BLEEPED AND GAGGED: LYRICS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT
By Linda East Brady
© L.E. Brady, 2005
As an American, you have a right to free speech. As a
singer/songwriter or radio programmer, your inalienables get a lot
dicier.
Take the strange tale of the Kingsmen’s 1963 version of “Louie, Louie.”
It started out as innocuous Richard Berry calypso number about a sailor
trying to get back to his sweetheart. The Kingsmen’s frat rock
version was rumored to have spiced things up a bit.
What precisely was titillating about the song’s lyrics is still open to
debate. For two years the feds investigated, going so far as to
send undercover agents to playground to try and overhear what kids were
singing. The suit was finally dropped when the lyrics were declared
“unintelligible.”
A quaint story from a simpler time? Think again.
As recently as May 2005, the Associated Press had a story about a
Benton Harbor, Mich. high school superintendent banning the school
marching band from doing an instrumental version of “Louie,
Louie” because of the “raunchy lyrics” — this despite the fact the band
was planning to do an instrumental version.
Fear of Fines The Federal Communications Commission specifically states that
obscenity is not protected by the first amendment. Certain words, as
demonstrated in the infamous “Seven Dirty Words” routine by comedian
George Carlin, are strictly taboo. The F.C.C. is less specific as
to what imagery it considers obscene. Allowances are supposedly
made for works with “… serious literary, artistic, political or
scientific merit.”
Substantial fines have recently been levied against large commercial
stations and networks for broadcasting unsuitable fare. While
bottom-line painful, such fines are usually don’t strike fatal to
for-profit operations. Not so with commercial-free, listener
supported community radio. Such stations have long been the source of
free-form playlists where Americana and other fresh, non-mainstream
music is actually heard. A six-figure fine can equal six months’
worth of operating budget and a death knell for such stations. Even the
DJs who spin something seen as improper can be heavily fined.
“I think we err on the side of caution,” said Troy Mumm, operations
manager for Salt Lake City’s community station KRCL. “Not only for fear
of fines, but also for being good members of society.”
KBOO, a community station in Portland, Ore. openly fought a large
F.C.C. fine levied for playing the song “My Revolution” by Sara Jones.
According to Saddle Sore magazine, Jones also sued the F.C.C. for
declaring her song “… designed to pander and shock.” Both fines
and suit were eventually dropped after much legal wrangling.
“In the KBOO incident, the station probably ended up spending many
times more in legal fees than they would have had they just paid the
fine,” Mumm noted. “The thing is, far more explicit songs have been
played and no fines have been levied. But ‘My Revolution’ is also very
political in nature, and many believe that fine was more about the
message than the actual swear words.”
As for prohibiting songs due to their political nature or subject
matter, Mumm says, “You know, if a song has an f-word in it, you have
10,000 other songs to play instead. Why borrow trouble?
That is not about the message. That’s about a word. But to
not play a song because of a message, you’re getting into dangerous
territory.”
Mumm continued, “From what I understand, (the FCC) doesn’t require a
recording or transcripts of a given incident. Someone can just
complain, and that’s all they need to pursue it. It’s a little scary.”
McMurtry’s Cool Bleeps Singer/songwriter/guitarist James McMurtry has recently stirred
controversy with some of his lyric content. Case in point is his
black-humored Telecaster-driven rocker “Choctaw Bingo.” The song
showcases a colorful narrative from the point of view of a good ol’ boy
anticipating a family reunion where the fun includes moonshine, meth,
illegal arms and a cousin-on-siblings three-way tryst. While the song
broke no hard and fast obscenity rules, airplay was restricted on
certain stations due to the song’s imagery.
His latest offering, “We Can’t Make it Here,” has been the subject of
even closer scrutiny. Offered as a free download from
http://www.jamesmcmurtry.com since the week preceding the 2004 presidential
election, the song features hard-hitting lyrics about outsourcing of
jobs and other societal ills challenging Americans today, problems
seemingly ignored by those holding the reins. It also includes two
bleeped expletives to make it more radio-friendly.
{mosimage} The song will appear sans bleeps on McMurtry’s
upcoming “Childish Things” CD, due in September from Compadre Records.
“I don’t really mind bleeps,” McMurtry said via phone from Austin.
“When I was a kid, Johnny Cash had some stuff that was bleeped.
We all just though it was cool. It’s kind of risqu� — like covering
something up just to make people want to look.”
However, McMurtry believes the bleeps are not the true crux of the matter with “We Can’t Make It Here.”
“There are stations that won’t play (the song) even with the bleeps,”
he said. “They say it’s too suggestive, they could lose their license.
I think really they don’t want to get political, and they use that as
an excuse.
“Anybody selling something on the air is not going to want to offend
anybody. Even in Austin, when I go on the radio to mouth off
about something, I can only seem to get on in the morning. Those
morning guys are pretty cool, but sometimes I even make them nervous, ”
he added, laughing.
McMurtry notes that while the song had received ample praise, he had
also received his share of negative feedback. “We had this open
forum on the Web site when it first came out, where people could say
what they thought of the song,” he said. “A lot of people were really
upset. Everything is so polarized now.
“But we can’t be afraid to offend people,” McMurtry noted.
“That’s kind of what creates discourse. If you get people
actually communicating, they start out yelling at each other.
Then, with luck, the yelling will die down to actual talking. I
hope so, anyway.”
About The Author
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A great beleiver in the freedoms of speech and press, Linda East Brady is a
volunteer DJ for Radio-Free Utah, KRCL. She is also the author of "Lone Star Ice
and Fire" (Coral Press 2004), a novel set in the wild and woolly Austin music
scene. Brady has a full-time gig as the music feature writer for the Ogden
Standard-Examiner, and her features and short stories appear in HHGI Online
Guitar magazine, Blue Suede News, the Salt Lake City Weekly, Soutnland Blues and
the Mid-South Literary Review.
