American Reacts to 7 Songs BBC Banned For Weird Reasons!



This is Music Mongoose’s intriguing breakdown of the 7 songs banned by the BBC for surprising and strange reasons.

source

49 thoughts on “American Reacts to 7 Songs BBC Banned For Weird Reasons!”

  1. For viewers outside the UK, Music Mongoose has the DEFINITION of a 90-10s UK radio voice. DJs, news, travel, the lot…. One love from Scotland. 💙 🦁 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

    Reply
  2. in 1969 there were two banned records in the Top 10 in the same week Je T'Aime ..Moi Non Plus by Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg because it supposedly soundly like two people in the act of procreating. The second was by Max Romeo and the presenters were not even allowed to say its name (and my not sure that YouTube allows it either). W-t Dream.

    Reply
  3. 1:14, the Who's archaic reputation? Not this reactor's video, but the original, don't they check it before it gets posted?
    5:30, that was Malcolm McLaren (spelling may be wrong), the Sex Pistols' manager answering. JR was quite capable of taking them on as well though.

    Reply
  4. I remember from the time how the BBC refused to play "The Rising Sun" by the Animals on Top of the Pops simply because it was over three minutes, and were obliged to relent when it hit the No. 1 spot. They made it fit by running the closing credits over it, not something they had done previously.

    Reply
  5. Regarding the banning of sings during the first Gulf war, it actually extended beyond songs. Massive Attack chose to release their single Unfinished Sympathy under the shortened name Massive, for fear it would be banned otherwise.

    One of the most famous banned songs was Relax, by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which shot to number 1 in the charts as a result of the publicity gained following the ban.

    Reply
  6. God save the Queen was not that popular among the population and some sales were an objection to the BBC busy bodies not support for the song. Rod Stewart song ' I don't wan't to talk about it!' was very popular and is still remembered. I was one of the youth at the time.

    Reply
  7. I like that when George Formby known for having songs banned by the BBC like "My little bit of Blackpool Rock", and "When I'm cleaning windows". The lyrics were to be changed for a royal performance. HM Queen Mary liked and insisted that the original naughty innuendo version be sung instead.

    Reply
  8. Edited as apparently it was not banned just censored by the BBC not playing the last lyric.

    Too Much Too Young by the Specials reached number 1 despite being censored by the BBC and is one of the most influential song of a generation. Debatably surpassing any of the songs here, or at least on par with My Generation & God Save the Queen.

    Reply
  9. The Rod Stewart song is good though, so you're talking bollocks again. And only a septic can hear dirty stuff in a George Michael song. Here all his stuff was played. Denmark dont ban anytht, so I want your sex in 87 was a daily thing for most of that year. Same with Relax that you could hear all the time on the big radio stations. Frankie was played all the time in the 80s. You couldn't escape those singles. Depeche Mode had some trouble by some UK djs i remember but not for that long. Master and Servant and Blasphemous Rumors was always risky in England but i remember the guy that was gonna ban one of them at the time was on holiday abroad so it got through. Years later the guys was sure Personal Jesus was gonna get banned in America but they loved it. So you never know really. 😊

    Reply
  10. The Doors got into trouble over the Girl we couldn't get much Higher line… And Closer by NIN got a uk dj fired as soon as he played it the first time… He got to the fuck you like an animal line and he killed it instantly. Too late, fired the same day. It was in the papers of the day..

    Reply
  11. An American that in 6 videos doesnt know all these iconic songs that even a fisherman from Denmark and Norway knew back then is cray cray… Like Atomic is the fave Blondie track at the clubs i go to… So idk about this guy. I certainly dont pay any attention to his rants… They're meaningless. 😅

    Reply
  12. In My Generation. I always thought the stuttering on other words was an excuse to allow them to get away with the drawn out "f"s on "why don't you all f-f-f- ade away" because everyone knew what they meant. By doing the stutter on other words too, they could protest innocence?

    Reply
  13. During the first gulf war the BBC had a long list of songs they didn't think it would be tasteful to play. Then our soldiers arrived in Saudi for preps, turned on the US armed forces radio to hear it's launch and it played Killing an Arab and Rock the Casbah as the first two songs. Taste, it seems, has a time and place. 🙂

    Reply
  14. The bbc were anything but squeaky clean, it was the height of all the bbc cover ups of pedos working there, and apparently Johnny rotton even spoke out against the bbc covering up at the time.
    The bbc should have been shut down years ago for all their wrong doings.

    Reply
  15. Another song that was "banned", or more correctly just not played on-air was made by a BBC 1 TV co-presenter of the consumer programme "That's Life". His TV name was Doc Cox, and the record was "The Winker's Song (misprint)" from 1978. The fake band's name was Ivor Biggun & the Red-Nosed Burglars. It was pretty explicit. Just look up the lyrics. IIRC, Doc Cox just carried on co-presenting the show. Despite not being played on the radio it reached No.22 in the UK charts.

    Reply
  16. Definitely bizarre that Relax by Frankie goes to Hollywood wasn't mentioned that a BBC radio DJ realised what it was about and got it banned, erm i realised on first listen what it was about and i was only 13 or 14 years old and the original also banned video made it even more clear which i saw late at night on the recently launched Channel 4 TV station.

    Reply
  17. I can so identify with young JJ listening to Faith with his dad.
    I got David Bowie's Aladdin Sane for Christmas when I was 10, bought for me by my paternal grandmother.
    It's got so many sexual references!
    "Suck, baby, suck. Give me your head" in 'Cracked Actor', "Falls wanking to the floor" in 'Time', "Touch the fullness of her breast" in 'Lady Grinning Soul'…
    Credit to my dad, he didn't stop me playing it. My bright red face must've told him it was already too late.

    Reply
  18. So you you think Rod Steward is crap do you, I have been listening to and attending venues where Rod together with Long John Baldry ,Julie Driscoll and The Brian Auger trinity, were performing as the Steam Packet, in 1965. I was 17 then, Rod is still going strong now, so he cannot be crap can he? you are obvious talking out of your arse!

    Reply
  19. Not musicians making the establishment look less intelligent, but I remember seeing a clip where John Cleese and Michael Palin went on a show to defend The Life of Brian against an establishment figure and a bishop. They went prepared with logical arguments and the 2 establishment figures just said it's childish rubbish and couldn't answer any of the point the Pythons made.

    Reply
  20. I remember being a young teenager and going into Walworths where the singles chart was posted up on the wall and seeing the number two slot blank, they wouldn't even put the name of the song or the Sex Pistols up on the chart. Wonderful feeling.

    Reply
  21. Stuttering the letter "f" implied they were going to say the "f-word", or meant to "Why don't you all just f f f f ***". The authorities just used protecting stutterers as an excuse.

    Reply
  22. German band Juli had a big hit with their debut single "Die perfekte Welle" ("The Perfect Wave") in June 2004. Then, on December 26, 2004 the tsunami happened in Indonesia … and for a while, the song didn't get any airplay. Even the band concurred with this decision — it would've been inappropriate.

    Reply
  23. I kinda hoped he might mention "Burn My Candle". It was the debut single by Dame Shirley Bassey (3 Bond Themes fame). It was recorded in February 1956, when Bassey was nineteen years old – and had the line "There's "S" for Scotch, that's so direct / And for straight and simple sex / " – which had the BBC ban it. It is a sexy, and at the same time kind of innocent, song. One of my favourites from "The Girl from Tiger Bay" – and you can find it on YouTube.

    Reply

Leave a Comment