It Goes Too Far

I've been sightly obsessed with Adele lately, so when "Rolling in the Deep" came on the radio last week, I turned it up and started to sing along (no fear...I was in the car alone!).

"Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your sqbzhhk bare..."

"What???"  I thought, probably out loud.  "It says SHIP!  They bleeped SHIP?"  Apparently, the reference to piracy was lost on someone.

My curiosity got the better of me and I emailed the station director:

Rolling in the Deep
"I'm curious as to why this song is censored. The line is actually, 'I'll lay your SHIP bare,' which is a reference to piracy. It's blanked out so it sounds like "I'll lay your sh-- bare.'  Political correctness gone a bit far, no?"

Re: Rolling in the Deep
"Good question.  You'd have to ask Columbia Records.  We play the single version that they released."

Seriously, Columbia?  Did someone actually think it said "sh-t"?  Or did they fear calls from parents?

"Columbia Records"

"Yes, I thought songs containing four-letter words couldn't be played on the radio, but that Adele song says, well, the naughty version of 'shoot'.  And now my daughter's singing along to it!"

"Ma'am, the song actually says 'ship,' 'laying a ship bare' is reference to piracy and pillaging.  Tell your daughter to sing 'ship'.  Have a nice day."

It isn't as if there aren't other, more indecent sounding songs out there?  I mean, am I the only one who never really hears "deuce" in "Blinded By the Light?"

Even if a song did include sh-t, as Eric Cartman would say, what's the big f-cking deal?  Are we really pretending that those words aren't heard by most people on a daily basis?  ("Not my kids!" you say.  Do they go to school, or worse, ride a school bus?  Case closed.)

I remember it being a big deal in the mid-1990s when then-racy TV show NYPD Blue uttered the word sh-t.  Oh, it made headlines.  Never mind the fact that it had shown shootings, homicides, sex, and Dennis Franz's butt (why, oh why, did we get his posterior over Jimmy Smits'?), but sh-t was something to talk about.

Later, in its fifth season, a South Park episode titled "It Hits The Fan" sh-t was uttered 162 times and written 38 times, bringing the total number of sh-ts to 200, or roughly one every eight seconds.  Of course, it caused uproar, but South Park thrives on this.  (For anyone who agrees with Mrs. Broflovski that South Park is just foul language and toilet humor...give it a try, it really is a brilliant, satirical social commentary.)

So we said sh-t a few times on TV, we're still bleeping it out of songs, but why?  Probably because the literal meaning is "feces," and the FCC has declared "any language that pertains to sexual or excretory functions" as indecent speech.  We can't laugh about it or use it as a curse, yet there is no limit to laxative commercials on air.  Wholesome grannies talk about "fiber regularity" as a euphemism for the fact that a healthy person sh-ts once a day and may need some diet adjustments if they don't.  When TV or movie characters hire dog walkers, they're portrayed as taking Fido out for a stroll; never mind that the real goal is taking him outside so he doesn't sh-t in the house and then picking it up in a bag.  Sh-tting is a normal function of a healthy animal of any sort, as regular as sleeping and eating, yet it's so taboo that it can't be referenced on TV.  Very silly, indeed.

Yes, there are more words whose connotations are more overtly sexual and/or violent.  Some cautions need to be put into place so children (and teenagers, and some adults) don't get the idea that it's OK to be obscene and indecent all the time.

Oh sh-t, never mind.  They're watching Jersey Shore.