear as mud?

[XOKCowboy]

8. Back in the 70s in Oklahoma they censored Jet Airliner by Steve Miller

Instead of "funky shit going down in the cities" the radio stations had an alternative song with the words "funky kicks going down in the city".

I thought that kind of idiocy was gone with the 70s. I guess not.

[KatyMan]

14. They still do it in Houston

on the classic rock station, to both Jet Airliner and Fast Lane. I stopped listening to that station anyway once they added the abomination that is the Lawton and Johnson show to their morning routine.

[Tesha]

15. That song is censored everywhere.

"Shit" is one of George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say on Radio";
the FCC bans those words as obscene.

So is "fuck" (as in The Who's "Who are You?") and "motherfucker" (as in
the Jefferson Airplane's "We Should be Together").

But "Barack the Magic Negro" is perfectly okay for airplay!

Tesha

(Bonus points to anyone who can name the other four words...)

[onenote]

18. the rest of the list, plus a fun bit of seven dirty words trivia

The other four dirty words were: Piss, Cunt, Cocksucker, and Tits

Now for the fun bit of trivia. A few years ago, some repubs, led I believe by Brownback, decided to introduce a bill in Congress that would codify the ban on broadcasting the seven dirty words. Only the list had changed slightly. In particular, tits was no longer on the list, but asshole was. I always figured it was because these rightwing fundies liked to say "nice tits" whenever they saw a woman, but hated it when the woman responded "asshole!"

[Tesha]

34. Well done! Full marks! (NT)

[hfojvt]

30. I always thought there were two versions of that song

because I had heard it both ways. Same with "Devil went down to Georgia" sometimes it was "I told you once you son of a bitch, I'm the best that's ever been" and sometimes it was son of a gun.

[XOKCowboy]

33. That's right I forgot about that...

LOL In hindsight censoring Charlie Daniels is very ironic. Ya like "son of a bitch" was bad language in OK in the 70s but every other person had no problem using the "N" word.

Carlin was right. They're just words until they are used to hurt someone specifically.

[Tesha]

35. It's pretty routine that a "radio-safe" version is made for songs with controversial lyrics. (NT)

[Greyhound]

10. This sounds like a job for...

{cue: Fanfare} The RIAA!

Those tireless warriors of the music industry, forever locked in combat with the forces of those that would broadcast, steal, alter, or digitally convert the product of helpless artists (without paying them first).

Oh, wait... they're laying off their staff.:(

Who will protect us from those evil file sharers now?

[asjr]

11. Oh, the stupidity!

[GReedDiamond]

12. It took these freaks...

...over 30 years to pick up on that lyric line?

To paraphrase Rhett Butler in "Gone With The Wind": "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a flying fuck" what these KKKrypto-fascist "religious" nutballs have to say about ANYTHING!

[pnutbutr]

13. FCC rules are grey and they've been censoring goddam on broadcast TV for years

If the FCC would stop threatening to fine these stations on the complaint of about 0.000000001% of the population there wouldn't be such extreme self censorship. It also doesn't help that the grey area in the FCC rules is freekin huge and nobody knows what will or will not be grounds for a fine.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

16. Who Are You? Who.. who who who?

Who the fuck are you?
Who are you?

I wonder what they do to that one.

:nuke:

[WolverineDG]

17. These are the same hypocrites

who roared & cheered when their high school band struck up the open chords of "Cocaine" yet run around like screaming ninnies when their kids' bands do the same. :eyes:

dg

[Sebastian Doyle]

20. This is all a byproduct of the "Janet Jackson's boobie" incident at the Super Bowl

After that cretin Heather Wilson complained because Janet's tits were better than hers, and cried "indecency !!11!" Mikey Powell's FCC imposed draconian rules on all broadcast media.

Pink Floyd's Money (after being heard on FM radio for over 30 fucking years) now has the word "bullshit" bleeped out.

The Rolling Stones performance of "Start Me Up" at Super Bowl XL had the line "You make a dead man cum" bleeped out. (Next to the bought and paid for referees, it was the second biggest crime of that day)

They're even censoring Waltons reruns, for fucks sake. Old grandpa Walton let loose with a "Hell" or a "goddamn" or something relatively mild. Nobody cared in 1974, but under the neo-Victorian Bush Crime Family hysteria, it got zapped.

It's time to get over this fucking hypocrisy. People use so-called "dirty words". Get over it. Fuck censorship.

[sufrommich]

21. I hate the fucking Eagles. nt

[pnutbutr]

24. I pull over and kick your ass out, man!

:rofl:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

25. WIN.

I was wondering when that was going to turn up in this thread. :-)

[sufrommich]

27. lol. nt

[Rob H.]

22. Oh, for fuck's sake!

I live in the South and there's a radio station here that used to play Denis Leary's song "I'm An Asshole" in its entirety, uncensored (well, they bleeped the word "fucking") and they're getting riled up about one word? :eyes:

[madinmaryland]

26. I wish they would censor Rush. I hate that Band!

:grr:

[Oregone]

28. "I hate the fucking Eagles, man"

The Dude speaks for me. Ban em

[hfojvt]

29. my hometown radio station in SD was doing this in the 1970s

I just heard it last weekend in the KC area - unedited.