Green Room - Week 5 - Weekend Edition

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I heard "Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits (regarded by many as an 80s classic) on the radio a week or so ago, and noticed that there seemed to be an entire verse missing from the song. Granted, I hadn't heard it in awhile and I don't tend to listen to a lot of commercial radio so perhaps I missed something.

A couple days later, I happened to have on the same station and (of course, because that's what commercial radio does) the song came on again and sure enough, there was an entire verse missing.

So I did a bit of research (note: very little) and saw that Canadian radio had actually banned an uncut version from their radio (or tried to, and now they seem to have some sort of compromise about it.

It's funny because I'm talking about it, but I don't want to actually repost what they cut. Maybe that says more about me than it does about the song though, because there was controversy when it came out (for the same reasons) but everyone, even the critics, understood that it was in the context of a character. The character was saying those words.

Which made me think of those who want to either remove certain "classic novels" from the shelves of libraries due to the words in them. Or put out versions with those offensive words removed.

Is it OK for a period piece - or a piece coming out *during* that period, being that it is speech "of the time" - to have language that would be deemed "not suitable" now?

With songs/books - is it better to remove something entirely than for someone else to come in and change or remove certain words?

With "radio friendly" versions of songs these days the artist is involved with it. Whereas when the push in the 80s (and indeed from what I read from what happened a few years ago with this particular song in Canada) the call was for the government to step in and regulate that sort of thing.

Is there a difference (to you)?

It's interesting for me to see what the next generation of writers will be thinking of as "how things are done" and seeing how those things are developing.