Political correctness strikes the music industry ... well, sort of.

[old_tony]

You can still call women "******* and ***s," in rap. But you can't use a certain word to describe an effeminite man.

I just got a new iPod this week and am downloading boatloads of my CDs into it. I've reached the "Very Best of Dire Straits" CD and am reminded now that in the song "Money For Nothing" on the disc, the verse "The little faggot with the ear-ring and the make up, yeah, buddy, that's his own hair. That little faggot's got his own jet airplane. That little faggot is a millionaire" has been eliminated from the song. It's nowhere to be found.

Anyone else have the disc and noticed this?

 

[Angola!]

No.
But that is annoying that music is being edited.

As far as your thread title, should a Republican ever be talking about political correctness? Isn't that an oxymoron?

 

[old_tony]

No.
But that is annoying that music is being edited.

As far as your thread title, should a Republican ever be talking about political correctness? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I'm a conservative, not a Republican. Never, ever registered as one and don't intend to. But political correctness has always been something the left had hoisted upon us, not the right.

 

[Angola!]

No.
But that is annoying that music is being edited.

As far as your thread title, should a Republican ever be talking about political correctness? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I'm a conservative, not a Republican. Never, ever registered as one and don't intend to. But political correctness has always been something the left had hoisted upon us, not the right.

I just knew you were on the right of me, nothing more. As far as political correctness, I always thought it was the right. Oh well. At any rate, your music shouldn't have been changed no matter what party you look toward and no matter what side of the fence you lean on over good/bad music.

 

[old_tony]

No.
But that is annoying that music is being edited.

As far as your thread title, should a Republican ever be talking about political correctness? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I'm a conservative, not a Republican. Never, ever registered as one and don't intend to. But political correctness has always been something the left had hoisted upon us, not the right.

I just knew you were on the right of me, nothing more. As far as political correctness, I always thought it was the right. Oh well. At any rate, your music shouldn't have been changed no matter what party you look toward and no matter what side of the fence you lean on over good/bad music.

I'm definitely right of you, that much I've gathered. But I will say you're interesting and not one to sit and lob insults and I appreciate that. Couldn't agree with you more about how the song shouldn't have been changed. As my own form of protest, I'm deliting the song from my iTunes and will only listen to some of the other songs of theirs.

It reminds me, too, of an old Nat King Cole/Dean Martin song (I have the Nat King Cole 100-song box set) called "Open up the Dog House (Two Cats are Coming in). There's a point where they're bantering back and forth about their women and how they can't let the women get the upper hand, and Dean Martin says, "We gotta slap 'em!" And I'm thinking, "Wow, there's no way this song would be allowed to be played on the radio nowadays." A very different time (and I'm very glad that time is long behind).

 

[Double Down]

It sounds like, from the song's wikipedia entry, that Mark Knoffler was just sick of taking **** over the song, and edited it out of future recordings. I think he makes a good point here in a RS interview:

I got an objection from the editor of a gay newspaper in London - he actually said it was below the belt. Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings - you have to be direct. In fact, I'm still in two minds as to whether it's a good idea to write songs that aren't in the first person, to take on other characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_for_Nothing_(song)


It's interesting how many people fail to understand that people don't always write songs or books from first-person perspective. Philip Roth's characters may hate women, but it doesn't mean Philip Roth does. (Oddly, the same it true of Eminem, though you can probably get carried away trying to deconstruct the layers of Marshall Mathers that may not actually even exist.)

 

[old_tony]

It sounds like, from the song's wikipedia entry, that Mark Knoffler was just sick of taking **** over the song, and edited it out of future recordings. I think he makes a good point here in a RS interview:

I got an objection from the editor of a gay newspaper in London - he actually said it was below the belt. Apart from the fact that there are stupid gay people as well as stupid other people, it suggests that maybe you can't let it have so many meanings - you have to be direct. In fact, I'm still in two minds as to whether it's a good idea to write songs that aren't in the first person, to take on other characters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_for_Nothing_(song)


It's interesting how many people fail to understand that people don't always write songs or books from first-person perspective. Philip Roth's characters may hate women, but it doesn't mean Philip Roth does. (Oddly, the same it true of Eminem, though you can probably get carried away trying to deconstruct the layers of Marshall Mathers that may not actually even exist.)

Interesting. Thanks for the info. Although I would think Knoffler could just as easily have used a single different word (such as the Wikipedia entry notes "mother" was used in some versions) -- maybe weirdo or something else along those lines -- instead of just taking out the whole verse.

 

[DyePack]

I think too many people are dumb. Anyone who listens to that and thinks Knopfler is singing his point of view is a ****tard, and he should have said that to the moron who criticized him.

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

No.
But that is annoying that music is being edited.

As far as your thread title, should a Republican ever be talking about political correctness? Isn't that an oxymoron?

I'm a conservative, not a Republican. Never, ever registered as one and don't intend to. But political correctness has always been something the left had hoisted upon us, not the right.

A little history. "Political correctness" was a term used ironically by members of the New Left of the 1960's on people in their own groups who were humorlessly devout in their politics. It became a term of art -- and a cudgel -- when that truthless wingnut welfare case Dinesh D'Souza applied it in a book to things that were happening in academia. It quickly morphed from that to a handy excuse if you want to be the same kind of ignorant bigot your grandparents were. As for "political correctness" being a tool exclusively of The Left, and for examples with real-world consequences, I would suggest you consult the encyclopedia under "Palmer, A. Mitchell," "McCarran, Patrick," "McCarthy, Joseph," "Hoover, J. Edgar," "COINTELPRO Program," and "Chicks, Dixie."
As to the question at hand, my CD has all the lyrics. This is stupid and patronizing by whoever's responsible, the Huck Finn fight all over again.

 

[Starving Journalist]

I don't have much love for political correctness. It pretty much says screw you to the first amendment, the same amendment that gives us our jobs.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

It's been years and years, but I could have sworn there was a radio edit of that song when it was first released that left out that lyric. I also remember Tom Petty's "Last Dance for Mary Jane" had a radio edit that left out "let's roll another joint" from the chorus.

 

[DyePack]

There was. I didn't know that line existed for years because the radio never played it and MTV wasn't part of the cable system at that time.

I think that's a different Tom Petty song, though, with that line, and I've always heard it when the radio plays the song.

"U Don't Know How It Feels"

 

[Inky_Wretch]

Yep, you're right, I confused Petty songs.

 

[writing irish]

Dire Straits blow goats, but the lyric should stand. The whole world should know how stupid the song was in its original incarnation. More importantly, I disagree with censoring music.

And let's leave the "PC" red herring out of it, please.

Funny cartoon I saw back in the 1990s: two people in a suburban front yard. In the background, a cross is burning. At left is a man with a tight-lipped look of disgust. Facing him at right is a man in KKK garb who is gesturing as if speaking. The caption: "Oh, I suppose I'm not being politically correct!"

 

[DyePack]

I was OK with the song until MTV started running it into the ground.

Now that MTV is down to recycling the same programming about juveniles, I can listen to it again.

 

[ifilus]

So what's new about this? Political correctness/censorship struck the music industry decades ago. See: Domino, Fats/Boone, Pat .

 

[farmerjerome]

Say what you want about Dire Straights, but Mark Knoffler has a new CD out that's not that bad. The duet with Emmylou Harris is pretty good.

 

[JR]

Dire Straits blow goats, but the lyric should stand. The whole world should know how stupid the song was in its original incarnation. More importantly, I disagree with censoring music.

And let's leave the "PC" red herring out of it, please.

Funny cartoon I saw back in the 1990s: two people in a suburban front yard. In the background, a cross is burning. At left is a man with a tight-lipped look of disgust. Facing him at right is a man in KKK garb who is gesturing as if speaking. The caption: "Oh, I suppose I'm not being politically correct!"

Yeah, as has been pointed out on many other threads, the people who complain about "political correctness" are usually the ones who just made a blatant racist, sexist or homophobic statement and think there's nothing wrong with it.

It's got nothing to do with freedom of speech but everything to do with being a mouth-breathing doofus.

 

[BYH]

There was. I didn't know that line existed for years because the radio never played it and MTV wasn't part of the cable system at that time.

I think that's a different Tom Petty song, though, with that line, and I've always heard it when the radio plays the song.

"U Don't Know How It Feels"

So let's get...to the point...let's roll...anotherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....