resend - BBC - Christmas song edit - PC madness?

[Richard Chonak]

On 12/18/2007 02:45 PM, Steve Ordinetz wrote:
> Allan Sherman's "12 Gifts of
> Christmas" had the word "naked" edited out of the line "statue of a naked
> lady with a clock where her stomach [ought] to be" on the Rhino greatest hits
> album.  The song was intact on the original 45.  I have no idea who
> considered this to be offensive.


I think Allan Sherman's songs have been edited as if for kids' 
compilation albums, although Allan Sherman was writing for an adult 
audience back then, with suggestive allusions such as this one in "Camp 
Grenada":

"And the head coach wants no sissies,
  So he reads to us from something called 'Ulysses'"

Or from "It's a most unusual play":

"There's no scenery, there's no lighting, there's no costumes -- oh, 
what art!"


Anyway, I hate the sort of edit done to "12 Gifts of Christmas" -- they 
just snipped out the word "naked" rather than adding an audible bleep or 
pause, so the song has a little "jump" in every verse, for those of us 
old enough to remember the original version before it got Orwellized.

--RC