Monday, February 05, 2007

This ain’t a scene: or, The unmentionable deity

Of course I'm probably a little more excited than the next soon-to-be-37-year-old man about the release of the new Fall Out Boy album. Indeed, it's on my wishlist of potential Valentine's and/or birthday gifts. But you know what's funny?

I've been singing along to the new single "This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race" for a couple of weeks now, whenever it comes on the Kerrang or Scuzz music-TV channels. I may even have caught it on MTV2 once or twice.

Today, though, when I went to SongMeanings.net, I discovered something unexpected. Where I had merrily been singing, "This ain't a scene, it's a damn arms race", along with the falling-out boys, it seems the unexpurgated lyric states: "This ain't a scene, it's a goddamn arms race". And sure enough, I tracked down a version of the song online that confirms this to be true.

So we are now not allowed to use the word "God" in lyrics? Or is it just because it says "goddamn"? Either way, it's fucking stupid and annoying.

Sort of reminds me of the extra whipcracks that have latterly been added to "Gay Bar" by Electric 6, so as to hide the words "war" and "nuclear war" in that song. So instead of the words going "Let's start a war, start a nuclear war," it goes, "Let's start a [whipcrack], start a [whipcrack whipcrack]". How fucking ridiculous is that?

I fucking hate censorship. And speaking of censurial cunts, BlogExplosion has denied me permission to register my movie reviews site, saying "we have deemed the content on your blog as content that is not appropriate for other members". Um, exsqueeze me?

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16 Comments:

Blogger Tamarai said...

Where's freedom of speech? What happened to that? Huh?

05 February, 2007 16:34  
Blogger Jesus said...

Wonder what Blogger would say about me then?

05 February, 2007 16:38  
Blogger ldbug said...

I hate censorship of songs on the radio. If you don't want to offend idiots that may not like your choice of music, don't play the song.

What do you mean 'register'? Like you want your site to be official and they're just being pricks?

05 February, 2007 17:37  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

T: Long time dead, that is.

Jesus: Oh dude, you're so banned it's untrue.

LDBug: Isn't it mad? BlogExplosion is one of those sites where you click thru to see members' blogs and in return you get people sent to yours. But of course you first have to be registered. The silly thing is, A Blog About Nowt is registered, and there's far more "objectionable content" here than on the review site. Indeed, the great majority of reviews on that were originally on this one. Maybe they've changed their paramemeters.

05 February, 2007 17:40  
Blogger Cynnie said...

I hate all the crap that's going on in the world ..
So what we gonna do about it ?
(I'm old ..I've lead many a revolt..I'm wanting to follow this go round )

I've been away ..so sorry..but i have been reading you and the missus !

05 February, 2007 20:03  
Blogger Camie Vog said...

Huh? New Fall Out Boy CD? Thanks for letting me know. I am SO out of the loop.

Censorship in music sucks, I agree. Here is a good one, though. My kid really liked the song "Gold Digger" by Kanye West. He would dance around with the video on MTV, humming along. We were at the library, scoping the discs, so we could fill the iPod and we found the Kanye disc. I checked it out, added it to the iPod. He requested it in the car, I que it up, listened to about half of it and quickly turned it off. Lots of yelling from the backseat telling me to turn it back on. I couldn't do it. The language was way too rough for him to pick up and possibley use at school.
Don't get me wrong, we swear a lot in our house. He knows what most of the words are, and that the word Fuck is totally off limits to him. I have heard him mutter shit under his breath when he messes up on a video game, and I don't really care. But using the N (i**r) word, especially when living as whitey in a ghetto doesn't fly with me.
Sorry for the long, blah, blah story. I just wanted to say that in some cases, like for a 4 year old, the watered down versions are okay. Oh, and my kid never says God, because he doesn't know what God is... Never been into a church.

06 February, 2007 00:22  
Blogger Pickled Olives said...

I listen to satelite radio and they don't censor. So, as I was reading this, that song pops into my head, and I'm thinking, I know it says Goddamn, but I think they play a skipped beat for god. Jeez. Now, I need to listen a lot more carefully to see if my uncensored music is truely censored...

06 February, 2007 01:38  
Blogger Lee said...

There's this song they play on pop radio called "I Wanna Love You".

The actual words are:

I see you windin n grindin up on that pole,
I kno u see me lookin' at you and you already kno
I wanna fuck you, you already know, i wanna fuck you, you already kno

Oh. Dear. I think it should be censored cuz it just totally sucks. ;)

06 February, 2007 03:50  
Blogger me said...

speaking as an also nearly 37 year old, i am eagerly awaiting the new kaiser chiefs cd! got a couple of tracks off limewire, but will have to buy the thing too!

censorship sucks. watched an old programme on e4 last night, all about it. that fuckwit mary whitehouse and other "god fearing" folks getting soooo hot under the collar about things on tv.
i know it is the age old question....but.....

WHY
NOT
TURN
THE
FUCKING
THING
OFF
YOU
DODDERING
OLD
CUNTS?

sorry! bye.

06 February, 2007 09:54  
Blogger Candy Minx said...

Yeah, this is distressing. Some bands agree to the censorship and edit or do an alternative version for the radio themselves. I guess it's good they are making the decision...but how did they really write the song? One for art, and one for money. Half pipe versus hash pipe. Weezer went back in the studio and did a "safe" version.

I had my blog reported as objectionable. And it happened almost as soon as I started blogging. All I had written about was Dickens or something.

Oh wait, maybe it's because I said Dickens.

06 February, 2007 10:50  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Cyn: Good to see you. I've been checking in at yours too from time to time, but I've been pretty wrapped up with work so have been a bad visitor to all. Plenty crap about, though.

Camie: Yep, new album in stores now! I appreciate that certain censorship serves a purpose. Like you with your lad and "the n word". But as an adult if I turn on the TV after, say, 9pm, i expect to be able to see and hear things as nature intended, y'know?

Olives: Yep, it's that extra beat bit: that's where it should say "God". I guess they're just playing the "radio edit", without meaning to censor, per se.

06 February, 2007 13:28  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Lee: Yeah, well, if we censored things just cos they were crap... Whose judgment are we gonna entrust that to? Can't be done, can it?

Cappy: I didn't see that show, but the off button is there for a reason, y'know. Not sure about the Kaiser Chiefs, although I did enjoy their summer of popularity 18 months ago. they were hot right then.

Candy: Yeah, it's the same as with Hash Pipe, I'm sure: a band-sanctioned radio edit. But it sucks ass, man! I've got an update coming on the BlogExplosion front, too.

06 February, 2007 13:31  
Blogger Lee said...

(*) - actually i agree with you...censorship does suck. i don't anyone else deciding what's right for me. i'm perfectly comfortable with self- censorship, as in the OFF button.

but man, that song is really , really bad! ;)

06 February, 2007 18:16  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Lee: Well, maybe you and I should be the arbiters of taste for the world. I think that'd work. After all, we both love (early) Prince, so how wrong could our opinions be?

07 February, 2007 09:22  
Blogger Lee said...

You know...I had a feeling you were brilliant. ;)

07 February, 2007 12:58  
Blogger * (asterisk) said...

Lee: Yeah, me too.

07 February, 2007 17:21  

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