Aw Shucks: Softened Swears in Song

Number One on the Billboard chart the day I was born!

 

Alice in Chains' Hate To Feel:

All this time I swore I'd never
Be like my old man
What the hey it's time to face
Exactly what I am

(Although there's some f#cks and sh#ts as well)

 

A perfect example on one of the biggest albums of all time.

 

Not a stretch, seems legit to me.

 

Weezer's Pork and Beans prominently features the line, "I don't give a hoot."

 

Some examples here, like this Everly Brothers song, are not a softening of the lyrics - that was the way the lyrics were written. There isn't a version of All I Have To Do Is Dream that says ""Only trouble is, s**t yeah, I'm dreaming my life away."

Same for Roger Miller's Dang Me - it was never called "F**k Me".

Shane MacGowan always sounds drunk.

 

Eminem's "My Name Is" was of course heavily censored for radio play, and the line "I just drank a fifth of vodka, dare me to drive?" was changed to "I just drank a fifth of kool aid" which I thought was much funnier than the vodka line, and was disappointed it wasn't that way on the CD.

 

In “Finishing the Hat” Sondheim says Columbia Records turned down the originally proposed lyric, because it would make it illegal to ship copies of the album across state lines. He adds that it was actually Bernstein who came up with Krup, and describes it as maybe the best lyric in the show.

 

"Honkin' down the gosh darn highway". I never warmed up to most songs off The Beach Boys Love You -and this type of childish lyric is one of the reasons.

 

There is also a censored version of "Straight Outta Compton" where NWA came up with substitute lyrics for every one of the original album's naughty references. Except the song about the police which is axed altogether.

 

Dean Martin's ' Memories are Made of This ' for me.
Just in case you were wondering....

 

No, of course it wasn't.
Dang is a euphemism for damn.

 

Well, I'm always glad to find someone even older than I am!

Big fan of Johnny Cash's version on his second American Recordings album, Unchained:

 

"Now I'm lost, so goldurn lost, not even God can find me" - They Call The Wind Mariah

 

It was only recently that I learned that many modern pop artists put out clean versions of their albums. And on spotify, at least on a computer, there is an option to see other versions of an album which leads to the clean one. Now, sometimes the music is just censored. For instance, I haven't found any Miley Cyrus songs where she recorded a replacement word. But for Demi Lovato's explicit songs, it's about half and half: some have the vocals muted and others have a new word dropped in. Perhaps the silliest example, not to mention the one that really fits this thread, is the clean version of Sorry Not Sorry, where payback is a "bad chick."

 

Oh my, really??? Interesting. I think, based on some comments I’ve read from him, that his beliefs (very clear if you pay attention to some of this lyrics) collided with the industry. He hit it big with his Cool Night album on Arista. No doubt Clive Davis (label head and no relation to Paul as far as I know) approved a follow up. Davis walked away from the industry. I know Clive could get very involved with what an artist was allowed to release on Arista. Anyway, I’ll have to listen to that track you mentioned closely. If there was ever an artist where all you needed was a compilation, however, it was Paul! His albums are hard to get through (though Cool Night is decent) as his hits were awesome, but the other tracks really came off as filler. And that Ride ‘em Cowboy album was really tough! But the title track is one of my favorite songs!

 

Always found this hilarious in "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers.

"Now they're going to bed
And my stomach is sick
And it's all in my head
But she's touching his...chest"

 

Radiohead - Creep: “so very special” vs. “so f-ing special”.

Beautiful South: “Don’t marry her, have me” vs. “don’t marry her, f- me”.

Both alternative polite versions for radio.

I suspect this thread is breaking the forum rule re profanities…

 

But the song was never called "Damn Me".

It wasn't a softening of the lyrics because the lyrics were written with "dang" for the rhyme with "hang".

 

I like when Sammy Davis Jr., in one of his '60s concert performances with the Rat Pack, starts singing:

Love Walked In
And scared the sh-h-h-h-h-h-hadows away . . .

 

"The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton, in an era (1959) when "hell" was verboten on radio except in fire-and-brimstone sermons.

"Then we opened up our squirrel guns and really gave 'em -- well, we ..."

 

"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover" by Sophie B. Hawkins uses "damn" throughout, but on the lengthened chorus she sings "Shucks, to me there is no other"

 

It's "F-ck all that" on the album.

 

B.B. King & Bobby Bland "Let the Good Times Roll" live at Coconut Grove, LA 1976 - Bobby Bland throws in a "shucks" twice.

If I ever have a band, I'm gonna call it Elastic Stereo

It's hard out here for a... bitch chick
And of course there's Cee Lo Green's "Forget You" a.k.a. "F*** You"

 

What about the “SOB” line? Did they censor that as well?