Music can make you laugh or it can make you cry or it can make you downright angry. From the late sixties into the seventies, censorship reared its ugly head for the first time. The heavy breathing on “Je T’aime Moi Non Plus” – a hit for Jane Birkin & Serge Gainsbourg in 1969 – did nothing but raise heckles on the back of Mary Whitehouse’s neck, and, being banned from the radio airwaves guaranteed it’s success, reaching Number 1 in the charts.
Eight years later, the Sex Pistols released “God Save The Queen” which was also given the thumbs down. It too reached the dizzy heights of the charts, securing Johnny Rotten’s place on the God-list. In recent years, artists have become more devious in their methods to avoid being silenced, by releasing two versions of the same song, the second suitable for radio with altered and toned-down lyrics. Examples of this are “Don’t Marry Her” by Beautiful South, “Someday it’ll be Saturday Night” by Bon Jovi and more recently “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt.
There was however a lighter side to life in those early years with the sprinkling of the charts with comedy singles. As early as 1960, Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren had a doctor/patient relationship on “Goodness Gracious Me”. In 1972 Chuck Berry released “My Ding-a-Ling”, Ray Stevens was running naked all over the place in 1974 with “The Streak” and nearly twenty years later in 1993, Rolf Harris dared to record a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Depending upon your particular musical preference, the classification of this recording still produces all three emotions – laughing, crying and anger.
There was however a lighter side to life in those early years with the sprinkling of the charts with comedy singles. As early as 1960, Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren had a doctor/patient relationship on “Goodness Gracious Me”. In 1972 Chuck Berry released “My Ding-a-Ling”, Ray Stevens was running naked all over the place in 1974 with “The Streak” and nearly twenty years later in 1993, Rolf Harris dared to record a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”. Depending upon your particular musical preference, the classification of this recording still produces all three emotions – laughing, crying and anger.