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Lyrics changed by the BBC so nobody can be offended

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1 minute ago, Ashley said:

 

It is and it isn't. 

 

I get why the words have been changed but there are worse songs out there that don't get this sort of attention which albeit need changing too? We going to change everything for todays soceity? Where is the line drawn?

It's been censored for years. 'Worse' songs get censored the same way.


If you can show me a single song that says the words "Faggot" and "Slut" in the same derogatory manner as Fairytale of NY that isn't censored on Radio 1 i'll be impressed.

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18 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Seems like cancel culture is well and truly taking over. 

 

I get the changing of the lyrics to this however it seems today's generation want something to always be offended by. 

 

Today in the news, students at DMU want the name changing due to Simon De Montfort persecution of Jews back in the 13th century  

 

What he done in terms of democracy goes against their agenda though. Seems people want to rewrite history.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-leicestershire-54995643?__twitter_impression=true

 

Not seen an image that speaks volumes for thr current situation. 

 

ausmessage.jpg

There are quite a few generations on the go right now, which one do you mean specifically?  The one that protested Monty Python films?  The one that insisted on slapping parental warnings on rap music?  The one that told us games like the top-down GTAs would turn all children into satan-worshipping psychopaths?  

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28 minutes ago, Ashley said:

Seems like cancel culture is well and truly taking over. 

 

I get the changing of the lyrics to this however it seems today's generation want something to always be offended by. 

 

Today in the news, students at DMU want the name changing due to Simon De Montfort persecution of Jews back in the 13th century  

 

What he done in terms of democracy goes against their agenda though. Seems people want to rewrite history.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-leicestershire-54995643?__twitter_impression=true

 

Not seen an image that speaks volumes for thr current situation. 

 

ausmessage.jpg

I don’t think you fully understand what cancel culture is tbh 

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45 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:
47 minutes ago, Voll Blau said:

 

Quote

BBC Radio 1 will not play the original version of Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl this Christmas, because its audience may be offended by some of the lyrics.

The station said young listeners were particularly sensitive to derogatory terms for gender and sexuality.

It will instead play an edited version with different lyrics sung by MacColl.

But the 1987 original will still be played on Radio 2, while 6 Music DJs can choose between the two versions.

Besides, it's just Radio One doing it. Wouldn't fit the narrative being offered up here though I guess...

 

 

 

30 minutes ago, Xen said:

Oh, hi. Gay man here who has often had these words thrown at my at various stages of my life. Now, I'm not so sensitive that hearing the words spirals me into some sort of breakdown, but its still not nice to hear those words played so casually on the radio for 2 months every year. 

My own experiences were pretty tame compared to a lot of people who have had much worse thrown at them, so I can fully understand why someone might be even more viscerally opposed to the 'traditional' lyrics.

 

No, but we can recognise when 'art' is having a negative impact and act to reduce its influence, whilst maintaining it within context. There are plenty of other situations where things which were once seen as culturally appropriate have fallen out of popular use because they're no longer acceptable for the current times. As a society we're allowed to learn and fix mistakes where they've proved harmful (and they are, even if you don't see it), not tether ourselves to them and refuse all criticism.

 

Ultimately, it's a minor change to a song which will have a tangible benefit to a group of people, and be pretty inconsequential to everyone else (unless you choose to allow yourself to get angry at something like this). There's no real downside, so what's the harm in making the change? If the BBC hadn't said a word and just made a silent decision to remove it from all playlists this year, no-one would have batted an eye, or even noticed.

 

That rare moment when FT posters cause you to (partly) change your mind......

 

I'm instinctively opposed to censorship, except of stuff designed to promote hatred (which should be dealt with legally). But you make a good point. Even though the song is categorically not intended to be offensive to anyone (the Pogues' guitarist was gay, as it happens) and just depicts a fictional couple of drunken old gits, down on their luck and ranting at one another about lost dreams, why give it wall-to-wall coverage at Xmas if that will cause hurt and possibly encourage bigotry in morons who misinterpret or abuse the song? Particularly if it's only an editorial decision not to play it on certain stations?

 

I do categorically reject any suggestion that the song is homophobic, misogynistic or otherwise offensive, though.

 

Shane MacGowan, who wrote the lyrics makes the point better than me: https://completemusicupdate.com/article/shane-macgowan-responds-to-fairytale-of-new-york-controversy/

"The word was used by the character because it fitted with the way she would speak and with her character. She is not supposed to be a nice person, or even a wholesome person. She is a woman of a certain generation at a certain time in history and she is down on her luck and desperate. Her dialogue is as accurate as I could make it but she is not intended to offend. She is just supposed to be an authentic character and not all characters in songs and stories are angels or even decent and respectable. Sometimes characters in songs and stories have to be evil or nasty in order to tell the story effectively". However, he added: “If people don’t understand that I was trying to accurately portray the character as authentically as possible then I am absolutely fine with them bleeping the word, but I don’t want to get into an argument”.

 

Censorship - including censorship of fiction - is a slippery path that should be avoided, if possible. I presume that nobody will be censoring Shakespeare, although Iago was a racist character in Othello and other plays depict unsavoury and misogynist characters, probably homophobes, too, I imagine (long time, no Bard). I suppose the assumption is that the "educated" audience understand that these are just the dubious words of fictional characters and not the promotion of hatred.

 

But what if a popular drama was produced about Hitler? Would all anti-Semitic utterances have to be removed in case it encouraged "the plebs" to hate Jews? Would it be limited to BBC2 or C4? Bigotry needs to be discouraged by means other than hiding depictions of bigotry from the public - and I say that as someone who got some homophobic abuse as a teenager, despite not even being gay, so I have at least some understanding of how hurtful it can be.

 

You have a point that an editorial decision to not play the (unintentionally) "offensive" version of the song on particular stations is justified to avoid needless hurt, but such effective partial censorship should be the exception, not the rule.

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2 hours ago, Mark 'expert' Lawrenson said:

I’m struggling with this, how many people are actually offended by lyrics in songs? It’s just someone in an office making silly decisions and “saving” the supposed insecure British public from being offended.

Would you back the removal of all radio edits of songs and radio stations just playing the album edits then?

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I’m not sure if I should be offended by the original lyrics or offended that they’ve been changed.
It’s so confusing knowing what to be offended by these days.

Being offended was a much simpler process back in the day.

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10 minutes ago, Izzy said:

I’m not sure if I should be offended by the original lyrics or offended that they’ve been changed.
It’s so confusing knowing what to be offended by these days.

Being offended was a much simpler process back in the day.

We reap what we sow.

If one uses the term 'coloured person', instead of person of colour, you'll be lambasted.

 

I am well aware of the reasons in that example, but believe we are are splitting hairs now and constantly walking on egg shells

 

Everyone will be offended by something or another, you really shouldn't and indeed can't, protect everyone from offence.

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16 minutes ago, Izzy said:

I’m not sure if I should be offended by the original lyrics or offended that they’ve been changed.
It’s so confusing knowing what to be offended by these days.

Being offended was a much simpler process back in the day.

I'm slightly offended by the fact that people are offended by things they decide may be offensive to the easily-offended. 

What offends me is that people who offend me have decided I may be offended by things they find offensive. 

I mean, are they trying to offend me or what? 

No offence...

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1 minute ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Scandalously poor judgment, Llama! 

 

Massively overplayed and degraded by familiarity, certainly. Nowhere near their best song, certainly. But still the best Christmas song since The Waitresses or possibly Slade!

 

This is an assault on the mighty achievements of the elderly. What has your generation offered us?

Pale-faced young men spending their lives locked in bedrooms with playstations and porn? Eating McDonald's every night and chucking the wrappers in the street? Walking down the street with your jeans hanging down to your knees to show off your branded kecks? Or walking into lamp-posts because you can't look where you're going and have to walk along grinning gormlessly at your mobile? Blazing down the street with gangster rap blaring out of your car window? Or being incited into mindless moronic violence by weirdo Japanese comics like that @Finnegan reads?

 

I see you young people through my net curtains and I see you in my Daily Express. We need to do something about you. Bring back national service. Or bring back the birch....not that blond bloke, I mean the cat-o'-nine-tails. Get young people into the town hall square, pull down your trousers and thrash you to within an inch of your lives. It's the only language that the youth of today understand! 

 

:ph34r:

 

 

If I owned a playstation I'd think you were spying on me.

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9 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

Scandalously poor judgment, Llama! 

 

Massively overplayed and degraded by familiarity, certainly. Nowhere near their best song, certainly. But still the best Christmas song since The Waitresses or possibly Slade!

 

This is an assault on the mighty achievements of the elderly. What has your generation offered us?

Pale-faced young men spending their lives locked in bedrooms with playstations and porn? Eating McDonald's every night and chucking the wrappers in the street? Walking down the street with your jeans hanging down to your knees to show off your branded kecks? Or walking into lamp-posts because you can't look where you're going and have to walk along grinning gormlessly at your mobile? Blazing down the street with gangster rap blaring out of your car window? Or being incited into mindless moronic violence by weirdo Japanese comics like that @Finnegan reads?

 

I see you young people through my net curtains and I see you in my Daily Express. We need to do something about you. Bring back national service. Or bring back the birch....not that blond bloke, I mean the cat-o'-nine-tails. Get young people into the town hall square, pull down your trousers and thrash you to within an inch of your lives. It's the only language that the youth of today understand! 

 

:ph34r:

 

 

 

Something of a contradiction there, Alf. lol

 

On that subject, though, has there ever been a more ridiculous fashion (and I say this as someone who was a teenager in the Seventies!)?

Edited by Buce
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