Last year I gave you my...

[csearle]

...best.

This year what I want to know is why "A Fairytale in New York" doesn't seem to have made it onto the radio or into the supermarkets?

Of all the Christmas songs this is my favourite and last year it was everywhere. What's happening this year? Are they saving it for later?

Chris

[AleisterCrowley]

Possibly the faggot word ?!
I'm sure there's a Bowdlerised version for the sensitive
It's actually quite a dark song if you listen to the lyrics

'You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed'
etc etc

Happy Christmas

[csearle]

Blimey, I hadn't really dwelt upon the lyrics. I saw them at Boeblingen sports hall back in the eighties.

C.

[mc2fool]

Possibly the faggot word ?!
I'm sure there's a Bowdlerised version for the sensitive

Only since 1992! “You cheap lousy faggot” -> “You’re cheap and you’re haggard”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmi_I3arS0U

[AleisterCrowley]

Travesty...! It's a scene between two imaginary characters, set to music
Imagine writing a play about Hitler and people asking you to tone down the hate speech...

[Lootman]

Travesty...! It's a scene between two imaginary characters, set to music

Imagine writing a play about Hitler and people asking you to tone down the hate speech...

There is precedence. The Rolling Stones agreed to replace the outrageouslyly provocative line "Let's spend the night together" with the saccharine "Let's spend some time together" in order to perform the Ed Sullivan TV show in the US in 1967.

Yes, even the bad boys of British rock compromised their principles, although Mick did manage an on-stage eye roll to mitigate the shame:

https://www.billboard.com/music/music-n ... r-6436569/

[AleisterCrowley]

Knopfler had similar problems with 'Money For Nothing' - despite it being 'reported conversation' rather than Knopfler 'speaking'
(I wonder if the delivery guys sued him for plagiarism?)

[mutantpoodle]

There is precedence. The Rolling Stones agreed to replace the outrageouslyly provocative line "Let's spend the night together" with the saccharine "Let's spend some time together" in order to perform the Ed Sullivan TV show in the US in 1967.

yes a sadly they have (or their managers have) now stopped singing Brown Sugar as some dopey woke decided it might be about drugs

but you can still buy the songs ...as they are meant to be...on various 'best of' albums, along with masses of other REAL songs

[servodude]

yes a sadly they have (or their managers have) now stopped singing Brown Sugar as some dopey woke decided it might be about drugs

Erm... I'm pretty sure (having read Mick's take on it) that's not why they've dropped it

[Lootman]

yes a sadly they have (or their managers have) now stopped singing Brown Sugar as some dopey woke decided it might be about drugs

Erm... I'm pretty sure (having read Mick's take on it) that's not why they've dropped it

Supposedly it was this slavery reference:

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Skydog slaver know he's doin' all right
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight

On that basis we should ban any number of well known novels and films, starting with Gone With The Wind. Most of the William Faulkner works would go as well. Once you start on the slippery slope of political correctness, it is hard to know how much art will survive such scrutiny.

[Rhyd6]

I have Fairytale of New York on a CD of Christmas favourites so I shall make sure I play it loud and long. My favourite Christmas song is Tom Lehrer's Deck the Halls - mind you he's my favourite performer of all times, I've made sure that when I die his glorious rendition of "We'll All Go Together When we Go" will be belting out at the wake. I'm not having a funeral otherwise I'd have liked it played as the coffin disappeared through the curtain but as the crem have become touchy feely about certain songs I'll just have a damn good booze up in my local.
Cheers
R6

[pje16]

It's actually quite a dark song if you listen to the lyrics
'You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed'
etc etc
Happy Christmas

But boy how it changes

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

Cheers all

[servodude]

yes a sadly they have (or their managers have) now stopped singing Brown Sugar as some dopey woke decided it might be about drugs

Erm... I'm pretty sure (having read Mick's take on it) that's not why they've dropped it

Supposedly it was this slavery reference:

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Skydog slaver know he's doin' all right
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight

On that basis we should ban any number of well known novels and films, starting with Gone With The Wind. Most of the William Faulkner works would go as well. Once you start on the slippery slope of political correctness, it is hard to know how much art will survive such scrutiny.

The whole of it's pretty puerile
Still it was their decision to withdraw a song celebrating the joys of rape because they thought it might affect their revenue
- probably why they dropped the original "Black Puss*y" title back at the time

Wouldn't have had you pegged as a stones fan given previous comments

-sd

[mc2fool]

Still it was their decision to withdraw a song celebrating the joys of rape because they thought it might affect their revenue

Seems Jagger (who wrote it) had some compunction about it even in 1995:

Interviewer: This is one of your biggest hits, a great classic, radio single, except the subject matter is slavery, interracial sex, eating pussy . . .
Jagger: [Laughs] And drugs. That's a double-entendre, just thrown in.
I: Brown sugar being heroin?
J: Brown sugar being heroin and --
I: And pussy?
J: That makes it . . . the whole mess thrown in. God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go.
I: Were you surprised that it was such a success with all that stuff in it?
J: I didn't think about it at the time. I never would write that song now.
I: Why?
J: I would probably censor myself. I'd think, "Oh God, I can't. I've got to stop. I can't just write raw like that."

https://web.archive.org/web/20091205235 ... ers/page/5

From what I gather the Stones have been playing more or less the same set list for some 50 years now ... they've sort of become their own tribute band!

[Dod101]

Still it was their decision to withdraw a song celebrating the joys of rape because they thought it might affect their revenue

Seems Jagger (who wrote it) had some compunction about it even in 1995:

Interviewer: This is one of your biggest hits, a great classic, radio single, except the subject matter is slavery, interracial sex, eating pussy . . .
Jagger: [Laughs] And drugs. That's a double-entendre, just thrown in.
I: Brown sugar being heroin?
J: Brown sugar being heroin and --
I: And pussy?
J: That makes it . . . the whole mess thrown in. God knows what I'm on about on that song. It's such a mishmash. All the nasty subjects in one go.
I: Were you surprised that it was such a success with all that stuff in it?
J: I didn't think about it at the time. I never would write that song now.
I: Why?
J: I would probably censor myself. I'd think, "Oh God, I can't. I've got to stop. I can't just write raw like that."

https://web.archive.org/web/20091205235 ... ers/page/5

From what I gather the Stones have been playing more or less the same set list for some 50 years now ... they've sort of become their own tribute band!

And no better than they ever were.

Dod

[redsturgeon]

Some things are supposed to be raw and real and rock and roll is one of those things.

Art is another, painting, sculpture, poetry, literature all can be as real and raw as you like or a prissy as the artist wishes it to be.

I have few issues with any of it.

John

[Lootman]

Erm... I'm pretty sure (having read Mick's take on it) that's not why they've dropped it

Supposedly it was this slavery reference:

Gold Coast slave ship bound for cotton fields
Sold in the market down in New Orleans
Skydog slaver know he's doin' all right
Hear him whip the women, just around midnight

On that basis we should ban any number of well known novels and films, starting with Gone With The Wind. Most of the William Faulkner works would go as well. Once you start on the slippery slope of political correctness, it is hard to know how much art will survive such scrutiny.

it was their decision to withdraw a song celebrating the joys of rape because they thought it might affect their revenue
- probably why they dropped the original "Black Puss*y" title back at the time

Wouldn't have had you pegged as a stones fan given previous comments

Seen them twice albeit 25 years apart. Probably am due another before they die off.

If the "previous comment" was the one I am thinking of then you totally misunderstood my point.

[servodude]

Seen them twice albeit 25 years apart. Probably am due another before they die off.

If you've seen the Charlie tribute concert footage you'd probably change your mind

Strange to think that the merch' from the tour I saw in the late 80's has popped up in the fashion stores for young ladies as retro chic - but it has (and the younger kid is presently wearing a "Day at the Races" T-shirt that she got last week )
- must be getting old

- sd

[Lootman]

Seen them twice albeit 25 years apart. Probably am due another before they die off.

If you've seen the Charlie tribute concert footage you'd probably change your mind

Strange to think that the merch' from the tour I saw in the late 80's has popped up in the fashion stores for young ladies as retro chic - but it has (and the younger kid is presently wearing a "Day at the Races" T-shirt that she got last week )
- must be getting old

Re Charlie I was sitting in the BA First lounge at Heathrow around 2004 and as it happens the manager of the Stones was sitting across from me. I cannot help but hear him on the phone telling someone that they were going public that Watts had throat cancer.

It all worked out but he probably should have been more discreet. Ironic that he is still going at age 80 or so but then again who would have thought that Keef would still be around? Have you read his biography> Quite brilliant.

[servodude]

Seen them twice albeit 25 years apart. Probably am due another before they die off.

If you've seen the Charlie tribute concert footage you'd probably change your mind

Strange to think that the merch' from the tour I saw in the late 80's has popped up in the fashion stores for young ladies as retro chic - but it has (and the younger kid is presently wearing a "Day at the Races" T-shirt that she got last week )
- must be getting old

Re Charlie I was sitting in the BA First lounge at Heathrow around 2004 and as it happens the manager of the Stones was sitting across from me. I cannot help but hear him on the phone telling someone that they were going public that Watts had throat cancer.

It all worked out but he probably should have been more discreet. Ironic that he is still going at age 80 or so but then again who would have thought that Keef would still be around? Have you read his biography> Quite brilliant.

Life?
- yup it's a goodun