Should we all shut up?? what is free speech?

Popular music and bans ...............

Leaders of the banned

Not so long ago, Radio 1 would refuse to play a record considered 'morbid'. Now, says Alexis Petridis, even blatant celebration of drugs is just fine

Friday April 12, 2002
The Guardian

Frankie Goes To Hollywood
Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Anyone searching for a quick pop-cultural example of how British attitudes have changed in recent years could do worse than tune into Radio 1 today. At some point, you are liable to hear rapper Missy Elliott's current single 4 My People. Not a surprising event in itself - the record is a top 10 hit - until, that is, the song reaches its chorus. "This is for my people, for my party people," sings Elliott. "This is for my people, my ecstasy people."

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Fifteen years ago, Elliott's rather feeble protests that the song has nothing to do with drugs would have counted for nothing. The single would have been landed with what was perhaps the most credibility-enhancing censure in pop music: it would have been banned by the BBC.

The airtime afforded Elliott's single is not the only indication that an era in British pop has passed, almost imperceptibly. At the end of last year, Radio 1 playlisted Afroman's number one hit Because I Got High, ostensibly an anti-drug record that did a pretty good job of sounding like a four-minute advert for marijuana.

At around the same time, anyone listening to Radio 1's indie show, the Evening Session, might have been surprised to hear, uncensored, the second single by Wigan hopefuls The Music: You Might As Well Try and **** Me. For years, banning records was part of the fabric of pop life in Britain, as much a Radio 1 institution as Simon Bates's Our Tune and Dave Lee Travis's deathless quiz Give Us a Break. Now, according to Alex Jones-Donnelly, Radio 1's music policy editor, it simply doesn't happen any more.

"There was certainly no meeting round a table where people said, let's stop banning records," says Jones-Donnelly. "It just became quite evident that the way to deal with these things was via a proper playlist process. Today, it's not a question of banning records, but deciding whether records are relevant to our listeners or not."

"Thinly veiled" drug references make it through, he says, because "Radio 1 runs major drug campaigns two or three times a year, but young people in the UK consume drugs every day. If we are too judgmental about drug references in songs, young people won't respond to the drug information campaigns we run." Bad language can be dealt with by editing - "although we're not in the habit of taking a piece of work and butchering it" - or confined to "some of the specialist shows, later at night, when it's easier to contextualise these records and the audience knows what to expect."

Even a record once considered a threat to the very fabric of British society has been given the green light. Twenty-five years ago, the vaguely republican sentiments of the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen were considered "against good taste and decency, likely to encourage or incite to crime, or lead to disorder". It became the most heavily censored record in British history, subjected to a blanket ban by the BBC and all independent radio stations. This year, a Golden Jubilee remix of the single by dance duo Leftfield has already been played by Radio 1. "It's a matter of changing values," Jones-Donnelly says.

With his talk of contextualisation and "letting the music speak for itself", Jones-Donnelly frequently sounds more like the director of a liberal arts project than a blue-pencil-wielding censor. The policy seems eminently sensible, which only highlights its disparity from decades of previous BBC thinking. In the 1950s and 60s, pop music was subject to the sort of high-minded stringency that would have pleased BBC founder Lord Reith, a man who once refused to allow a divorcee to play the violin on the radio. Records were denied airplay for the most arcane reasons imaginable. Future Are You Being Served? star Mike Berry's 1961 single Tribute to Buddy Holly was banned for displaying a "morbid concern" for the late rock'n'roller. A long-forgotten and entirely preposterous record, The Moontrekkers' Night of the Vampire, was "unsuitable for those of a nervous disposition". Even Cockney skiffle singer Lonnie Donegan, hardly rock's most lubricious figure, fell foul of the censors with Diggin' My Potatoes, a song deemed overly suggestive.

There was little loosening up when Radio 1 arrived in 1967. For two decades, the BBC's voice of youth enforced a moral code that your average Victorian aunt would have thought strait-laced. Sex and swearing were out. So were vague suggestionsof drug use - the word "high" was a particular bugbear - and anything too political or mentioning a brand name.

Any Daily Mail readers looking for a scapegoat on whom to pin the BBC's new-found liberalism could consider former Radio 1 DJs Mike Read, who famously worked himself up into a puritanical lather over Frankie Goes to Hollywood's Relax, and Peter Powell, who in 1988 declared a one-man crusade against the entire genre of acid house ("the closest thing to mass organised zombiedom - I really don't think it should go any further"). Both stances were adopted by the whole station, but Read and Powell's self-righteous campaigns sounded the death knell for the culture of banning records. They left Radio 1 looking reactionary and hopelessly out of step with public mood.

Now Radio 1 has shifted from dictating moral standards to attempting to reflect the nation's mood - hence the temporary removal of records liable to cause offence in the wake of September 11. So is there anything a major artist can do these days to feel the frisson of anti-establishment cool that once came in the wake of a BBC ban? Apparently not, unless they are willing to make a record "promoting racial hatred or certain sexual practices". What if Robbie Williams made a record attacking the Queen Mum? Would Radio 1 play that?

"If we thought there was value in the music and performance, we would examine the lyrical content, seek a view from the artist as to why he has made that statement and then decide whether we would play it. If it ticked all the right boxes musically, we could consider where or in what form it would be appropriate," says Jones-Donnelly, adding cautiously: "It would be a bit difficult to play it this week. That might seem a bit insensitive."

The way things were: top 10 censored tunes

Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans (1943) by Noël Coward

Banned by public demand. Coward's satire on the pacifist movement was initially played by the BBC, but airplay was stopped after a stream of complaints: listeners who had survived the Luftwaffe were presumably in no mood to endure the louche ironies of a velvet-jacketed fop.

A Day in the Life (1967) by the Beatles

Sgt Pepper was an album obviously influenced by drugs, yet largely devoid of direct drug references. Unsure of how to respond, the BBC arbitrarily banned both Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and the album's epic closing track for promoting LSD, lending the album even more countercultural cool.

Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus) (1969) by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin

The quintessential banned record: its notoriety took it to number one. Arbiters of decency were horrifed by Birkin's heavy breathing, not the line "je vais et je veins entre tes reins" ("I come and go between your kidneys"), which allegedly referred to sodomy.

Lola (1970) by the Kinks

Again missing the forest for the trees, the BBC banned Lola not because the song was about transvestism, but because the lyrics contained a forbidden reference to Coca-Cola. Singer Ray Davies was forced to fly 6,000 miles from Los Angeles to London to re-record the song, omitting the offending product placement.

Give Ireland Back to the Irish (1972) by Paul McCartney and Wings

"Great Britain, you are tremendous and nobody knows like me, but really what are you doing in the land across the sea?" It may be the most mild-mannered protest song in rock history, but it managed to fall foul of BBC censors after Bloody Sunday.

Honky Tonk Angel (1973) by Cliff Richard

Perhaps the only record in history to be banned by the artist who made it. When he recorded the single, Richard apparently had no idea that he was singing about prostitution. When the true meaning was pointed out, God's favourite crooner had the record hastily withdrawn.

God Save the Queen (1977) by the Sex Pistols

Not so much banned as subjected to a shameful nationwide conspiracy to prevent anybody criticising the Silver Jubilee. No radio station would play it, high street stores refused to stock it or even list it on the charts, and the British Phonographic Industry intervened to prevent it becoming number one. "The fascist regime", indeed.

So What? (1981) by the Anti-Nowhere League

After the Sex Pistols, a ban became a punk badge of honour - hence this from the briefly and bafflingly popular Tunbridge Wells quartet. "I've fucked a sheep, I've fucked a goat," sang vocalist "Animal", colourfully. "I've had my cock right down its throat." Not just banned, but seized by the Obscene Publications Squad.

Relax (1984) by Frankie Goes to Hollywood

Radio 1 had happily played Frankie's debut single before Breakfast Show DJ and self-appointed moral guardian Mike Read noted its punning use of the word "come". The record hurtled to number one, while Read was last spotted sharing a platform with William Hague at a pre-election Tory party rally.

We Call It Acieed (1988) by D-Mob

Such was Radio 1's urgency to respond to tabloid hysteria about the popularity of acid house that even D-Mob's We Call It Acieed, an implausibly stupid anti-drug novelty record that no self-respecting raver would give house room to, was denied airplay. It went to number 4.

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words they cannot hurt me.

I think thats a good philosophy

Do you think there can be an absolute freedom of speech?? where do we draw the lines?

The outlawing of censorship. However, it is not and should not be unlimited.


As long as it is meaningful or harmless. Others are questionable.


Those who think that our speech is both meaningless politically and harmful.


It does not depend on who says it, but rather, what they say.


I am rational.


If it is meaningful. "I hate group G and should be slaughtered" is very meaningless, and is potentially harmful. However, "Group G has qualities Q1, Q2, Q3, ..., QN" is not meaningless and should be allowed, even if harmful.

But things should remain truthful, too. And people cannot promote illegal activities either.


It has gone mad if we cannot criticize ideas. Islam and all other religions are sets of ideas. And criticizing ideas should be okay too. If we cannot, we have lost the fundamental right.

There, I have summed up what right we must have as a result of the freedom of speech. We must have the idea to criticize ideas. We must have the idea to propose meaningful intellectual ideas. If we lose the right to criticize ideas like Islam, we have lost the right to free speech.

The freedom of speech, however, is not and ought not be unlimited. Some things are meaningless and/or harmful, and should not be allowed. Our civil liberties are not being trampled on if we cannot support illegal activities or something harmful meaninglessly.

Thanks for you contribution some question for you........

'The outlawing of censorship. However, it is not and should not be unlimited.'

What are the limits to censorships and who defines those limits governments or independent bodies or media?

Why do you believe its oay for someone to be racist about a group of people as long as they dont advocate violence them...since that would imply we allow them full access to the TV and satellite........isnt a natural by product of such hatred violence even if it is not directly advocated?

In relation to free speech, (putting aside intelligent debate) should abusive and 'sacrilegious' offence (this applies even to those who are secular i.e abusing the president, or burning/urinating on the natonal flag, or abusing the countries monarchy) should that also be permitted??

is this censorship ?
A volation of free speech??
Should these images have been banned?
Is the ban not threatening the very existence of our freedom and values?

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Artists remove Austria sex poster

Carlos Aires' poster

See the posters
Controversial images of Queen Elizabeth II, George W Bush and Jacques Chirac apparently having sex have been removed from billboards in Austria.

The posters, shown as part of a public arts project ahead of Austria's EU presidency, had provoked wide outcry.

The artists said they were withdrawing their work so as not to detract from that of others involved in the project.

Condemning what they described as "public censorship", the artists said the posters had been misunderstood.

No-one had bothered "to engage with the artistic message" of the billboards, they added.

The decision followed a meeting of the project organisers and curators on Thursday afternoon.


Pornography is in the eye of the beholder
Artist Carlos Aires

The posters were part of a series of 150 different images being flashed to motorists via billboards across Vienna.

Artists from across the EU had contributed varied works to the display, part of the 25Peaces art project which has received around 1m euros (£680,000) from the Austrian government.

The image by Spanish artist Carlos Aires, showing the naked threesome wearing rubber masks of the Queen and two presidents, caused the most controversy.

But denying his works were meant to offend, Aires told Austria's APA news agency: "Pornography is in the eye of the beholder.

"I suddenly had this image of three decision makers who are having an orgy while everything around them collapses."

'Distorted image'

Another image, of a woman lying naked on a bed except for a pair of knickers bearing the EU flag, was also condemned as pornographic.

Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel was not able to ban the posters but had appealed to the independent artists' group running the project to withdraw some of them.

In a statement, 25Peaces said: "We regret this development that totally distorted the image of the entire project."

Opposition leaders and some of Austria's media complained the images demeaned women and had embarrassed their country as it prepares to take over the rotating EU presidency on 1 January.

Other schemes in the 25Peaces project have included planting a vegetable garden on Heldenplatz - the square where Adolf Hitler announced Germany's annexation of Austria.

Fairly simple. The only limits on free speech should be deliberate incitement to stir up violence (eg kill Americans/Arabs/Jews) and maliciously endangering public safely (eg shouting fire in a theatre just for the hell of it).

Thanks for your post steve, are you saying then, its okay for people to be racist or derogatory about a particular race of people, as long as they do not incite violence???