censored song lyrics (was top 40 in 1957)

[Ed Hennessy]

 I can recall in the mid-1980s when WELI New Haven (AC by format then, but closer to Full Service really) played a version of Laura Branigan's "Self Control" which had the electronic guitar riff in the intro edited out.  The song was then about 10 second shorter, and nothing else differed, so it wasn't done to shorten the song.  It was apparently that the guitar riff was not suitable for AC.  I don't know if that was done by the station or by the record company, but I can recall hearing the 'full' version on stations like KC-101 (WCKI) or WTIC-FM at that time.

What made this a bit odd was that the guitar was not suitable, but they had no issue playing Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night." The content in that was OK, but the guitar was 'too noisy,' apparently.

Ed Hennessy
 

On 05/31/14, Bob Nelson wrote:

Great examples; also the British band XTC had a song called "Life Begins at
the Hop". Lyric "...and there's Coca-Cola on draught (draft)" was changed
to "c-c-cola".

> On 5/31/2014 10:32 AM, Brian T. Vita wrote:
>
>> Let's not forget WBZ-FM with Paul Simon's "Kodachrome". The line was
>> "when I think back of all the crap I learned in high school". It was
>> abridged to "when I think back of all...I learned in high school". Ah, the
>> power of the razor blade.
>>