Music So Dangerous It Had to Be Banned

This one was actually investigated by the FBI for obscenity but no charges were brought. There was a cottage industry devoted to deciphering the "dirty" lyrics and some people were convinced that The Kingsmen had pulled a fast one and gotten actual filth on the radio. Dick Clark cleared it for play on American Bandstand, so that shut a lot of critics up. I saw them live in 1964 at a college mixer and, drunk as I was, I swear they were doing the "verboten" lyrics rather than the cleaned-up version for airplay, because they knew their audience and who would appreciate it more than a bunch of drunken college kids?

This one was banned in lots of markets in 1954 for two reasons: A.) it was "race" music and B.) there was no mention of a legal "Mister" Annie. It makes me crazy every time I hear someone talk about the 50's as a fun, innocent decade, with all the censorship going on.



LATER EDIT: It was a follow-up, or "answer song", to their previous single, which had come under even more scrutiny because nobody in their right mind would believe that by "work" they didn't mean at least "play", but probably "****".

I remember this one. Ed Sullivan considered himself a bastion of decency since a "family" show bore his name and he knew to whom he owed allegiance, and it wasn't to a rock band. This is one of his more famous censorship efforts, talking The Stones into switching their lyric from "night" to "time" to make it less suggestive, even though the damn song was all over the radio and the change would only call more attention to what wasn't there on his show. The Stones took some crap for caving, but fans knew what a jerk Ed was. My big complaint was that well into the rock era Sullivan's sound people still didn't always know how to do a good mix on a live rock band. This sounds terrible to me. Nice to see Brian though.

 

I liked the cheeky faux Bowie number by the legendary (cough) Les Dantz and His Orchestra. 

This Joe Meek ditty reminds me of Wuthering Heights, with the wind blowing cold across the moors and a ghost singing to us plaintively. 

Despite the line, "the girl I loved who died a year ago" being changed to the more vague "the girl I loved and lost a year ago", the song was banned by the BBC.

The TV show clip is bonkers: shaky camera, startled backup singers, crazy guitar guy, so enthused but the first to rip off his instrument and make a break for the sock department. There is some debate about Ritchie Blackmore appearing but I don't think he is in The Outlaws at this point.

Harpers West One sometimes featured popular singers in the "music department" such as John Leyton who played the role of Johnny St Cyr and sang the song "Johnny Remember Me". The publicity helped him to establish his career. Although most of series 1 survives, no episodes from series 2 are known to exist.


John Leyton - Johnny Remember Me (‘Harpers West One’)

 Surprised but glad to be able to offer:

                                                         

 A combo of Link Wray's snarling guitar - embellished by a purposely damaged amplifier speaker cone - and the title, which was suggested by Phil Everly after hearing the tune, is said to have resulted in the single being the only instrumental in the United States to ever receive banning.