[Music] Following on from the BBC censorship....

[Stato]

It was a shit song originally ( about as Christmassy as diarrhea - a song about beating up your partner ?? FFS ) and it's still shit whoever covers it.

Each to their own as far as taste is concerned, but I have to point out that there are absolutely no references to violence or beating up anyone in the song.

There's an argument and a trading of insults which is followed by a heart stopping make up line that perfectly captures the fact that, although we often don't say it enough, men depend upon the ones they love just as much as women do:

"You took my dreams from me when I first found you.

I kept them with me babe.
I put them with my own.
Can't make it all alone.
I've built my dreams around you."

Those are the lines that choke me nearly every time. They are the central meaning of the song and they're the lines that I actually would be waving a placard to protect were they ever changed.

So, drinking, dancing, singing, feeling melancholy, arguing with loved ones, then telling them how much you love them. Nothing Christmassy about any of that.

 

[jonnyrovers]

People should just leave this fu***ng song alone. If radio & TV don't like some of the words then ban it, but leave it the f**k alone. It is a work of art. It is representative of a time/place/experience for the artist. Too many committees full of woke nobheads have been allowed near it already. Just don't bloody listen to it if the words are too upsetting for you.

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Yeah but don't forget Woody lives in Australia where they don't censor ANYTHING and where mullet powered rock lite has always been right up there with shit beer and casual racism. I bet it's MASSIVE there.

Couldn’t be more wrong.

Well...

1. You do live in Australia
2. You do seem terribly angsty about perceived censorship in the UK
3. Australians still love a mullet, and soft rock
4. Australia makes plenty of shit beer
5. Australia has a prevalence of casual racism

So, I’m not sure how well received this Bon Jovi cover has been over there, but to be honest, he definitely COULD have been quite a lot ‘more wrong’.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

what do you make of this?

https://youtu.be/KB9vvxYocW0

It's Not The BBC's fault.

And I am not normally a "political correctness gone mad" sort of person, but the original is a classic.

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

People should just leave this fu***ng song alone. If radio & TV don't like some of the words then ban it, but leave it the f**k alone. It is a work of art. It is representative of a time/place/experience for the artist. Too many committees full of woke nobheads have been allowed near it already. Just don't bloody listen to it if the words are too upsetting for you.

Calm Down Dear.

I don't think anyone ever really gets that upset about it. It's all just a bit daft.

 

[GoingUp]

That Bon Jovi cover sounds like a p!sstaking parody

 

[jonnyrovers]

Calm Down Dear.

I don't think anyone ever really gets that upset about it. It's all just a bit daft.

You're right Dear

My censorship valve has been tickled a few too many times today.

Nothing a nice hot cup of cocoa and a warm blanket won't fix. Ooooh Last of the Summer Wine is on!!

 

[AZ Gull]

dingalingaling ....!! aye , yes and firkin do one.....:upyours

:

This post made absolutely no sense to me, so I tried putting in into google translate. Google reckons it is written in Cebuano, which apparently is a language spoken in the Philippines

 

[The Clamp]

what do you make of this?

https://youtu.be/KB9vvxYocW0

About as dire as a cover of Fairytale of New York by Bon Jovi as you’d think it would be. I managed 9 seconds. About as long as I can stand the original now, heard it that many times.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

For the nth time, it's not BBC censorship – a different version was approved for ONE radio station. The rest of them are free to play the original.

As for that cover? Not my bag, but each to their own I'm sure the people losing their shite over the Radio 1 decision was be equally up in arms at JBJ for 'ruining' the song...

You replied to the OP on face value. Shame on you.

We all know this is a sly dig at those who disdain casual homophobia. The trick is to see who can come up with the funniest put down commensurate with the quality of the original post.

Here's mine.

Ahem. The OP is a fat-handed ****.

 

[BadFish]

Do you think he is singing Kirsty McColl's parts because he made the mistake if playing his vocals to every woman he asked?

Dreadful.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk

 

[wellquickwoody]

Yeah but don't forget Woody lives in Australia where they don't censor ANYTHING and where mullet powered rock lite has always been right up there with shit beer and casual racism. I bet it's MASSIVE there.

Couldn’t be more wrong.

Well...

1. You do live in Australia
2. You do seem terribly angsty about perceived censorship in the UK
3. Australians still love a mullet, and soft rock
4. Australia makes plenty of shit beer
5. Australia has a prevalence of casual racism

So, I’m not sure how well received this Bon Jovi cover has been over there, but to be honest, he definitely COULD have been quite a lot ‘more wrong’.

I do apologise. I should have made it plain that my 'more wrong' comment was specifically aimed at the bit about the song being MASSIVE in Aus.

 

[wellquickwoody]

You replied to the OP on face value. Shame on you.

We all know this is a sly dig at those who disdain casual homophobia. The trick is to see who can come up with the funniest put down commensurate with the quality of the original post.

Here's mine.

Ahem. The OP is a fat-handed ****.

Oh no!

The self appointed elder statesman of NSC is after me (even though I was mortally wounded to be told I was on ignore for the umpteenth time) for a perceived sly dig.

Oh well

 

[The Clamp]

Mine and HT's karaoke version backed by a chorus of drunk Japanese students in a pub in Shoreham is the definitive rendition of this song. That's just the way it is.

 

[nickbrighton]

That simply has to be the worst cover of any song , anywhere, anytime ever. Bon Jovi are really great at what they do well. This is just awful.

And as for the perceived BBC Censorship, please please please give it a rest, There are radio edits of numerous songs, James Blunt, Madonna, Ceelo Green and The Pogues to name a very few. Its standard practice. Different edits of songs will be played at different times of the day on different stations. Similar to the watershed on terrestrial TV

 

[stewart12]

People should just leave this fu***ng song alone. If radio & TV don't like some of the words then ban it, but leave it the f**k alone. It is a work of art. It is representative of a time/place/experience for the artist. Too many committees full of woke nobheads have been allowed near it already. Just don't bloody listen to it if the words are too upsetting for you.

loads of songs get censored for a variety of reasons. One of the first mainstream big rap singles- Stan by Eminem had vast swathes of the song censored for radio. I guess teenage listeners of radio 1 don't need to be hearing about a bloke killing his pregnant wife? Radio 1 listeners, being mainly young, haven't grown up in a world where the word "******" is commonly used as an insult to gay men, and do they really need to? The band support the censorship....if you really want to hear the word "******" then there are plenty of places where you can find the uncensored version

 

[stewart12]

on the christmas theme- former christmas number one "killing in the name" by rage against the machine was cut short when played on radio due to the "**** you I won't do what you tell me" bit

don't remember similar uproar from that

 

[jonnyrovers]

loads of songs get censored for a variety of reasons. One of the first mainstream big rap singles- Stan by Eminem had vast swathes of the song censored for radio. I guess teenage listeners of radio 1 don't need to be hearing about a bloke killing his pregnant wife? Radio 1 listeners, being mainly young, haven't grown up in a world where the word "******" is commonly used as an insult to gay men, and do they really need to? The band support the censorship....if you really want to hear the word "******" then there are plenty of places where you can find the uncensored version

I could not disagree with you more. Below is an excerpt from a passage by Nick Cave in response to the censorship of this song. I've also added a link to the full article.

The idea that a word, or a line, in a song can simply be changed for another and not do it significant damage is a notion that can only be upheld by those that know nothing about the fragile nature of songwriting. The changing of the word ‘******’ for the nonsense word ‘haggard’ destroys the song by deflating it right at its essential and most reckless moment, stripping it of its value. It becomes a song that has been tampered with, compromised, tamed, and neutered and can no longer be called a great song. It is a song that has lost its truth, its honour and integrity — a song that has knelt down and allowed the BBC to do its grim and sticky business.

I am in no position to comment on how offensive the word ‘******’ is to some people, particularly to the young — it may be deeply offensive, I don’t know, in which case Radio 1 should have made the decision to simply ban the song, and allow it to retain its outlaw spirit and its dignity.

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/censorship-fairytale-of-new-york/

It's clear from your words that you care nothing for the sanctity of art, and are incapable of understanding that context is everything. I can name hundreds of songs containing challenging themes, you've used Eminem as an example. Young people should know that blokes kill their pregnant wives. It prepares them for life. The alternative is that we get a generation of protected pansies like you.

 

[jonnyrovers]

on the christmas theme- former christmas number one "killing in the name" by rage against the machine was cut short when played on radio due to the "**** you I won't do what you tell me" bit

don't remember similar uproar from that

There was uproar.

And they didn't change the lyric, they removed it.

 

[Stato]

I could not disagree with you more. Below is an excerpt from a passage by Nick Cave in response to the censorship of this song. I've also added a link to the full article.

The idea that a word, or a line, in a song can simply be changed for another and not do it significant damage is a notion that can only be upheld by those that know nothing about the fragile nature of songwriting. The changing of the word ‘******’ for the nonsense word ‘haggard’ destroys the song by deflating it right at its essential and most reckless moment, stripping it of its value. It becomes a song that has been tampered with, compromised, tamed, and neutered and can no longer be called a great song. It is a song that has lost its truth, its honour and integrity — a song that has knelt down and allowed the BBC to do its grim and sticky business.

I am in no position to comment on how offensive the word ‘******’ is to some people, particularly to the young — it may be deeply offensive, I don’t know, in which case Radio 1 should have made the decision to simply ban the song, and allow it to retain its outlaw spirit and its dignity.

https://www.theredhandfiles.com/censorship-fairytale-of-new-york/

It's clear from your words that you care nothing for the sanctity of art, and are incapable of understanding that context is everything. I can name hundreds of songs containing challenging themes, you've used Eminem as an example. Young people should know that blokes kill their pregnant wives. It prepares them for life. The alternative is that we get a generation of protected pansies like you.

Nick Cave was a bit over precious about this whole business. He overlooks that the song was worked upon and had different versions, some with different words, for over a year before they settled on the released version. He overlooks that songs were never set in aspic until recorded sound changed their most common delivery method in the last hundred years. He overlooks the fact that the version they are playing has not been doctored by the BBC, but was re-recorded by the artists for radio play in the same way that thousands of other songs have been. The compromise was made by the artist and its the same compromise that many many artists have had to consider whenever art and capitalism meet. A song having an outlaw spirit is all well and good, but it won't keep Shane in pints of Cinzano like radio play will.

I would politely suggest that it is actually you who may have overlooked context in considering this fuss. Yes, there is the narrow question of context in considering the intent of the use of language in the song not intending homophobia, but there is also the wider context of who is making the complaints and for what reasons. The right wing activists making an issue of this do not give a hoot for the 'sanctity of art', they are simply trying to push their culture war agenda. They will use the opinions of those, like Cave, who have an admirable and genuine concern for the rights of the artist, out of context to support the lie that the younger generation are weak and over-sensitive, simply because they find different things unacceptable in the wider public forum than do their parents. Those who are pretending to defend the interests of art in this case are coming from exactly the same political place as those who campaigned for the banning of Dennis Potter plays in the eighties and Jerry Springer the Opera in the nineties. The intent is not to free us all to celebrate artistic endeavor, it is to tell the generation below them that their opinions are wrong and that things should always be like they were back in the day.