The “F” Word
The CBC reports censoring the past: “The 1980s song Money for Nothing by the British rock band Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio.”
The original studio version, which many think is titled “I want my MTV” because of the background vocal by Sting, does, indeed, use the word “faggot” in an offensive manner, which makes more sense if you see the video that goes with it, as the video is also stereotyping the working class.
I would note that Mark Knopfler still performs the song, and he doesn’t use the “f” word in recent performances. The original is a bit of history that help to boost the music video [and MTV] as a separate genre until it exploded when Michael Jackson hit the scene.
3 comments
I’ll just point out that it has *never* played in uncensored form on American radio. You had to watch the video on MTV to get the uncensored version. The surprising thing is that Canadian radio ever played the uncensored version at all — not that they have suddenly decided it needs censoring.
– Badtux the Radio Penguin
Like books, they get records and other things from the UK, where it wouldn’t be censored. I don’t know that I have ever actually heard it on the radio, but if I did, I would have “heard” the word automatically. I had cable when MTV launched because I worked 3-11pm and that was the only way to get anything worth watching on television.
And we had cable when MTV launched because we were living in a small city in Louisiana that had one (1) television station. If you aimed your rabbit ears just right you could pick up some of the Baton Rouge and New Orleans stations (albeit with every show looking as if it were in the middle of a blizzard 😉 ), but it wasn’t worth it when cable was $7.95 per month *with* the converter box for the dozens of channels ($5.95 per month for just basic cable).
And now I’m sounding like the old coots talking about how they used to get a cup of coffee or a Coke for a nickel … :).
– Badtux the Antique Penguin