Well, he did said and did some things in his cocaine year (thin white duke years) but while he never apologized formally, his actions later showed that it was not really who he grew to be.
@@corrinagoldblatt6956microaggressions are racist and sexist and discriminating. Only certain people are allowed to call out microaggressions, which 999/1000 times are just those people looking for something to be mad at. Nobody can control themselves to the point of never, ever saying something the other person can interpret as offensive, microaggressions are just an excuse for entitled people to yell and start a fight, the rest of the world just ignores it (because, did you ever think that calling out microaggressions is also a microaggression? It shuts down the other person, which might have those "offensive" microdetails out of cultural backgrounds and would like to talk about them and gain better understanding instead of a constant "shut up, you are racist because you mispronounced one word!") Bottom line: microaggression calling is bullying, be an adult and talk things through instead of thinking you know so well you can read people from half a word.
One of my favorite songs as a young child that I'm surprised didn't banned was the bizarre "They're Coming to Take Me Away," which included lyrics about being taken off to the "funny farm." It incorporated some reversed lyrics and a heartbeat like beat to it. Now there's a great song for you to do a deep dive on, Professor.
When the 'Jeremy' video came out. I thought that he turned his pain and anger on the class. But after someone told me the story and I re-watched it. I was able to see that the class was covered in spatter, not wounds. I was a poor, overweight, bullied kid. This video hit me hard. I lived with a single mother and had not been around firearms. And I'm very thankful for that. Because if I had grown up in a different environment. That story could've easily been about me. I had often thought about ending things for myself and the people who hurt me. But luckily, I never got past the thought. Kids are mean. And I grew up before anti-social media made bullying easier and more widespread. I couldn't imagine growing up today. There's no privacy. Everyone is on display to be judged by everyone. It's horrible. To anyone growing up right now struggling. Just realize that school doesn't last forever. Once you've survived high school. The world isn't that bad
@@garyfasso6223 The OP was relating his experience in that sentence, not Jeremy's. You can see a photo of the real Jeremy in this video. Where I live, kids aren't really into body shaming like kids were in the 90s and earlier. Saying something about someone's body weight isn't necessarily bullying, and if it's intended to be offensive, kids around here aren't very tolerant of it. It's about as offensive as saying someone's gay. It's more of a description than a judgement.
I never knew anything about the controversy over the song because I could not listen to Pearl Jam....he sounded like a wounded cow groaning its dying breath. It was monotone and whiny and irritating. I did hear about it about it a few years ago though and saw the video online, looked up the sad and tragic story. I am fortunate none of my sons were bullied like that but I'd have committed straight up homicide myself if they ever had been. I'm a grown woman, coming in hot at 61 and I have never subscribed to the nonsense about "violence doesn't solve anything" (it stops a bully, permanently) and "you should never hit a woman" (nonsense, she doesn't get a free pass because she has boobs) and "you should never spank a child" (my 3 boys are solid, upstanding citizens who got spanked early on and knocked it off shortly after), and "you can't hit a child" (if the kid is bullying another kid, the bully's getting dealt with)...... People can be vile. Defend yourself. Even if you lose, you go down fighting back.
Push It by Salt n Peppa was frowned upon when the high school cheerleaders did an award winning fabulous routine. The stadium went wild except for the principle.
I grimaced when a Catholic school all-girls dance team went on to win the State Championship for dancing to Madonna's "Like a Prayer." Those of us who listened to the lyrics before the video came out know what it's really about.
I also remember a junior high team dancing to "X's and O's" - I was like, I'd be calling every member of the school board if my daughter was dancing to that song. Why not "Candy man?" LOL!!!
I legit did not know what that song was about when I was about 11 years old. I made a mix tape of songs recorded off the radio and played it while on a road trip with my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandma. When that song came on, everyone in the van was HORRIFIED. My less-innocent cousins explained to me that song was about "doing it." That tape was popped out of the deck so fast. I'm surprised my uncle didn't chuck it out the window 😂. I was mortified.
Does anyone remember Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby"? I first heard it in a Harmon Kardon store at Roosevelt Field where my friend was working. He cranked it through some high-end speakers and drove almost everyone out of the store. Women were shrieking and men were blushing... And my friend lost his job... I bought that album immediately LOL!
I had a roommate at University that played as part of his workout music routine. That, U-2's In the Name of Love, and Lauper's She-bop. Embarrassing every time.
I remember Relax being everywhere when I was a teenager. I would sing along, not understanding the lyrics. I remember thinking "When you wanna come? Come where? Like over to my house?"
Americans in the mid 70s to the mid 80s just seemed to innocently ignore the meanings of songs that had homosexual references (which were often very obvious) as well as ignoring the level of ugly misogyny against women (which would never be allowed to be portrayed in movies and TV).
My sister, like me, is a child of the 80s. Because of her kids, she was active with the youth at her church. One time, they were working on a project in the youth center when an "offensive" song came on. I don't remember what song she said. But then she said one of the girls in the group decided that they needed to change the station because of the song. Taking it upon herself, the girl started changing stations until she came across the 80s station. Relax was playing, and the girl said."Oh, this is much better". My sister said she didn't have the heart to break it to her and let her live in her blissful innocence.
As a TEEN you didn't get that? I mean, it was impossible to derive ANY other meaning from the completely explicit lyrics for me. First heard it in the movie Body Double. That was REALLY explicit so that might be why my experience varied. Merry Christmas : ).
Yeah I remember reading multiple books in high school that had been banned, and I couldn't understand why. They were only moderately interesting or "scandalous", nothin to write home about.
Nothing offends me more than people who tell me what I should be offended about. They're basically saying I either have no critical thinking skills or am too dumb to understand when I'm being insulted.
Why are you offended and why do you care? Honest question coming from another question that is why people express so much anger and hate online and forget how they would act amongst family and friends. Again why go you care about what idiots and agitators shout out loud online.
@@andrewhowie6646 Not only that but I think the original speaker was trying to reassure any bullied person that it will get better. I was raised in a poor household with many forms of abuse by one side of my family and threatened never to speak about it on pain of death. I too was overweight and was bullied all through my childhood and became anorexic and bulletin as a teenager. I had two failed marriages in my twenties through my fourties then stopped dating and focused on raising my children and my job. My exes didn’t think that working was a priority so my income supported us all. I remained single for twelve years and once my children were adults I began to date again. Luckily I had spent my single time doing a deep dive into what I really needed and wanted in a relationship with a man and eventually met a wonderful man with whom I developed a healthy relationship and we married twelve years ago. We’re both seniors but are the happiest that either of us have ever been. He also had a traumatic marriage.
I was in the local Walmart about a week ago, and they were playing Walk on the wild side over the muzak. I felt really really old. And a little bit taken aback that a song that racy was considered mainstream enough to play on muzak
I loved this song when it came out and I lived in an exceptionally restrictive home - basically imprisoned. Didn't hear it for years until I was driving to uni one day. I immediately remembered all of the words - but for the first time ever - I understood them! Mom and Dad obviously had paid no attention.😅
When I was a kid there was a song called "Run Joey Run" It was about a girl's father who caught her and her boyfriend together and the father was going to shoot him, but he accidentally shot his daughter instead. The only line from the song I can remember is "Daddy please don't, it wasn't his fault, he means so much to me. Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married, just you wait and see". The chorus was "Run Joey run Joey run". Don't know if anyone else remembers it. I do remember it was a very disturbing song.
As someone who was truly part of the Mtv generation - I was 10 when The Buggles launched the new chanel - I have to say that it is surprising just how much the newer generations have lost in terms of their ability to grasp abstracts like satire, parody, and character-driven lyrics. If I, as someone on the spectrum, can grasp that not everything should be taken as literal, then others should be able to do so. What are they teaching in English/Literature classes these days that even blatant satire and commentary are going right over these young people's heads?
I wonder if they (the new Gen and Woke) would be able to laugh at 'The Life of Brian' or ban it on some religious grounds. As you imply, some things are "satire, parody, and character-driven lyrics".
It's not a new problem, it's just that when we were young our idiot peers couldn't advertise their stupidity to the world. Unfortunately, some of them still haven't learned: look at the steady stream of right wingers shocked to discover that Rage Against the Machine are hard left. 🤦♂
@@todd6851Usually being bullied makes one tougher & willing to stand up for oneself It sure did for My Brother's & myself Going to public schools back in the early 70's was very tough These kid's now days wouldn't begin to know how to remotely survive which is a shame!! It definitely taught me how to defend myself verbally & physically I'm proud of that aspect
"Timothy" by the Buoys was a strange one about cannibalism in a collapsed mine with 3 trapped starving miners. only 2 made it out but their stomachs were full. "God what did we do?"
I was surprised this one wasn't in his countdown. It competes with DOA by Bloodrock for most creepy song of 1971. When it hit the top 40, Casey Kasem warned viewers in advance a song about cannibalism was coming up in the next 10 minutes. Then he addressed what the song was about in a somber voice and made it clear the song was a fictional story. Then he talked about a real story - the Donner Party. I think it was done in part to prepare viewers but also to ensure they did not shut off their radios. Professor, I think you did an interview with Rupert Holmes (Mr. Pina Colada song man) about his writing of this song.
That was a true story but turns out the one named Timothy was a minors donkey. Sorry if I ruined the song but it helped me to know they didn’t eat their friend well other than the friendly donkey I guess
My sis and I sang this and even added our lyrics. I'm a total music elitist but darn, we loved to blast it on the way to high school and still sing it to each other today
I was able to see Frankie Goes To Hollywood live on their German tour in 1984. For a naïve 19-year-old straight boy, the show and the audience were ... eye-opening and mind-expanding. I will never forget that experience. I still love the Welcome To The Pleasuredome album.
A genius album we still boom ourselves out to now at age 55. Even as a teen we all knew what the lyrics were about. Can’t remember if they ever toured Australia,probs would have been allowed to go .
Age restrictions are fine. Censoring adults from anything, especially art, is just a path straight to hell. Adults need to discuss all these uncomfortable topics. So kids don't have to live in the aftermath of a society that justified bad behavior with it's silence.
@@MrJayehawk That's the tricky part. No one can nail down exactly what obscenity is because what you find to be deeply offensive might be nothing to be concerned about to someone else. I'd go by the majority of people in a society. If the majority of people find it offensive and obscene, then it is.
@@badopcode surely age restrictions are nowt but a shortcut to kids reading, watching and hearing what adults think they shouldn't.. I remember reading Henry Miller at an age when you pick books because of their cover - I thought it was mostly revolting of course, so where was the harm? People worry too much
My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry. He covered it in 1972 & it hit #1 in a few countries. The song is actually about a toy received by the singer as a child consisting of silver bells hanging on a string that he gets from his grandmother, who calls them his "ding-a-ling". After the first verse is sung its easy to substitute the "toy" for something else & because of the innuendo a lot radio stations refused to play it.
Chuck was a freakin genius if you imagine something gross with the Ding a Ling, it's not the fault of the song it's actualy telling more about the listeners dirty mind, than the song was supposed to be, it's a verry funny song, not as good as Johnny Be Good but he made so much fun with that kind of humour .😂
You're only a couple of years younger than I am, but that couple of years made the difference between me hearing DOA on the radio when I was barely old enough to handle it, and you being too young to hear it before it was banned from the radio. I was about 10 years old. I was shocked, saddened, and horrified by what I heard, and it stuck with me for many years. To be honest, DOA shocked me into being a safe driver, horrified by the thought that I could get behind the wheel of an automobile while under the influence of an intoxicant and stupidly end up losing my life. Mine not the only life that was probably saved by a scary, morbid song. If it can save lives, it is a great song. A few years later, Aerosmith quoted an iconic sound from DOA in Dream On. It had a different impact by being in a different context, so Dream On is a great song in a different way.
I'd forgotten that one. I was 14 (and a "Jesus Freak") when it came out. I LOVED IT!!!!! I loved how dark and tragic it was. Now I have to go re-listen to it.
Adam, if what you're describing from the clues Mark Knopfler left of the conversation he was transcribing, and this took place in 1982 or 1983, the band that immediately jumped out to me is Thompson Twins. The trio was just beginning to make its mark commercially at the time in the UK with music videos in play to "In The Name Of Love," "Lies," "Love On Your Side," and "Hold Me Now." All 3 bandmembers, from lead singer Tom Bailey with his long tailwhip hairstyle to keyboardist, bongos & congas player/backing vocalist Joe Leeway with his tailored dreads, to percussionist, keyboardist, drum player/backing vocalist Allannah Currie with her wild asymetric hairstyle, flowing layered attire and iconic extra long brimmed hats, very much fit the subject of conversation taking place that day. Thompson Twins were energetic and highly theatrical with music videos that brought lyrics to life. And drums, including bongos and congas, were a present feature of the band's sound.
A funny thing about the Thompson twins I heard someone say and I’ve always found it funny (and true): there were three of them. And NONE of them were named Thompson! 😂
If you are offended by everything, then you are too sensitive. But if nothing ever offends you - then you either have no principles or you lack the guts to stand up for your beliefs.
@zzanatos2001 correct. The word offended isn't in my vocabulary, unless I'm being sarcastic. When I disagree with what is being said ( that is why people say they are offended) I simply say I disagree. I'm not offended, I simply don't agree with the point of view being made by someone's opinion, and that is OK. Sometimes I'll explain, sometimes I don't.
Comedian Ricky Gervais said exactly this on the View. THIS is self preservation but, there is also decency and we can't have certain things said/ played publicly. There is a place for everything but, we don't want soft core at McDonald's.
There are certain lyrics that shouldn't be out there. It's practically a true crime to put those out there. Example: a man saying " I will choke you, but I won't kill you. ( Totally Evil and inhumane).
"I'll give you television, I'll give you eyes of blue" is one of the greatest, and most misunderstood, lyrics of all time. RIP David Bowie. You are an icon.❤
@@jrosner6123 yes, I know. I'm probably older than most of the people here. My Mom and Dad won a Halloween Costume contest and the prize was David Bowie's Space Oddity. How cool is that??? They played it for all us kids, and we loved it. Bowie has a special place in our hearts. I feel like people are getting nasty for no reason. It's my opinion. I said what I said. Why y'all gotta be so freaking MEAN, DAMN. Have a good night, cuz I'm not a judgemental cu%t that comes for everyone for an OPINION☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️
I’m 71 so Pearl Jam wasn’t in my wheelhouse but on my son’s playlist. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody comes to mind when talking about lyrics that were controversial (“momma, just killed a man.....”), and it didn’t help that it was one of the longest tracks up until then; DJs didn’t want to give it that much airtime.
When i was a teenager, our local radio station edited part of Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night. They played it, it just went silent for a couple of seconds. I had forgotten about some of the ones you played. I hate censorship. Love your channel!
Bowie was married to Somali American Iman. He was definitely not racist. I swear some people wake up every morning thinking “Now what can I find something to be offended by today?”.
What virtue-signaling bandwagon might I jump on today , as I don’t read , can’t think my way out of a wet paper bag and my vocabulary is limited to all the terms I had to Google from my Women’s Studies class. Which I still am not entirely certain the meanings of , but am really good at repeating at the top of my lungs when I’m hoping to get laid as soon as the Pride March wraps up … Hey Hey , Ho Ho …
LMAO growing up as a little kid in the eighties I had long golden brown hair, so I would actually ask my mum to play the record of Golden Brown by the Stranglers and I called it 'my song' ...UntiI I got old enough to learn, inform, and so discover my mum had known all along it was a veiled song about heroin.😆
There was Laurie by Dickey Lee. I remember it because my name is Lori. I was 5 at the time. It was about a guy who meets a girl and walks her home. Afterward, he realized that she still had his sweater because she had gotten cold on the walk. He goes back to the house and the man tells him how cruel he is because that was his daughter and she had been dead for a year. He went to find her stone in the cemetery, and there was his sweater on the grave.
I’ve never heard that song, but I remember a ghost story from when I was younger that went something like that. It was titled Lavender, the daughter’s name.
As far as money for nothing goes, I’m reminded of what my father used to say, “The world doesn’t come with padded corners.” I think that sums up why covering up how people express themselves does more damage than good.
@@rickfromthecape3135 Nah. Defending ignorance is never right. Convenient though, for certain types. Because there are people who choose to conduct themselves poorly doesn't mean that you facilitate them or excuse it.
@@stvp68 That's true. It's one thing to just go around spewing out any random comment or gesture. But it's another, to prioritize what you want to say, without backing down.
3 chords and the truth! I just watched a video by comedian Jimmy Carr talking about being cancelled for one (of many) of his jokes. He said he fantasized about sarcastically apologizing, and when they came back to him saying it wasnt a sincere apology, his response would be "Oh, do you mean it's possible for me to say something and not mean it?!?!" Perfect.
Maybe it's in the other list, but I was expecting "Darling Nikki" by Prince. I tried to vote for it on a radio call in show. The DJ said, "You can vote for it, but I can't play it."
I am a Gen-X female and to this day, "Jeremy" gives me goose bumps. I'm too old to have went to school during a time when you had to worry about weapons and this kind of thing, but the song was great when it came out. It was later that the emotional response attached.
@@davidsmith4363 The Thin White Duke was a musical persona, just like Ziggy Stardust was. And the Playboy quote is out of context without reading the whole interview. “I’m closer to the Golden Dawn / Immersed in Crowley’s uniform / Of imagery /I’m living in a silent film / Portraying Himmler’s sacred realm / Of dream reality.” They were just lyrics to paint a picture. Bowie was a great humanitarian as well as an multifaceted artist.
@@harriotteworthington3147 Bowie knew it was wrong and claimed his behavior during that time was because he was abusing hard drugs. Taking Drugs and drinking does not turn someone into a fascist it only allows the to say outloud what they are already thinking
@ Thank you for the psychoanalysis. I was blind. I guess Mother wasn’t lying when she said she wished to God that I had never been conceived after having a rough night. All this time, I thought it was just the alcohol talking. Boy am I stupid for forgiving her and celebrating her sobriety!
Some of the comments here remind me of the old joke: “I had to break up with him, he knew too many dirty songs” “Oh, did he sing them to you?” “No, he hummed them”
5. "Jerkin' back & forth" by Devo 4. "By the dashboard light" by Meatloaf 3. "Like a Virgin" by Madonna 2. "Lola" by the Kinks 1. "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
"Dirty Deeds" - AC/DC "Sympathy for the Devil" - Rolling Stones "The Prowler" - Iron Maiden "Short People" - Randy Newman "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go" - Curtis Mayfield
My attention was elsewhere during the 80s, but sometime in the early 2000s, by accident, I found a radio station that played a lot of songs from that era. One of those songs was "Jeremy." I knew nothing about its history, and fell in love with it because of the music and the voice. It took awhile to understand the words, as I only listened to that station while driving to and from work, but when I did, they only made the song more fascinating. I don't remember ever hearing any of the other songs, and only learned anything about David Bowie from the movie "Labyrinth." I don't think I ever heard of the other three bands on your list. But "Jeremy" remains one of my favorite rock songs. Thank you, 95 WIIL rock!
That's why we can change channels or use the on/off switch. 😉💖 When did common sense, reason, and to each his own get Leonidas kicked down the well/cistern?
My mother used to love a christian song called "Footprints in the Sand" (or maybe it was "One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus"...I can't recall) by Christy someone, or someone Christy. The first time we heard it on the radio in the car she did something she'd never done in my lifetime. She went out almost immediately and picked up the 45. I got physically ill whenever she played it. I'd have turned it off if I could have gotten away with it.
As always, good job! China Girl has always been one of my favs. Want to find the other version now. Man you reached way back in my cortex for DOA. I was 5 when this came out. Hard to imagine either of the 2 AM radio stations we listened to would play it but I guess they did. Thanks for the explanation of its context. Relax just captures you with its driving bass beat.
I don't know what is crazier: the fact that these songs and their creativity were banned/edited; or that YT will ban you also if you say what the songs represent. Haven't we progressed as a society yet?
Any song about an airplane crash has to be a little disturbing. Something like this happened in the 1950s, when there was a run of songs about dying in a car crash. ("Dead Man's Curve", "Last Kiss", etc.)
The right tried to control and ban stuff via groups like the PMRC. The 80's and 90's were wild. Feelings over facts puritan version. Now the extreme left has spent the last 10 years banning and controlling anything they found offensive even if it is not. The feelings over fact mentality but from the left and not the right. Same thing but different people.
DOA traumatized me. I was 8 when it started to be played on the radio. For awhile there was no avoiding it. It was all over. I just looked it up for the first time after 50 years recently. It brought back the horror and I turned it off after listening to it once.
Thanks for the back story of D.O.A. Always had trouble connecting all the lyrics into something cohesive. Makes more sense now. I remember they used to play this on Dr. Demento show every Halloween.
I'm an older member of the LGBT community and I never understood the controversy over the Money For Nothing lyrics. Yes, the word is a slur, but I understood the context in which it was written. I didn't know anyone who was offended by it. As for other controversial songs... "Good Girls Don't" by The Knack had the line "Till she's sitting on my face" which was pretty suggestive in the late 70's.
I'm also an older member of the LGBTQ community I can remember how horrified I was hearing money for nothing being played on the radio for the first time. Every time that song came on MTV or on the radio and I heard those lyrics it stung.
The bulding neighbor called the police to report a naked man in the building across the street. When the police arrived she pointed out the window and the policeman said, “lady, you can’t see anything from this angle!” She replied, “Stand on the bed, stand on the bed!”
That offends me! LOL Offence scouting is something the Left loves to do. They love to scour books, songs, Internet posts, etc. for something to be offended by. If they can't find anything, they invent things to be offended by. They do it because what good is a social justice warrior if there is no social justice war?
About D.O.A., I was one of the people who thought it was about a car wreck brought about by a driver under the influence. I heard it when I was much too young and impressionable for such stuff...but it made me remember to drive safely, which became my lifelong habit. This song very likely saved my life. Today, listening to the clips of DOA you play in this video, I'm struck by how good the group vocals are. They sound almost like Three Dog Night if Three Dog Night had a horrifying story to tell.
"Money For Nothing" resonated with me because of its authenticity. I personally have known people with the same points of view who are loud and proud about how they feel. Haven't we all met those types? Good on Mark Knopfler! He was ahead of his time.
Same here, and the guitar was so tight- people listened because they had not heard a melody so original in a while- when Money came out, music had been stagnating and Knofler made us sit up and listen!
@@mccritical Like "Short people" and "You can leave your hat on." He is definitely an interesting man. Ha ha ha with some really good observations of the world around him.
@@robertkartechner5850 there was an early episode of Ally McBeal where ‘Short People’ is seriously debated because Fish wanted it played at the funeral of a relative. Fish wins, and a gospel choir performs the song. In the same episode, a transgender sex worker is treated utterly inhumanely… and by the end of the episode is (unfortunately typically) k.o.’d, in line with late 90’s standards
I think Money for Nothing was written about two guys ragging on Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police. Sting can be seen wearing earrings in both ears right from the start, and there are "bongos" (octobans) and "Hawaiian noises" (steel drums) in the video. This would also explain Sting singing "I want my MTV" to the tune of Don't Stand So Close To Me; hinting at the identity of "yo-yos."
Brother. I love your style of content. I just wish you could play more of the songs. But it hits all the nostalgia. And i could fully see you hosting this on mtv.
I was in a terrible car wreck when I was thirteen that put me in the hospital for three months. I would listen to the radio and one time DOA came on. Needless to say it greatly impacted me. It was put in rotation and I listened to it regularly. An interesting side note, as I was watching your segment on DOA an advertisement came on about learning how to pilot a plane😮
@@kellydalstok8900 it is. If I remember what I read once correctly, "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" was a newspaper headline when it was announced he was going to be doing movies.
I recognize Bloodrock's "D.O.A." as a song I heard A SINGLE TIME on a popular Cincinnati radio station and never heard again till this video. The fact that I remember it from a single hearing 50 years ago indicates the dent it left in my psyche.
I vividly remember D.O.A., My sister and I sang it all the time. a Song that disturbed many more people was the Song "Timothy" about two guys and a Mule in a mine cave in
Bloodrock's DOA absolutely freaked me out as a kid, but fascinated me as well. Just gave me chills. It was so eerie and descriptive and disturbing. In the early 80s, I was writing a paper for a college music class about teenage death songs (Last Kiss, Tell Laura I Love Her, etc), and wanted to use that song, but couldn't find a copy anywhere.
Back when i was in 5th grade i had music class. Our teacher encouraged us to bring in music we liked so a fella in my class brought in his '45 of Squeeze Box by The Who. Our 11 year old litttle selves giggled at the lyrics and our teacher quickly stopped the song with a scowl. I shared that memory with my friend & he said "sounds like something I'd do" 🤭✌️🤘
My 7th grade teachers brother was a roadie for The Police. Our school was poor. We didn’t have AC and pizza day was hamburger buns turned over with a spoonful of tomato sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. She was dead set on getting a music program going though and she did. We ended up with Playschool instruments. You know, plastic and cheap. She had us entered into competitions with other schools. Schools with real instruments of wood and brass. It was embarrassing.
Considering the time frame and description of the individual, I'd say that Boy George would be a prime candidate for the Money for Nothing reference, considering also that their Culture Club vids when like a rash on MTV then.
I still have my 45 of "Timothy". I was the only girl my age that loved that song. Timothy may have been a mule that was brought down into the mine. But I believed otherwise when I was a kid.
Couple of controversial ones quickly come to mind. Jefferson Airplane-White Rabbit, Steppenwolf-The Pusher (unsure about airplay), Curtis Mayfield-Pusher Man, Eric Clapton-Cocaine, Eagles-Hotel California-Life In The Fast Lane. Many more but those were the ones that came quickly. Ya, I'm in my late 60's. 😂 Let The Midnight Special Shine On Me.
I understand the thought of blasphemy, but they weren't really listening to the words. When put in context, he's asking God to damn the pusherman. The last verse makes it clear he wants the pusher dead. "Well, now if I were the president of this land You know, I'd declare total war on the pusher man I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run Yes, I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun" Chorus follows.
People didn't reallly listen to the lyrics. Basically only heard the chorus. In the last verse puts it into context. "Well, now if I were the president of this land You know, I'd declare total war on the pusher man I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run Yes, I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun" Chorus. He's asking God to damn the pusherman.
@stvp68 truthfully, I don't consider that music. 😂 However, look at those "cancelled" lyrics of yesteryear, and now it's apparently acceptable to refer to shooting people, calling women "b"s and "h"s, and everything in between. Thank God for the 80's! (And every time I think of that, I remember my grandmother in the 80's saying, "You call *that* music?😂)
I grew up listening to Bloodrock 2 D.O.A. on an 8 Track player in our Plymouth Roadrunner! When those sirens would go off it seriously sounded like a real ambulance was right behind us! 🎶😁
As a 70's child the 80's shaped my music. NZ is such a cool place to live for music. None were "controversial".....It was JUST music! You liked it, you tolerated it or you hated it.....Each to their own and we get that
Bloodrock was an incredible band. I was 5 when my mom pulled the car over thinking sirens were on her tail. She was so pissed when she realized it was the song! One of my earliest favorite memories!
There were a couple of morning radio stations that would play a siren sound during part of their bits in the 80s (maybe even 90s). It always fooled me and shook me up.
Dire Straits singer was referring to Wham. "Wake me up before you go go" it became a hit in 1984. George is wearing earrings in both ears and prancing in short shorts with yellow gloves on stage and in the video there is a drummer banging on drums.
Good call. I commented that I thought it was Boy George (I was thinking of the makeup), but I think the Wham guys are more likely. I noticed someone else suggested Thompson Twins. My memory from back then was that Wham was everywhere and the Thompson Twins were far more under the radar -- and not as likely to have "their own jet airplane".
DOA!!! I definitely remember this song. I was in Ft Worth TX at the time and had no knowledge of the actuality of this song but my friends and I listened to it even tho there was a dark feeling about it ,it just felt ..right.. somehow.Little did we know. Until now, thank you for enlightening us. We were such stupids back in these days, aren't we?
"Jeremy" is such a tragic song. The video, even with its edits, was brilliant. Seeing Jeremy's classmates all frozen in horror, I didn't have to see the boy's action to know that something horrible happened. It's truly sad that Trevor Wilson (the actor who played Jeremy) drowned while vacationing in Puerto Rico. 🥺
Agreed. Jeremy came out while I was in high school in CA. A few years later I was attending Oregon State, not too far from where Kip Kinkel killed his parents and then went to school, and not long before Columbine. I always thought the song was a sort of premonition of school shootings in later years. I did not know the true influence of the song until now. So horribly sad.
As a 90s teen myself, the video was on heavy rotation on MTV during that time and it was haunting because of the realization of how some teens can be truly troubled and need help.
Yet, these 5 were played!!?? 1. Spread your wings and let me come inside - “Tonight’s The Night” Rod Stewart. 2. Watch your honey drip, I can't keep away “Black Dog” Led Zep. 3. Went down on you/ pluck your body like a string/when I start dancing inside you “Miracles” Jefferson Starship. 4. Running down the length of my thighs, Sharona/I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind “My Sharona” The Knack. 5. Who the f are you - “Who Are You” The Who.
The thing about honey dripping comes all the way back to old blues songs. There’s nothing new about that. In fact, I think didn’t Robert Plant front a band called The Honeydrippers in the early 80s.
The song Jeremy brings tears, such a profound and disturbing song and heart-wrenching music, beautiful, ice cold, and soulful like the tears of a ghost.
I find myself more offended by ppl who get offended by songs. Those offended seem to have forgotten about satire and the phrase " Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me"
...and the sad truth about that is, usually those Offended are the ones struggling internally/emotionally to make sense of it...but their unstable reality wont allow them to, so as in HP3: offending a hypocrite may just be the last thing you do with your life!
@@adamx6000, dire straits never said they weren’t homophobic. With their use of that slur being their only word on the subject, assuming dire straits is homophobic is the only logical conclusion.
I forgot there were any "controversial" lyrics in Money for Nothin' because I always sing the Weird Al version in my head. I was like, "Since when is cement pond considered a hateful phrase?". :P
😂😂😂. Nice!❤ I usually roll my eyes, tell whoever is whingeing to get over themselves, and just don't listen to the song they're crying like a bish about. You know, like we used to do when we knew how to change the station on the radio. 😅😉👍
Mark Knopfler came in and played the guitar track on that parody, in addition to Jim West (Al's guitarist). The consensus was that Jim did a better version. BTW, cement is a reference to the Mafia, which is an Italian stereotype. So there's your controversy. 8-)
@@badkitty4922 Or, as George Carlin said, "A Reverend Donald Wildmon in Mississippi heard something on the radio that he didn’t like. [...] But hey, reverend, there are two knobs on the radio! One of them turns the radio OFF, and the other one CHANGES THE STATION! Imagine that, reverend, you can actually change the station!"
@@christopherheckman7957 😂😂😂👏👏👏 I LOVED George Carlin! He was the best! One of my favorites I've only seen as a clip, and it's an old stand up routine. He was at the airport waiting to board the plane for his flight, and the stewardess kept saying "Ok,everyone get on the plane. Get on the plane." Carlin's reply was fck you, I'm getting IN the plane. It STILL cracks me up, among so many other of his bits or full routines/shows/albums. 😂😂😂 R.I P. George, you're sorely missed. 😢💖
Speaking of sirens from DOA prompting people to pull over, in Denver there was a morning show on KRFX "The Fox". They would from time to time broadcast a cats meow in such a way that that it went to the rear speakers and sounded like there was a cat in the backseat, prompting more than 1 person to pull over and look for it.
Good episode but I think you need one more "taboo" song. "Timothy" by the Bouys. That song was a hit until it was learned what it was actually about. AS a 2nd grader named Tim, I was singing it all the time because my name was in the song. It was not until 35 years later that I found out what that song was about. I was actually stunned and somewhat nauseated by the fact I was a little kid, glorying in my name being in a song while the song was so morbid. But, it is an interesting story and I hope you dig into it.
My brothers name was Timothy. We tortured him with that song. 😂😂 I was still pretty young when I knew what it was about. Likely because one of my older siblings told me.
I remember it came on the radio about the time I was arriving at my home town for a weekend visit. I guess I had never listened to the lyrics that much. As the song ended, the DJ said “they joined the Timothy for lunch bunch”. After that, I changed the station every time the song came on.
4:45 The real question is, why do we allow these keyboard cowards dictate as to what we are allowed to enjoy in life…? Hopefully the tide is turning back to common sense and reason.
Are you kidding? Here in NJ, our legislature just passed a bill aimed at protecting librarians who put books on the shelves that others are trying to ban. The law bars civil or criminal sanctions against the librarians. Our governor signed it into law. This era is even worse than 1985, when Tipper Gore started the anti-First Amendment organization called "The Parents Music Resource Center." That movement is how we got the "explicit warning" labels on albums. 😡
I remember back in the early 70s, the song Timothy by the Bouys ( written by Rupert Holmes) being pretty disturbing. It was about cannibalism. FM radio was still relatively new, and many AM stations in Pittsburgh banned the song, but you could hear it on FM stations. This drove a lot of people to the FM rock stations and helped their success. Whether true or not, the perception was the AM radio was censored and FM was largely uncencored. Another song to fit this theme was Jr. Walker and the All Stars' Shotgun. Many AM stations in Pittsburgh refused to play it, but it could be heard on most FM stations. The song was eventually banned on FM stations, after a highschool student was killed with a sawed off shotgun in a case of mistaken identity in drive by shooting. To keep flames of insult burning people were calling dedication lines and dedicating the song to the original target. When radio stations figured out what was going on, they banned the song.
When that song was released I was 17 and only five feet tall. My boyfriend was six foot two and used to sing this song in my face every time it played.@@CiscoWes
I'm old and still 5 feet tall. I always liked this song. Lol. I now jokingly sing it to my taller pre-teen grandson, making fun of myself.....bc what's wrong with being 5 ft tall? Nothing.
Randy Newman wrote most of his lyrics in character. Songs like "Mama Told Me Not To Come" and "Short People" are POV songs. The Professor needs to find a way to insert a brief discussion of Newman's "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band" into one of his videos. It's a tale about a group of local Birmingham schoolboys who "buy a drum and guitar" and form a rock band. Spoiler alert: that band is Electric Light Orchestra. Prof loves some Jeff Lynne. Also, Lynne loved the song and knew the lyrics by heart, which he recited back to Newman when he produced "Falling in Love" on Newman's "Land of Dreams." I can't think of any finer tribute to Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, Bobby Joe (big violin), Johnny (little violin), and the other members of ELO than "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band" I love that ELO.
"My Sharona" - "Ooh, my little pretty one, pretty one" "I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind" - song about a mid-20s guy and an underage teen girl.
Every time I watch your shows I get so excited I have to stop and listen to the song/s you are featuring. You bring the songs “back to the day”! *Hey RE: Frankie goes to Hollywood-remember the USA v. Russia video? .
God bless you for wearing an Alice in Chains Jar of Flies shirt. I started bawling when I saw it. It kills me that I was never able to see Layne Staley live. He is my favorite singer of all time. I saw Michael Jackson in 87, Taylor Swift on her Reputation tour, Van Halen on their 1984 Tour, Metallica's Wherever We May Roam Tour, Lalapoliza tour, Ozzfest, Celtic Woman and Black Violin concerts. Plus, hundreds more. I would trade all of these plus my very life to see Layne front Alice in Chains.
When I was in middle school, our art teacher played the DOA song for us. She said it was one of her favourite songs from her past. I never heard the song, have not heard it since before today. Thanks for the memories. I do remember hearing the story behind the writing of "Money for Nothing."
I remember a friend of mine thinking John Cougar Mellencamp covered China Girl. And I asked him, “Can you imagine Mellencamp singing, ‘visions of swastakas in my head..’” We both got a good laugh out of that.
My sister was a teacher at that Moses Lake School and the kid was originally part of her class. The principal who was a friend, sacrificed himself as a shield to save those kids and the teacher. It was really devastating for her since she got her citizenship and the principal and school threw her a massive congratulations assembly party. The event presents a very dark time in this state and for her! 😢
There are certain songs that have never made it to the airwaves, and for good reason. One particular song was by the 90's alternative band Korn. The song was called "Daddy", and it is most definitely not an easy listen. In fact, it is very disturbing. The song was on their first album "Korn". It is about Jonathan Davis, and the abuse enacted on him by a friend of the family, the fact that he tried to tell his parents about it... And the fact that his parents either didn't believe him, or just didn't care.
The old boiler by The Specials is a song that I actually find hard to listen to, if you have not heard it it is about a girl who gets attacked & rapped and the end of the song is just her screams, they are haunting and last so long.
There's only ever been one song that I couldn't listen to again after hearing it once: "Dance With The Devil" by Immortal Technique. I respect it for being a poignant piece of art and the reality of the streets as a horror piece but, man, it's a hard listen that I never need to hear again. Like, I've heard grindcore songs that are trying to be disturbing and horrible and I just find them sonically boring and the lyrics a little too "scare mommy and daddy" tryhard, but it's the rap song, "Dance With The Devil," that haunts me.
In this countdown "Jeremy" had the most impact on me. The woman/girl I was dating when it came out had a son named Jeremy who's father had been killed in a car accident before Jeremy was born. He had many social problems at a young age. It got worse when he found out his mother and I had another son on the way. I was only 23 when this was happening. Not only was I becoming a father for my own son I took on the challenge of being Jeremy's dad. I treated him as my own but he didn't want to have me for his dad. His mother and I separated shortly after that. Long story short, he got into trouble as an adult and his little brother (my son) tried to help him through. Jeremy ended up in prison. I guess that's better than the alternatives. So every time I hear this song I think about my Jeremy story.
You forgot to mention that "Relax" by Frankie Goes Hollywood was a key element in the move "Body Double" starring Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson in 1984! It was the first time many of us in the U.S. heard it and the visuals in the particular scene in which it was used was not soon forgotten.
The ones who were “offended” are part of a cult where they try to outdo each other on what obscure things they can be offended by. I tell my son that our lives are so easy now that people have to invent things to be offended about. I’m so glad that era is coming to an end.
18:40 This wasn't the first time a record ran into trouble due to the use of sirens in the mix. About 6 months earlier, "Indiana Wants Me", by R. Dean Taylor, opened with a siren blaring alone, a second or two before the music started. When radio stations complained that the siren was confusing drivers, an alternate version of the single, one with a much-diminished siren, was sent out to radio stations. I remember waking up to the original version blaring from the clock-radio and thinking that the house was on fire.
I can't find any comments on NIN's Closer. Talk about controversial! Both the song and the video. Great video, Professor of Rock and I love that your radio show gets picked up here in Chicago!
@frankgonzalez222 omg, I love Closer! It's one of my favorite NIN songs. The radio never played the F bomb, but I never remember any controversy around the song. There was a LOT going on with alternative music coming out and shaking things up and I was digging it all.
True Story...Closer was my friend's first dance song at their wedding. You see, he had asked his now wife to dance while Closer was playing in a night club when they met for the first time. The look on the grandparents and aunts faces was priceless.
18:06 An English band called Throbbing Gristle released a song in 1978 called "Hamburger Lady". It was far more shocking. I won't relate the details, but look it up. However, this was never released as a single. Interestingly, on the same Throbbing Gristle album there is a song entitled "DoA". It's not a cover though.
I vividly remember the creepy feeling I had the first time I heard Hamburger Lady. I was listening to a mixtape a friend had made for me while I was in hospital with my Walkman's headphones 😅
I first heard "D.O.A." in the spring of 1971 in our chemistry class. A fellow classmate had just been killed walking across a street not far from our school. As the song played while we were conducting our typical individual qualitative analysis experiments, it became deathly quiet and all had stopped doing whatever. I still remember that class to this day and hearing this song. To say the least, it was highly impactful. I looked for the song at local record outlets and could never find it.
I don't remember if it was on the radio or on an LP. I never heard the song again. I remember getting myself to remember the group's name and then looking for it.
Took me several years to find the album in the early 1980s. Was only 7 years old when I first heard it...having a big fascination with air travel in general and all of the disaster movies...it was just great timing. Never thought it was controversial...but I guess it kind of was and still is. Thanks for bringing this one back up! FYI: Loverboy did a song with the same title...but it was an anti-suicide song. Queen also had an anti-suicide song...flip side of their Another One Bites the Dust single...kind of strange when you think about those two on the same 45.
I say the DOA is either pleasingly morbid or morbidly pleasing. It's one that I have to play numerous times when it comes up randomly on the thumb drive in my vehicles. Relax is just a catchy tune, regardless of the inspiration.
I had to order a cassette through a record store just to get DOA. The tape was called "Heavy Metal Memories". These days, even that album is hard to find.
I'd be curious to see a list of the top 5 creepiest/scariest songs. As a kid, my #1 would be the anthology version of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite". The deranged circus music and the this Mr. Kite character scared the crap out of me. And Heresy by NIN was both disturbing and scary as a little kid as well.
I think the mystery video the guys in the appliance store were talking about was Adam Ant Stand and Deliver. Earring, make up, and released in 81. There were no bongos but dudes playing the marching drums. I feel like a very controversal one was Oingo Boingo's Little Girls.
22:17 Not certain of the video per say, but I always believed he was referencing Boy George and Culture Club…. I could be wrong. I would be curious as to what other bands fit that profile from the mid-80s.
What's funny about Relax is that when my sister was 8, she was in a Jazz dance class, with all ages. They were performing their version of Sleeping Beauty, and when Maleficent came out, "Relax" was her theme song! That dancer was 20-something, and was dressed in a black unitard with some wings attached. At the time i just thought it sounded awesome - the only high point in watching people dance as an 11yo boy, bored to tears, forced to be there by my parents to support my sister.
Poll: What is your pick for the greatest singalong song of the rock era...One you can't resist?
Black Water. Doobies
Oh lets do a few We Are the Champions, The Saga Begins, Sweet Dreams, Surfing USA and Beat It.
"I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)" The Proclaimers
Black Dog, Led Zeppelin
Rock and Roll All Nite - Kiss
Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
Don't Stop Believing - Journey
Here I Go Again - Whitesnake
David Bowie was far from being a raaaaaaaaacist. Those that know David Bowie also know who is beloved wife is. RIP Forever Bowie!
And the fantastic interview with MTV in the '80's...
Ofcourse it should be noted he wasnt a racist racist but there is a romanticized racism which exists. Its more of a micro aggression.
Well, he did said and did some things in his cocaine year (thin white duke years) but while he never apologized formally, his actions later showed that it was not really who he grew to be.
@@corrinagoldblatt6956microaggressions are racist and sexist and discriminating. Only certain people are allowed to call out microaggressions, which 999/1000 times are just those people looking for something to be mad at.
Nobody can control themselves to the point of never, ever saying something the other person can interpret as offensive, microaggressions are just an excuse for entitled people to yell and start a fight, the rest of the world just ignores it (because, did you ever think that calling out microaggressions is also a microaggression? It shuts down the other person, which might have those "offensive" microdetails out of cultural backgrounds and would like to talk about them and gain better understanding instead of a constant "shut up, you are racist because you mispronounced one word!")
Bottom line: microaggression calling is bullying, be an adult and talk things through instead of thinking you know so well you can read people from half a word.
@@corrinagoldblatt6956🙄
One of my favorite songs as a young child that I'm surprised didn't banned was the bizarre "They're Coming to Take Me Away," which included lyrics about being taken off to the "funny farm." It incorporated some reversed lyrics and a heartbeat like beat to it. Now there's a great song for you to do a deep dive on, Professor.
A classic Dr Demento song!
And the B side of the 45 was the same song entirely in reverse, which creeped the hell outta me when I first heard it.
@@PatriciaMiller-zg8hr I had forgotten about that. My best friend's older sister had the 45 and we used to listen to it.
It was banned in my area of Wilmington De
@@johns3106Yep 👍🏻
When the 'Jeremy' video came out. I thought that he turned his pain and anger on the class. But after someone told me the story and I re-watched it. I was able to see that the class was covered in spatter, not wounds.
I was a poor, overweight, bullied kid. This video hit me hard. I lived with a single mother and had not been around firearms. And I'm very thankful for that. Because if I had grown up in a different environment. That story could've easily been about me. I had often thought about ending things for myself and the people who hurt me. But luckily, I never got past the thought. Kids are mean. And I grew up before anti-social media made bullying easier and more widespread. I couldn't imagine growing up today. There's no privacy. Everyone is on display to be judged by everyone. It's horrible.
To anyone growing up right now struggling. Just realize that school doesn't last forever. Once you've survived high school. The world isn't that bad
Me too ❤
Wait a minute, he was fat? Why was that not portrayed? Because we wouldn't identify? Wow, bullied even in death...
@@garyfasso6223 The OP was relating his experience in that sentence, not Jeremy's. You can see a photo of the real Jeremy in this video. Where I live, kids aren't really into body shaming like kids were in the 90s and earlier. Saying something about someone's body weight isn't necessarily bullying, and if it's intended to be offensive, kids around here aren't very tolerant of it. It's about as offensive as saying someone's gay. It's more of a description than a judgement.
I never knew anything about the controversy over the song because I could not listen to Pearl Jam....he sounded like a wounded cow groaning its dying breath. It was monotone and whiny and irritating.
I did hear about it about it a few years ago though and saw the video online, looked up the sad and tragic story. I am fortunate none of my sons were bullied like that but I'd have committed straight up homicide myself if they ever had been. I'm a grown woman, coming in hot at 61 and I have never subscribed to the nonsense about "violence doesn't solve anything" (it stops a bully, permanently) and "you should never hit a woman" (nonsense, she doesn't get a free pass because she has boobs) and "you should never spank a child" (my 3 boys are solid, upstanding citizens who got spanked early on and knocked it off shortly after), and "you can't hit a child" (if the kid is bullying another kid, the bully's getting dealt with)......
People can be vile. Defend yourself. Even if you lose, you go down fighting back.
@@beenaplumber8379 got it, thanks.
Push It by Salt n Peppa was frowned upon when the high school cheerleaders did an award winning fabulous routine. The stadium went wild except for the principle.
I grimaced when a Catholic school all-girls dance team went on to win the State Championship for dancing to Madonna's "Like a Prayer." Those of us who listened to the lyrics before the video came out know what it's really about.
I also remember a junior high team dancing to "X's and O's" - I was like, I'd be calling every member of the school board if my daughter was dancing to that song. Why not "Candy man?" LOL!!!
I legit did not know what that song was about when I was about 11 years old. I made a mix tape of songs recorded off the radio and played it while on a road trip with my aunt, uncle, cousins and grandma. When that song came on, everyone in the van was HORRIFIED. My less-innocent cousins explained to me that song was about "doing it." That tape was popped out of the deck so fast. I'm surprised my uncle didn't chuck it out the window 😂. I was mortified.
Does anyone remember Donna Summer's "Love to Love You Baby"? I first heard it in a Harmon Kardon store at Roosevelt Field where my friend was working. He cranked it through some high-end speakers and drove almost everyone out of the store. Women were shrieking and men were blushing... And my friend lost his job... I bought that album immediately LOL!
I had a roommate at University that played as part of his workout music routine. That, U-2's In the Name of Love, and Lauper's She-bop. Embarrassing every time.
I would've been blushing but also bobbing my head to the beat. lol
Omg I used to shop at that store, I wish I'd been there that day! Garden City wasn't exactly sex positive back then; probably still isn't 🤣
My mom wouldn't let us listen to it as kids. It "was dirty." 😅
*remember s* LOL I remember every time it came on the radio I would turn down the volume on our console stereo. Mom was usually home.
I remember Relax being everywhere when I was a teenager. I would sing along, not understanding the lyrics. I remember thinking "When you wanna come? Come where? Like over to my house?"
Yeah me too. Same.
That was my wife.. 5 years ago. at nearly 40 it was on the radio and it finally clicked what it was about.
Americans in the mid 70s to the mid 80s just seemed to innocently ignore the meanings of songs that had homosexual references (which were often very obvious) as well as ignoring the level of ugly misogyny against women (which would never be allowed to be portrayed in movies and TV).
My sister, like me, is a child of the 80s. Because of her kids, she was active with the youth at her church. One time, they were working on a project in the youth center when an "offensive" song came on. I don't remember what song she said. But then she said one of the girls in the group decided that they needed to change the station because of the song.
Taking it upon herself, the girl started changing stations until she came across the 80s station. Relax was playing, and the girl said."Oh, this is much better".
My sister said she didn't have the heart to break it to her and let her live in her blissful innocence.
As a TEEN you didn't get that? I mean, it was impossible to derive ANY other meaning from the completely explicit lyrics for me. First heard it in the movie Body Double. That was REALLY explicit so that might be why my experience varied. Merry Christmas : ).
Bowie lived in a nebulous space between race, gender, and sexuality. He was a spaceman.
Ground control to major Tom...
He's the black star. He's the goblin king. He fell to earth. I'm still waiting for his return
@@franblaye9639 Ashes to ash and funk to funky, We know... 🤔😉
@@brendamckinley3036Only Christ Jesus is returning. He is the risen Lord!
He is in space
Cancel culture is the most idiotic thing I've ever heard. Don't like a movie? Music? Don't watch it or listen to it. That simple
Woke only live for 15 pronouns and I dont know what they are
Yeah I remember reading multiple books in high school that had been banned, and I couldn't understand why. They were only moderately interesting or "scandalous", nothin to write home about.
Exactly! 💯
Well said!!
@2bleushadow when I hear about the books that were banned, it just made me want to read them more!
I was about 13 when "Money for Nothing" came out, and I knew he was writing _in character_ and not as Mark Knopfler.
Yeah. I have to remind a lot of people that.
No you didnt.
It’s obvious to anyone not looking for the fight.
You were a very bright 13-year-old. Most kids your age would have made fun of the word "f@ggot" and turned it into "a thing".
Similar to Sultans of Swing.
Nothing offends me more than people who tell me what I should be offended about. They're basically saying I either have no critical thinking skills or am too dumb to understand when I'm being insulted.
Why are you offended and why do you care? Honest question coming from another question that is why people express so much anger and hate online and forget how they would act amongst family and friends.
Again why go you care about what idiots and agitators shout out loud online.
@@andrewhowie6646 Not only that but I think the original speaker was trying to reassure any bullied person that it will get better. I was raised in a poor household with many forms of abuse by one side of my family and threatened never to speak about it on pain of death. I too was overweight and was bullied all through my childhood and became anorexic and bulletin as a teenager. I had two failed marriages in my twenties through my fourties then stopped dating and focused on raising my children and my job. My exes didn’t think that working was a priority so my income supported us all. I remained single for twelve years and once my children were adults I began to date again. Luckily I had spent my single time doing a deep dive into what I really needed and wanted in a relationship with a man and eventually met a wonderful man with whom I developed a healthy relationship and we married twelve years ago. We’re both seniors but are the happiest that either of us have ever been. He also had a traumatic marriage.
People act like jerks offline as well, common human decency is dead.
@@RunnyBabbitMomPretty much.
2Tim. 3:1-4.
I think people take things entirely too seriously nowadays.
Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side, listen to the lyrics on that track. I first heard it at 17 years old 😂 great song!
Take a Walk on the Wild side was played on old AM stations that had no idea what the lyrics meant.
Anyone else remember the Kenny Everett’s hot gossip video of the song. Now that was controversial
I was in the local Walmart about a week ago, and they were playing Walk on the wild side over the muzak. I felt really really old. And a little bit taken aback that a song that racy was considered mainstream enough to play on muzak
I loved this song when it came out and I lived in an exceptionally restrictive home - basically imprisoned. Didn't hear it for years until I was driving to uni one day. I immediately remembered all of the words - but for the first time ever - I understood them! Mom and Dad obviously had paid no attention.😅
That was My First dance at my wedding ❤️
When I was a kid there was a song called "Run Joey Run" It was about a girl's father who caught her and her boyfriend together and the father was going to shoot him, but he accidentally shot his daughter instead.
The only line from the song I can remember is "Daddy please don't, it wasn't his fault, he means so much to me. Daddy please don't, we're gonna get married, just you wait and see". The chorus was "Run Joey run Joey run". Don't know if anyone else remembers it. I do remember it was a very disturbing song.
I remember this. The video was poorly made, and the singing wasn’t very good, but I remember it.
Yeah - by David Geddes, hit #4 in 1975... surprisingly not a one-hit wonder...
@KellyKsma yes, that's the one!
I remember all the lyrics.
Dude!! Hadn’t thought about that song in years.
As someone who was truly part of the Mtv generation - I was 10 when The Buggles launched the new chanel - I have to say that it is surprising just how much the newer generations have lost in terms of their ability to grasp abstracts like satire, parody, and character-driven lyrics. If I, as someone on the spectrum, can grasp that not everything should be taken as literal, then others should be able to do so.
What are they teaching in English/Literature classes these days that even blatant satire and commentary are going right over these young people's heads?
Are you a age snob? You think that you’re better than the generation that’s coming behind you? Sounds like you are and that is ageism.
Teaching gay and trans Marxist ideology is taught today.
Not literature, certainly 😢
I wonder if they (the new Gen and Woke) would be able to laugh at 'The Life of Brian' or ban it on some religious grounds. As you imply, some things are "satire, parody, and character-driven lyrics".
Exactly. Like they were raised in cotton batting.
It's not a new problem, it's just that when we were young our idiot peers couldn't advertise their stupidity to the world. Unfortunately, some of them still haven't learned: look at the steady stream of right wingers shocked to discover that Rage Against the Machine are hard left. 🤦♂
As a retired journalist, I'm against ANY censorship!!
Maybe you weren't bullied sufficiently.
@@todd6851Usually being bullied makes one tougher & willing to stand up for oneself It sure did for My Brother's & myself Going to public schools back in the early 70's was very tough These kid's now days wouldn't begin to know how to remotely survive which is a shame!! It definitely taught me how to defend myself verbally & physically I'm proud of that aspect
censorship sucks, but fake news sucks more
It still boggles my mind that "I touch myself" by Divinyls was ever played.
It didn't say where.
Me too. 😂😂
Love Myself
Song by Hailee Steinfeld (2015)!
Yeah I thought this was going to be one of the ones in this list.
Or Rough Trade's "High School Confidential"!
"Timothy" by the Buoys was a strange one about cannibalism in a collapsed mine with 3 trapped starving miners. only 2 made it out but their stomachs were full. "God what did we do?"
Remember that one too. Timothy, Timothy where on earth did you go.. 😊
My sister had that 45. Freaked 7 year old me smooth out.
I was surprised this one wasn't in his countdown. It competes with DOA by Bloodrock for most creepy song of 1971. When it hit the top 40, Casey Kasem warned viewers in advance a song about cannibalism was coming up in the next 10 minutes. Then he addressed what the song was about in a somber voice and made it clear the song was a fictional story. Then he talked about a real story - the Donner Party. I think it was done in part to prepare viewers but also to ensure they did not shut off their radios. Professor, I think you did an interview with Rupert Holmes (Mr. Pina Colada song man) about his writing of this song.
That was a true story but turns out the one named Timothy was a minors donkey. Sorry if I ruined the song but it helped me to know they didn’t eat their friend well other than the friendly donkey I guess
My sis and I sang this and even added our lyrics. I'm a total music elitist but darn, we loved to blast it on the way to high school and still sing it to each other today
I was able to see Frankie Goes To Hollywood live on their German tour in 1984. For a naïve 19-year-old straight boy, the show and the audience were ... eye-opening and mind-expanding. I will never forget that experience.
I still love the Welcome To The Pleasuredome album.
A genius album we still boom ourselves out to now at age 55. Even as a teen we all knew what the lyrics were about. Can’t remember if they ever toured Australia,probs would have been allowed to go .
Age restrictions are fine. Censoring adults from anything, especially art, is just a path straight to hell. Adults need to discuss all these uncomfortable topics. So kids don't have to live in the aftermath of a society that justified bad behavior with it's silence.
Without censors anything goes. Societies need to have standards. A line needs to be drawn, this far and no further.
@@donmiller2908 - Ok... but who decides where that line is?
@@MrJayehawk That's the tricky part. No one can nail down exactly what obscenity is because what you find to be deeply offensive might be nothing to be concerned about to someone else. I'd go by the majority of people in a society. If the majority of people find it offensive and obscene, then it is.
Also nowadays.. banning something obscene or censoring is essentially impossible.
@@badopcode surely age restrictions are nowt but a shortcut to kids reading, watching and hearing what adults think they shouldn't.. I remember reading Henry Miller at an age when you pick books because of their cover - I thought it was mostly revolting of course, so where was the harm? People worry too much
My Ding-a-Ling by Chuck Berry. He covered it in 1972 & it hit #1 in a few countries. The song is actually about a toy received by the singer as a child consisting of silver bells hanging on a string that he gets from his grandmother, who calls them his "ding-a-ling". After the first verse is sung its easy to substitute the "toy" for something else & because of the innuendo a lot radio stations refused to play it.
Chuck was a freakin genius if you imagine something gross with the Ding a Ling, it's not the fault of the song it's actualy telling more about the listeners dirty mind, than the song was supposed to be, it's a verry funny song, not as good as Johnny Be Good but he made so much fun with that kind of humour .😂
Sadly, his only #1 hit.
😂 nostalgia I had the recording as a child 🎉❤😂ahh mom, I miss her
He used a double entendre and no one can convince me he didn’t do it on purpose. lol
Allegedly
62 years old but I was today years old when I first heard of Bloodrock's D.O.A.
You're only a couple of years younger than I am, but that couple of years made the difference between me hearing DOA on the radio when I was barely old enough to handle it, and you being too young to hear it before it was banned from the radio. I was about 10 years old. I was shocked, saddened, and horrified by what I heard, and it stuck with me for many years. To be honest, DOA shocked me into being a safe driver, horrified by the thought that I could get behind the wheel of an automobile while under the influence of an intoxicant and stupidly end up losing my life.
Mine not the only life that was probably saved by a scary, morbid song. If it can save lives, it is a great song.
A few years later, Aerosmith quoted an iconic sound from DOA in Dream On. It had a different impact by being in a different context, so Dream On is a great song in a different way.
I'd forgotten that one. I was 14 (and a "Jesus Freak") when it came out. I LOVED IT!!!!! I loved how dark and tragic it was. Now I have to go re-listen to it.
I’m 63. Just heard of it today! 🤷♀️
Same!
Same
Adam, if what you're describing from the clues Mark Knopfler left of the conversation he was transcribing, and this took place in 1982 or 1983, the band that immediately jumped out to me is Thompson Twins. The trio was just beginning to make its mark commercially at the time in the UK with music videos in play to "In The Name Of Love," "Lies," "Love On Your Side," and "Hold Me Now." All 3 bandmembers, from lead singer Tom Bailey with his long tailwhip hairstyle to keyboardist, bongos & congas player/backing vocalist Joe Leeway with his tailored dreads, to percussionist, keyboardist, drum player/backing vocalist Allannah Currie with her wild asymetric hairstyle, flowing layered attire and iconic extra long brimmed hats, very much fit the subject of conversation taking place that day. Thompson Twins were energetic and highly theatrical with music videos that brought lyrics to life. And drums, including bongos and congas, were a present feature of the band's sound.
Great band.
I was thinking of Culture Club
@@tobykenobe So was I
@@tobykenobeme too. lol. But I also thought of the twins. :). Could be either
A funny thing about the Thompson twins I heard someone say and I’ve always found it funny (and true): there were three of them. And NONE of them were named Thompson! 😂
Be offended. Being offended doesn't make you right. It's on you. It's your feeling, your choice. Being offended means nothing.
If you are offended by everything, then you are too sensitive. But if nothing ever offends you - then you either have no principles or you lack the guts to stand up for your beliefs.
@zzanatos2001 correct. The word offended isn't in my vocabulary, unless I'm being sarcastic. When I disagree with what is being said ( that is why people say they are offended) I simply say I disagree. I'm not offended, I simply don't agree with the point of view being made by someone's opinion, and that is OK. Sometimes I'll explain, sometimes I don't.
Comedian Ricky Gervais said exactly this on the View.
THIS is self preservation but, there is also decency and we can't have certain things said/ played publicly. There is a place for everything but, we don't want soft core at McDonald's.
Cops point finger guns at you,
"Feelings enforcement! Let me see your hands and your butthole, NOW!"
There are certain lyrics that shouldn't be out there. It's practically a true crime to put those out there. Example:
a man saying " I will choke you, but I won't kill you. ( Totally Evil and inhumane).
"I'll give you television, I'll give you eyes of blue" is one of the greatest, and most misunderstood, lyrics of all time. RIP David Bowie. You are an icon.❤
Well explain it to me Tiffany! Never heard that story before!
I agree both of us wants to know, please do tell 😮
China Girl is garbage.
@@tiffanysullivan5454 it was co written by iggy pop, btw
@@jrosner6123 yes, I know. I'm probably older than most of the people here. My Mom and Dad won a Halloween Costume contest and the prize was David Bowie's Space Oddity. How cool is that??? They played it for all us kids, and we loved it. Bowie has a special place in our hearts. I feel like people are getting nasty for no reason. It's my opinion. I said what I said. Why y'all gotta be so freaking MEAN, DAMN. Have a good night, cuz I'm not a judgemental cu%t that comes for everyone for an OPINION☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️☝️
I’m 71 so Pearl Jam wasn’t in my wheelhouse but on my son’s playlist. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody comes to mind when talking about lyrics that were controversial (“momma, just killed a man.....”), and it didn’t help that it was one of the longest tracks up until then; DJs didn’t want to give it that much airtime.
When i was a teenager, our local radio station edited part of Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night. They played it, it just went silent for a couple of seconds. I had forgotten about some of the ones you played. I hate censorship. Love your channel!
This was our theme for our senior ball in 1977 😂
My mom wouldn’t let me listen to this song, think I was 8, so asked ask “why are you listening ?” 🤷♀️
@@jodinarrowpath9998i was uncomfortable when this song came on infront of my parents😖
Bowie was married to Somali American Iman. He was definitely not racist.
I swear some people wake up every morning thinking “Now what can I find something to be offended by today?”.
I agree ! It's getting fucking old
What virtue-signaling bandwagon might I jump on today , as I don’t read , can’t think my way out of a wet paper bag and my vocabulary is limited to all the terms I had to Google from my Women’s Studies class. Which I still am not entirely certain the meanings of , but am really good at repeating at the top of my lungs when I’m hoping to get laid as soon as the Pride March wraps up … Hey Hey , Ho Ho …
Yes, they do precisely that. It is also uncoincidentally a highly narcissistic trait...
I know right
@@barbarakauppi9915 yep!
I remember back in the day hearing that China Girl was about heroin. Can’t even imagine David Bowie being racist…no way.
LMAO growing up as a little kid in the eighties I had long golden brown hair, so I would actually ask my mum to play the record of Golden Brown by the Stranglers and I called it 'my song' ...UntiI I got old enough to learn, inform, and so discover my mum had known all along it was a veiled song about heroin.😆
Calling David Bowie racist is ridiculous. He was married to a Black women for nearly 24 years.
You've reminded me of yet another great Liverpool band ,the Las and the song there she goes, about heroin
I always thought it was about cocaine. I'm surprised it's not. It's way more wholesome than expected.
@@MRPandoraHartDRAnother great song!
There was Laurie by Dickey Lee. I remember it because my name is Lori. I was 5 at the time. It was about a guy who meets a girl and walks her home. Afterward, he realized that she still had his sweater because she had gotten cold on the walk. He goes back to the house and the man tells him how cruel he is because that was his daughter and she had been dead for a year. He went to find her stone in the cemetery, and there was his sweater on the grave.
I’ve never heard that song, but I remember a ghost story from when I was younger that went something like that. It was titled Lavender, the daughter’s name.
As far as money for nothing goes, I’m reminded of what my father used to say, “The world doesn’t come with padded corners.” I think that sums up why covering up how people express themselves does more damage than good.
Dire Straits were actually making fun of homophobes with that lyric.
I like how people defend ignorant things and it always begins with "My daddy said..."
@@drstewart 😂 You really need to get over yourself.
@@drstewart Actually his daddy was right....
@@rickfromthecape3135 Nah. Defending ignorance is never right. Convenient though, for certain types. Because there are people who choose to conduct themselves poorly doesn't mean that you facilitate them or excuse it.
Since when was Rock & Roll ever supposed to be politically correct?? Rock & Roll is truly dead as soon as it gives a sh!t! about offending..
Yes but you gotta be offensive over important topics, otherwise you’re just being crass
amen to that!
@@stvp68 That's true. It's one thing to just go around spewing out any random comment or gesture. But it's another, to prioritize what you want to say, without backing down.
It better not be PC or I'm not gonna like it. 😏
3 chords and the truth!
I just watched a video by comedian Jimmy Carr talking about being cancelled for one (of many) of his jokes. He said he fantasized about sarcastically apologizing, and when they came back to him saying it wasnt a sincere apology, his response would be "Oh, do you mean it's possible for me to say something and not mean it?!?!" Perfect.
Maybe it's in the other list, but I was expecting "Darling Nikki" by Prince. I tried to vote for it on a radio call in show. The DJ said, "You can vote for it, but I can't play it."
That Prince album is what got the Parents' Musical Resource Center started, chaired by future Second Lady Tipper Gore.
@Janiprox "Darling Nikki" is one of my favourite all time songs! Love it!
FOND memories of that song!
I am a Gen-X female and to this day, "Jeremy" gives me goose bumps. I'm too old to have went to school during a time when you had to worry about weapons and this kind of thing, but the song was great when it came out. It was later that the emotional response attached.
Calling Bowie racist isn't ignorance, it's stupidity!
But he was a proud fascist calling Hitler the first Rock Star
@@davidsmith4363 The Thin White Duke was a musical persona, just like Ziggy Stardust was. And the Playboy quote is out of context without reading the whole interview. “I’m closer to the Golden Dawn / Immersed in Crowley’s uniform / Of imagery /I’m living in a silent film /
Portraying Himmler’s sacred realm / Of dream reality.”
They were just lyrics to paint a picture.
Bowie was a great humanitarian as well as an multifaceted artist.
@@harriotteworthington3147 Bowie knew it was wrong and claimed his behavior during that time was because he was abusing hard drugs. Taking
Drugs and drinking does not turn someone into a fascist it only allows the to say outloud what they are already thinking
@ Thank you for the psychoanalysis. I was blind.
I guess Mother wasn’t lying when she said she wished to God that I had never been conceived after having a rough night. All this time, I thought it was just the alcohol talking. Boy am I stupid for forgiving her and celebrating her sobriety!
fetishization is its own kind of racism
Some of the comments here remind me of the old joke: “I had to break up with him, he knew too many dirty songs” “Oh, did he sing them to you?” “No, he hummed them”
Mmm, hmmmm!
Nasty. lol
Hahahaha
😂😂😂
Thank you for this. I love it and would gladly hum it
5. "Jerkin' back & forth" by Devo
4. "By the dashboard light" by Meatloaf
3. "Like a Virgin" by Madonna
2. "Lola" by the Kinks
1. "Relax" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood
How Do You Do? Mouth and McNeil. Afternoon Delight. Starland Vocal Band. Chick-A-Boom. Daddy Dewdrop. I'm sure we could go on and on.
Black Betty by Ram Jam comes to mind
@raenman64 what about Black Betty? The song was originally written in 1939 by Lead Belly . It's actually an African American work song
"Dirty Deeds" - AC/DC
"Sympathy for the Devil" - Rolling Stones
"The Prowler" - Iron Maiden
"Short People" - Randy Newman
"(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go" - Curtis Mayfield
Walk on the wild side
My attention was elsewhere during the 80s, but sometime in the early 2000s, by accident, I found a radio station that played a lot of songs from that era. One of those songs was "Jeremy." I knew nothing about its history, and fell in love with it because of the music and the voice. It took awhile to understand the words, as I only listened to that station while driving to and from work, but when I did, they only made the song more fascinating. I don't remember ever hearing any of the other songs, and only learned anything about David Bowie from the movie "Labyrinth." I don't think I ever heard of the other three bands on your list. But "Jeremy" remains one of my favorite rock songs. Thank you, 95 WIIL rock!
Absolutely Nothing offended me, when I heard it. If I didn't like it, I turned it off.
That's right!
@@Whytemonkee as it should be
@@FredGroenke55yep agree
That's why we can change channels or use the on/off switch. 😉💖
When did common sense, reason, and to each his own get Leonidas kicked down the well/cistern?
My mother used to love a christian song called "Footprints in the Sand" (or maybe it was "One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus"...I can't recall) by Christy someone, or someone Christy. The first time we heard it on the radio in the car she did something she'd never done in my lifetime. She went out almost immediately and picked up the 45. I got physically ill whenever she played it. I'd have turned it off if I could have gotten away with it.
As always, good job! China Girl has always been one of my favs. Want to find the other version now.
Man you reached way back in my cortex for DOA. I was 5 when this came out. Hard to imagine either of the 2 AM radio stations we listened to would play it but I guess they did. Thanks for the explanation of its context.
Relax just captures you with its driving bass beat.
I don't know what is crazier: the fact that these songs and their creativity were banned/edited; or that YT will ban you also if you say what the songs represent. Haven't we progressed as a society yet?
No. No, we haven't. We're heading backwards.
Any song about an airplane crash has to be a little disturbing.
Something like this happened in the 1950s, when there was a run of songs about dying in a car crash. ("Dead Man's Curve", "Last Kiss", etc.)
Woke ruins everything.
The right tried to control and ban stuff via groups like the PMRC. The 80's and 90's were wild. Feelings over facts puritan version.
Now the extreme left has spent the last 10 years banning and controlling anything they found offensive even if it is not. The feelings over fact mentality but from the left and not the right. Same thing but different people.
UA-cam is leftist. Leftists never progress.
DOA traumatized me. I was 8 when it started to be played on the radio. For awhile there was no avoiding it. It was all over. I just looked it up for the first time after 50 years recently. It brought back the horror and I turned it off after listening to it once.
You listened to
DOA by Bloodrock when you were 8 yrs old? I’d be traumatized for life. 😮
Thanks for the back story of D.O.A. Always had trouble connecting all the lyrics into something cohesive. Makes more sense now. I remember they used to play this on Dr. Demento show every Halloween.
I'm an older member of the LGBT community and I never understood the controversy over the Money For Nothing lyrics. Yes, the word is a slur, but I understood the context in which it was written. I didn't know anyone who was offended by it.
As for other controversial songs... "Good Girls Don't" by The Knack had the line "Till she's sitting on my face" which was pretty suggestive in the late 70's.
The whole Get the knack album should be R rated 😂
Those that are offended by anything are usually never putting anything in context😊
I always thought that verse was in reference to Boy George and Culture Club.
I'm also an older member of the LGBTQ community I can remember how horrified I was hearing money for nothing being played on the radio for the first time. Every time that song came on MTV or on the radio and I heard those lyrics it stung.
@@Sacred_Fire Agreed. This is still one of my favorite songs and I have the unedited version on my playlist.
Some people wake up offended. Live offended,.
Go to sleep offended.
Dream offended.
There is no pleasing them.
Yet those same people are not offended by Cardi B 😂😂
The bulding neighbor called the police to report a naked man in the building across the street. When the police arrived she pointed out the window and the policeman said, “lady, you can’t see anything from this angle!” She replied, “Stand on the bed, stand on the bed!”
That offends me! LOL
Offence scouting is something the Left loves to do. They love to scour books, songs, Internet posts, etc. for something to be offended by. If they can't find anything, they invent things to be offended by. They do it because what good is a social justice warrior if there is no social justice war?
could not agree more
I am not offended, but have been known to offend on occasion. It's in the timing! 😊
About D.O.A., I was one of the people who thought it was about a car wreck brought about by a driver under the influence. I heard it when I was much too young and impressionable for such stuff...but it made me remember to drive safely, which became my lifelong habit. This song very likely saved my life. Today, listening to the clips of DOA you play in this video, I'm struck by how good the group vocals are. They sound almost like Three Dog Night if Three Dog Night had a horrifying story to tell.
"Money For Nothing" resonated with me because of its authenticity. I personally have known people with the same points of view who are loud and proud about how they feel. Haven't we all met those types? Good on Mark Knopfler! He was ahead of his time.
Same here, and the guitar was so tight- people listened because they had not heard a melody so original in a while- when Money came out, music had been stagnating and Knofler made us sit up and listen!
Most of Randy Newman's songs are sung "in character." There were one or two that got him in trouble.
@@mccritical Like "Short people" and "You can leave your hat on." He is definitely an interesting man. Ha ha ha with some really good observations of the world around him.
@@robertkartechner5850 there was an early episode of Ally McBeal where ‘Short People’ is seriously debated because Fish wanted it played at the funeral of a relative. Fish wins, and a gospel choir performs the song. In the same episode, a transgender sex worker is treated utterly inhumanely… and by the end of the episode is (unfortunately typically) k.o.’d, in line with late 90’s standards
I think Money for Nothing was written about two guys ragging on Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police. Sting can be seen wearing earrings in both ears right from the start, and there are "bongos" (octobans) and "Hawaiian noises" (steel drums) in the video. This would also explain Sting singing "I want my MTV" to the tune of Don't Stand So Close To Me; hinting at the identity of "yo-yos."
I do believe you're right, and have thought so for exactly that reason!
I always thought the Hawaiian Noises was a dig at Duran Duran.
I like your deduction
Steel drums is a Caribbean thing, not Hawaiian.
But Sting isn't little, and his hair has always been unremarkable, outside of while he was acting in a movie.
BBC bans suggestive rock lyrics but hires and protects pdf files for decades
But Jim will fix it.
Brother. I love your style of content. I just wish you could play more of the songs. But it hits all the nostalgia. And i could fully see you hosting this on mtv.
I remember the BBC banning God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols. It went to #1 with no airplay..
I was in a terrible car wreck when I was thirteen that put me in the hospital for three months. I would listen to the radio and one time DOA came on. Needless to say it greatly impacted me. It was put in rotation and I listened to it regularly. An interesting side note, as I was watching your segment on DOA an advertisement came on about learning how to pilot a plane😮
The choices those algorithms make are starting to get creepy ...
“I’m not endorsing Frankie until they tell us who Frankie is” - Bowie 🤘 7:00
Ha ha! Good one with a Bowie quote!
@ 🤣 from the great “short film” Dancing With Blue Jean 🤘
Yessss!
I think it’s ol’ blue eyes
@@kellydalstok8900 it is. If I remember what I read once correctly, "Frankie Goes To Hollywood" was a newspaper headline when it was announced he was going to be doing movies.
I recognize Bloodrock's "D.O.A." as a song I heard A SINGLE TIME on a popular Cincinnati radio station and never heard again till this video. The fact that I remember it from a single hearing 50 years ago indicates the dent it left in my psyche.
I vividly remember D.O.A., My sister and I sang it all the time. a Song that disturbed many more people was the Song "Timothy" about two guys and a Mule in a mine cave in
Timothy was banned in my area of Wilmington De.
D.o.a was about a plane crashing I had the album by blood rock or it might be bloodrock...
I was 9 yrs old. I thought it was awesome.
There were 3 people in the cave, no animals
@@theknowbot5000 That's right. Timothy never came out.
Bloodrock's DOA absolutely freaked me out as a kid, but fascinated me as well. Just gave me chills. It was so eerie and descriptive and disturbing. In the early 80s, I was writing a paper for a college music class about teenage death songs (Last Kiss, Tell Laura I Love Her, etc), and wanted to use that song, but couldn't find a copy anywhere.
Back when i was in 5th grade i had music class. Our teacher encouraged us to bring in music we liked so a fella in my class brought in his '45 of Squeeze Box by The Who. Our 11 year old litttle selves giggled at the lyrics and our teacher quickly stopped the song with a scowl.
I shared that memory with my friend & he said "sounds like something I'd do" 🤭✌️🤘
Ha ha! Great song!
Lol my Dad played the squeeze box so I naturally assumed the mom was playing an accordion until I really listened to the lyrics. 😂
@@LaManteca76 Me too. That's the point of songs that have double meanings. You can sing them without the kids knowing what they're really about.
My 7th grade teachers brother was a roadie for The Police. Our school was poor. We didn’t have AC and pizza day was hamburger buns turned over with a spoonful of tomato sauce and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. She was dead set on getting a music program going though and she did. We ended up with Playschool instruments. You know, plastic and cheap. She had us entered into competitions with other schools. Schools with real instruments of wood and brass. It was embarrassing.
I'm not convinced that FGtH's Relax is any smuttier than the Who's Squeeze Box. Both are fun little bits of innuendo.
Considering the time frame and description of the individual, I'd say that Boy George would be a prime candidate for the Money for Nothing reference, considering also that their Culture Club vids when like a rash on MTV then.
I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t know Boy George was a guy for a long time until a friend told me, I argued with him about it😂
There was a song in 1970 called Timothy by the Buoys. It was about miners stuck after a cave-in and resorted to cannibalism.
@@cherylschantz9893 Thank you. I played in the Buoys
happening in south africa right now.....
Brandon did a video about that one too! Look it up! :)
@@normslivinski7483Been on my playlist for years.👍
I still have my 45 of "Timothy". I was the only girl my age that loved that song.
Timothy may have been a mule that was brought down into the mine. But I believed otherwise when I was a kid.
Couple of controversial ones quickly come to mind. Jefferson Airplane-White Rabbit, Steppenwolf-The Pusher (unsure about airplay), Curtis Mayfield-Pusher Man, Eric Clapton-Cocaine, Eagles-Hotel California-Life In The Fast Lane. Many more but those were the ones that came quickly. Ya, I'm in my late 60's. 😂 Let The Midnight Special Shine On Me.
the problem censors had with the pusher was the lyric "god damn" which was still considered by a lot of christians as the height of blasphemy
@@Ted-K4C I’m there with you!
I understand the thought of blasphemy, but they weren't really listening to the words. When put in context, he's asking God to damn the pusherman. The last verse makes it clear he wants the pusher dead.
"Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I'd declare total war on the pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run
Yes, I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun" Chorus follows.
People didn't reallly listen to the lyrics. Basically only heard the chorus. In the last verse puts it into context. "Well, now if I were the president of this land
You know, I'd declare total war on the pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot him if he'd run
Yes, I'd kill him with my Bible and my razor and my gun"
Chorus. He's asking God to damn the pusherman.
The Pusher is a great song!
And yet now, a song called "WAP" is judged fine.
Right?
Too many songs about sex nowadays-is that all people have to sing about??
@stvp68 truthfully, I don't consider that music. 😂
However, look at those "cancelled" lyrics of yesteryear, and now it's apparently acceptable to refer to shooting people, calling women "b"s and "h"s, and everything in between. Thank God for the 80's!
(And every time I think of that, I remember my grandmother in the 80's saying, "You call *that* music?😂)
@@stvp68 Freud says sex and death make the world go round, and, it turns out, those are the two main topics of literature.
Yeah. That song makes me gag.
I grew up listening to Bloodrock 2 D.O.A. on an 8 Track player in our Plymouth Roadrunner! When those sirens would go off it seriously sounded like a real ambulance was right behind us! 🎶😁
As a 70's child the 80's shaped my music. NZ is such a cool place to live for music. None were "controversial".....It was JUST music! You liked it, you tolerated it or you hated it.....Each to their own and we get that
Bloodrock was an incredible band. I was 5 when my mom pulled the car over thinking sirens were on her tail. She was so pissed when she realized it was the song! One of my earliest favorite memories!
THanks John!
I looked for the BloodRock album for years. I finally found it at a garage sale in a small town in western Kansas.
Haha! Wow.
There were a couple of morning radio stations that would play a siren sound during part of their bits in the 80s (maybe even 90s). It always fooled me and shook me up.
@@laureencriss8220, I remember a morning show with the siren/alarm sound effects, but the sound was brief enough to cause no serious problems.
Dire Straits singer was referring to Wham. "Wake me up before you go go" it became a hit in 1984. George is wearing earrings in both ears and prancing in short shorts with yellow gloves on stage and in the video there is a drummer banging on drums.
Here I was thinking Boy George…well I got the George part right! 😅
Thank you
Thank you! I thought it might be Wham
@@southernyankee2300Boy George was my first thought but probably Wham.
Good call. I commented that I thought it was Boy George (I was thinking of the makeup), but I think the Wham guys are more likely. I noticed someone else suggested Thompson Twins. My memory from back then was that Wham was everywhere and the Thompson Twins were far more under the radar -- and not as likely to have "their own jet airplane".
DOA!!! I definitely remember this song. I was in Ft Worth TX at the time and had no knowledge of the actuality of this song but my friends and I listened to it even tho there was a dark feeling about it ,it just felt ..right.. somehow.Little did we know. Until now, thank you for enlightening us. We were such stupids back in these days, aren't we?
"Jeremy" is such a tragic song. The video, even with its edits, was brilliant. Seeing Jeremy's classmates all frozen in horror, I didn't have to see the boy's action to know that something horrible happened. It's truly sad that Trevor Wilson (the actor who played Jeremy) drowned while vacationing in Puerto Rico. 🥺
Agreed. Jeremy came out while I was in high school in CA. A few years later I was attending Oregon State, not too far from where Kip Kinkel killed his parents and then went to school, and not long before Columbine. I always thought the song was a sort of premonition of school shootings in later years. I did not know the true influence of the song until now. So horribly sad.
It’s a really chilling video.
As a 90s teen myself, the video was on heavy rotation on MTV during that time and it was haunting because of the realization of how some teens can be truly troubled and need help.
Yet, these 5 were played!!?? 1. Spread your wings and let me come inside - “Tonight’s The Night” Rod Stewart. 2. Watch your honey drip, I can't keep away “Black Dog” Led Zep. 3. Went down on you/ pluck your body like a string/when I start dancing inside you “Miracles” Jefferson Starship. 4. Running down the length of my thighs, Sharona/I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind “My Sharona” The Knack.
5. Who the f are you - “Who Are You” The Who.
A top 5!
Um, the lyric for you #2 came from "Black Dog", not "Rock and Roll".
Isn't #2 on your list "Black Dog" (not "Rock and Roll")?
The thing about honey dripping comes all the way back to old blues songs. There’s nothing new about that. In fact, I think didn’t Robert Plant front a band called The Honeydrippers in the early 80s.
@@gregwasserman2635 thank you
The song Jeremy brings tears, such a profound and disturbing song and heart-wrenching music, beautiful, ice cold, and soulful like the tears of a ghost.
Every time you talk about 'disturbing' songs I keep expecting/hoping for you to cover, "People Who Died" ~ Jim Carroll Band
Great song!
Putting that at the end of Dawn was the smartest thing Snyder ever did.
@@tahoemike5828 I remember it from Tuff Turf, such a cheesy 80s movie!
I find myself more offended by ppl who get offended by songs. Those offended seem to have forgotten about satire and the phrase " Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me"
...and the sad truth about that is, usually those Offended are the ones struggling internally/emotionally to make sense of it...but their unstable reality wont allow them to, so as in HP3: offending a hypocrite may just be the last thing you do with your life!
It’s strange how people can’t perceive that words can be from a character’s perspective and may not be the actual views of the artist.
Yes, exactly!
Usually, when that slur was used against me, it was accompanied with fists.
@@adamx6000, dire straits never said they weren’t homophobic. With their use of that slur being their only word on the subject, assuming dire straits is homophobic is the only logical conclusion.
I forgot there were any "controversial" lyrics in Money for Nothin' because I always sing the Weird Al version in my head. I was like, "Since when is cement pond considered a hateful phrase?". :P
😂😂😂. Nice!❤
I usually roll my eyes, tell whoever is whingeing to get over themselves, and just don't listen to the song they're crying like a bish about.
You know, like we used to do when we knew how to change the station on the radio. 😅😉👍
Mark Knopfler came in and played the guitar track on that parody, in addition to Jim West (Al's guitarist). The consensus was that Jim did a better version.
BTW, cement is a reference to the Mafia, which is an Italian stereotype. So there's your controversy. 8-)
@@badkitty4922 Or, as George Carlin said, "A Reverend Donald Wildmon in Mississippi heard something on the radio that he didn’t like. [...] But hey, reverend, there are two knobs on the radio! One of them turns the radio OFF, and the other one CHANGES THE STATION! Imagine that, reverend, you can actually change the station!"
@@christopherheckman7957 😂😂😂👏👏👏 I LOVED George Carlin! He was the best!
One of my favorites I've only seen as a clip, and it's an old stand up routine.
He was at the airport waiting to board the plane for his flight, and the stewardess kept saying "Ok,everyone get on the plane. Get on the plane."
Carlin's reply was fck you, I'm getting IN the plane.
It STILL cracks me up, among so many other of his bits or full routines/shows/albums.
😂😂😂
R.I P. George, you're sorely missed. 😢💖
I tend to like the wierd Al versions better that originals
Speaking of sirens from DOA prompting people to pull over, in Denver there was a morning show on KRFX "The Fox". They would from time to time broadcast a cats meow in such a way that that it went to the rear speakers and sounded like there was a cat in the backseat, prompting more than 1 person to pull over and look for it.
Loving your AiC t-shirt!
Oh, great video as usual, too. 😁😊 I hope you had a great Christmas.
Good episode but I think you need one more "taboo" song. "Timothy" by the Bouys. That song was a hit until it was learned what it was actually about. AS a 2nd grader named Tim, I was singing it all the time because my name was in the song. It was not until 35 years later that I found out what that song was about. I was actually stunned and somewhat nauseated by the fact I was a little kid, glorying in my name being in a song while the song was so morbid. But, it is an interesting story and I hope you dig into it.
My brothers name was Timothy. We tortured him with that song. 😂😂 I was still pretty young when I knew what it was about. Likely because one of my older siblings told me.
I remember it came on the radio about the time I was arriving at my home town for a weekend visit. I guess I had never listened to the lyrics that much. As the song ended, the DJ said “they joined the Timothy for lunch bunch”. After that, I changed the station every time the song came on.
4:45 The real question is, why do we allow these keyboard cowards dictate as to what we are allowed to enjoy in life…? Hopefully the tide is turning back to common sense and reason.
David Bowie would be appalled.
@@ProfessorofRock And I wouldn't blame him one bit.
Are you kidding? Here in NJ, our legislature just passed a bill aimed at protecting librarians who put books on the shelves that others are trying to ban. The law bars civil or criminal sanctions against the librarians. Our governor signed it into law. This era is even worse than 1985, when Tipper Gore started the anti-First Amendment organization called "The Parents Music Resource Center." That movement is how we got the "explicit warning" labels on albums. 😡
@@IheartDogs55 - And all that accomplished was *_increasing_* sales for releases with those stickers!😆
@@IheartDogs55 ironically it must not have been noticed by these people that when you label something "forbidden" kids want it more.
I remember back in the early 70s, the song Timothy by the Bouys ( written by Rupert Holmes) being pretty disturbing. It was about cannibalism. FM radio was still relatively new, and many AM stations in Pittsburgh banned the song, but you could hear it on FM stations. This drove a lot of people to the FM rock stations and helped their success. Whether true or not, the perception was the AM radio was censored and FM was largely uncencored. Another song to fit this theme was Jr. Walker and the All Stars' Shotgun. Many AM stations in Pittsburgh refused to play it, but it could be heard on most FM stations. The song was eventually banned on FM stations, after a highschool student was killed with a sawed off shotgun in a case of mistaken identity in drive by shooting. To keep flames of insult burning people were calling dedication lines and dedicating the song to the original target. When radio stations figured out what was going on, they banned the song.
David Bowie dated every race, married Iman.
Why would anyone ever consider him racist?
Was the song Short People ever listed. I remember Randy Neumann addressing it on SNL
It's such a good song. Glad someone else remembers it.
I remember that one 😂
When that song was released I was 17 and only five feet tall. My boyfriend was six foot two and used to sing this song in my face every time it played.@@CiscoWes
I'm old and still 5 feet tall. I always liked this song. Lol. I now jokingly sing it to my taller pre-teen grandson, making fun of myself.....bc what's wrong with being 5 ft tall? Nothing.
Randy Newman wrote most of his lyrics in character. Songs like "Mama Told Me Not To Come" and "Short People" are POV songs.
The Professor needs to find a way to insert a brief discussion of Newman's "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band" into one of his videos. It's a tale about a group of local Birmingham schoolboys who "buy a drum and guitar" and form a rock band.
Spoiler alert: that band is Electric Light Orchestra.
Prof loves some Jeff Lynne. Also, Lynne loved the song and knew the lyrics by heart, which he recited back to Newman when he produced "Falling in Love" on Newman's "Land of Dreams."
I can't think of any finer tribute to Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, Bobby Joe (big violin), Johnny (little violin), and the other members of ELO than "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band"
I love that ELO.
You mention the song "Young Girl". Adult men singing love songs about underage girls is an entire category all of its own.
I had an older boyfriend and thought it was an amazing song - with hindsight it's just well creepy....
Lynnerd Skynnerd (sp?): "Little Queen..."
"Brown Sugar" by the Rolling Stones ...
"Come up the years" by Jefferson Airplane. Great song but creepy nonetheless.
"My Sharona" - "Ooh, my little pretty one, pretty one" "I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind" - song about a mid-20s guy and an underage teen girl.
Every time I watch your shows I get so excited I have to stop and listen to the song/s you are featuring. You bring the songs “back to the day”! *Hey RE: Frankie goes to Hollywood-remember the USA v. Russia video?
.
Let’s not forget, Bowie pretended to play the solo on the music video, when the solo had been actually played by Stevie Ray Fuckin Vaughan
God bless you for wearing an Alice in Chains Jar of Flies shirt. I started bawling when I saw it. It kills me that I was never able to see Layne Staley live. He is my favorite singer of all time. I saw Michael Jackson in 87, Taylor Swift on her Reputation tour, Van Halen on their 1984 Tour, Metallica's Wherever We May Roam Tour, Lalapoliza tour, Ozzfest, Celtic Woman and Black Violin concerts. Plus, hundreds more. I would trade all of these plus my very life to see Layne front Alice in Chains.
Kurt Cobain wasn't the voice of my generation. Layne was.
When I was in middle school, our art teacher played the DOA song for us. She said it was one of her favourite songs from her past. I never heard the song, have not heard it since before today. Thanks for the memories. I do remember hearing the story behind the writing of "Money for Nothing."
Leave it to a middle-school art teacher. Were they all doing the same drugs?
I remember a friend of mine thinking John Cougar Mellencamp covered China Girl. And I asked him, “Can you imagine Mellencamp singing, ‘visions of swastakas in my head..’” We both got a good laugh out of that.
My sister was a teacher at that Moses Lake School and the kid was originally part of her class. The principal who was a friend, sacrificed himself as a shield to save those kids and the teacher. It was really devastating for her since she got her citizenship and the principal and school threw her a massive congratulations assembly party. The event presents a very dark time in this state and for her! 😢
There are certain songs that have never made it to the airwaves, and for good reason. One particular song was by the 90's alternative band Korn. The song was called "Daddy", and it is most definitely not an easy listen. In fact, it is very disturbing. The song was on their first album "Korn". It is about Jonathan Davis, and the abuse enacted on him by a friend of the family, the fact that he tried to tell his parents about it... And the fact that his parents either didn't believe him, or just didn't care.
The old boiler by The Specials is a song that I actually find hard to listen to, if you have not heard it it is about a girl who gets attacked & rapped and the end of the song is just her screams, they are haunting and last so long.
There's only ever been one song that I couldn't listen to again after hearing it once: "Dance With The Devil" by Immortal Technique. I respect it for being a poignant piece of art and the reality of the streets as a horror piece but, man, it's a hard listen that I never need to hear again. Like, I've heard grindcore songs that are trying to be disturbing and horrible and I just find them sonically boring and the lyrics a little too "scare mommy and daddy" tryhard, but it's the rap song, "Dance With The Devil," that haunts me.
Holy crap. I've never heard of these songs but I'm disturbed already 😮
In this countdown "Jeremy" had the most impact on me. The woman/girl I was dating when it came out had a son named Jeremy who's father had been killed in a car accident before Jeremy was born. He had many social problems at a young age. It got worse when he found out his mother and I had another son on the way. I was only 23 when this was happening. Not only was I becoming a father for my own son I took on the challenge of being Jeremy's dad. I treated him as my own but he didn't want to have me for his dad. His mother and I separated shortly after that. Long story short, he got into trouble as an adult and his little brother (my son) tried to help him through. Jeremy ended up in prison. I guess that's better than the alternatives. So every time I hear this song I think about my Jeremy story.
Wow. Thanks for sharing.
very sad story.
@@mikemcgown6362 Sorry you had to go thru that. 🫶
That’s so sad.
You forgot to mention that "Relax" by Frankie Goes Hollywood was a key element in the move "Body Double" starring Melanie Griffith and Craig Wasson in 1984! It was the first time many of us in the U.S. heard it and the visuals in the particular scene in which it was used was not soon forgotten.
4:24 They were offended because they wanted to be offended, not because they actually were.
That one is a head scratcher!
I get it and agree!
@@ProfessorofRock Looking to be offended and not concerned about whether or not a thing is actually offensive.
And yes, I agree.
The ones who were “offended” are part of a cult where they try to outdo each other on what obscure things they can be offended by.
I tell my son that our lives are so easy now that people have to invent things to be offended about.
I’m so glad that era is coming to an end.
@@ProfessorofRock Some people live to be the victim.
Good morning Professor & music junkies, love the channel and looking forward to more great stories of the soundtrack of our lives.😊❤
good day to you.
Good morning guys! 🤗
Good morning Laurie and everyone.
Howdy
Thanks Laurie!
18:40 This wasn't the first time a record ran into trouble due to the use of sirens in the mix. About 6 months earlier, "Indiana Wants Me", by R. Dean Taylor, opened with a siren blaring alone, a second or two before the music started. When radio stations complained that the siren was confusing drivers, an alternate version of the single, one with a much-diminished siren, was sent out to radio stations. I remember waking up to the original version blaring from the clock-radio and thinking that the house was on fire.
Wasn't there a song by OHIO PLAYERS that an alarm at the beginning ? It was " Fire". But not enough to make a fuss about
War Pigs- Black Sabbath...
Wow, you do bring back a lot of memories from the 60’s and 70’s. Some of the best music in my opinion.😊
I can't find any comments on NIN's Closer. Talk about controversial! Both the song and the video. Great video, Professor of Rock and I love that your radio show gets picked up here in Chicago!
@frankgonzalez222 omg, I love Closer! It's one of my favorite NIN songs. The radio never played the F bomb, but I never remember any controversy around the song.
There was a LOT going on with alternative music coming out and shaking things up and I was digging it all.
True Story...Closer was my friend's first dance song at their wedding. You see, he had asked his now wife to dance while Closer was playing in a night club when they met for the first time. The look on the grandparents and aunts faces was priceless.
@Rusty_Shackleford-y9y That would, of course, be the perfect wedding song🎵of all time! A real classic and a personal favorite of mine too.
Good choice. That'd be on my top 5 as well. I remember there being an edit, but the local radio stations routinely played the explicit one instead.
@@Rusty_Shackleford-y9y That is awesome.
18:06 An English band called Throbbing Gristle released a song in 1978 called "Hamburger Lady". It was far more shocking. I won't relate the details, but look it up. However, this was never released as a single. Interestingly, on the same Throbbing Gristle album there is a song entitled "DoA". It's not a cover though.
I vividly remember the creepy feeling I had the first time I heard Hamburger Lady. I was listening to a mixtape a friend had made for me while I was in hospital with my Walkman's headphones 😅
"Throbbing Gristle"? 🤣 🤣
I first heard "D.O.A." in the spring of 1971 in our chemistry class. A fellow classmate had just been killed walking across a street not far from our school. As the song played while we were conducting our typical individual qualitative analysis experiments, it became deathly quiet and all had stopped doing whatever. I still remember that class to this day and hearing this song. To say the least, it was highly impactful. I looked for the song at local record outlets and could never find it.
I’m surprised the station even played it. Most record stores wouldn’t sell the album.
I don't remember if it was on the radio or on an LP. I never heard the song again. I remember getting myself to remember the group's name and then looking for it.
Took me several years to find the album in the early 1980s. Was only 7 years old when I first heard it...having a big fascination with air travel in general and all of the disaster movies...it was just great timing. Never thought it was controversial...but I guess it kind of was and still is. Thanks for bringing this one back up!
FYI: Loverboy did a song with the same title...but it was an anti-suicide song. Queen also had an anti-suicide song...flip side of their Another One Bites the Dust single...kind of strange when you think about those two on the same 45.
I say the DOA is either pleasingly morbid or morbidly pleasing. It's one that I have to play numerous times when it comes up randomly on the thumb drive in my vehicles. Relax is just a catchy tune, regardless of the inspiration.
I had to order a cassette through a record store just to get DOA. The tape was called "Heavy Metal Memories". These days, even that album is hard to find.
I'd be curious to see a list of the top 5 creepiest/scariest songs. As a kid, my #1 would be the anthology version of "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite". The deranged circus music and the this Mr. Kite character scared the crap out of me. And Heresy by NIN was both disturbing and scary as a little kid as well.
I love these type of shows. Thank you for making the music nostalgia happen.
You bet!
I think the mystery video the guys in the appliance store were talking about was Adam Ant Stand and Deliver. Earring, make up, and released in 81. There were no bongos but dudes playing the marching drums. I feel like a very controversal one was Oingo Boingo's Little Girls.
Get in, get on, get down, get off by Adam Ant was one of my faves
Ooh good guess!
22:17 Not certain of the video per say, but I always believed he was referencing Boy George and Culture Club…. I could be wrong. I would be curious as to what other bands fit that profile from the mid-80s.
Agree
What's funny about Relax is that when my sister was 8, she was in a Jazz dance class, with all ages. They were performing their version of Sleeping Beauty, and when Maleficent came out, "Relax" was her theme song! That dancer was 20-something, and was dressed in a black unitard with some wings attached.
At the time i just thought it sounded awesome - the only high point in watching people dance as an 11yo boy, bored to tears, forced to be there by my parents to support my sister.