Drinking Cherry Cola in Unmarked Cars

Introduction

This was a story from my Seven Days In blog that was about some of the odd censorship of music by the BBC and the way that bands and songwriters managed to get around it.

As this is probably best in the Beat community I will add a few more words and include all the songs in here. They are all in my collection, probably several times over, and the albums at the start contain a hundred and fifty songs once banned by the BBC often for the flimsiest of reasons.

Drinking Cherry Cola in Unmarked Cars

I don't know what put this into my head, possibly the fact that the BBC (and virtually all the media, see here) had reported that the outcome of the meeting between Angela Merkel and that dangerous clown Boris Johnson was that the UK had thirty days to sort out the Brexit backstop when what she had said was a sarcastic comment that it might be thirty days or two years to sort out the backstop, but I cannot find any trace of that, all the media just mentions the thirty days, but really these days, generally we can't trust what's being said.

This made me think of when the BBC were so anti-product placement that songs had their lyrics changed to ensure they weren't banned from the radio. One example was the Kinks' "Lola" which was fine addressing gender fluidity in majorly homophobic times but Coca-Cola was an absolute no no and had to be changed to Cherry Cola, the irony being that there is now Cherry flavoured Coca-Cola (and lots of other atrocious flavours), I wonder if "Lola" gave them the idea?

Then when Mott The Hoople were going to call it a day David Bowie gave them "All The Young Dudes" which kicked off their singles sales but was only approved when the line "And Wendy's stealing clothes from Marks & Sparks" became And Wendy's stealing clothes from unmarked cars" although eventually the original words were restored.

Again the censors didn't like that but let through:

"But she never lost her head

Even when she was giving head"

again addressing trans and sexuality in Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side" a hit single from the Bowie-produced album "Transformer".

So I'll leave you to savour "All The Young Dudes" but seriously check out the rest of the songs.

I can't remember when the BBC started allowing products to be mentioned but there were still a few records that were maybe not given as much exposure.

I remember Mike Read having a fit and banning Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Relax" because of the words

Relax, don't do it

When you wanna go do it

Relax, don't do it

When you wanna come

The result of which was the records shot straight to number one on the charts.

While the lyrics consisted of a single-entendre it was hardly as challenging as Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin's "Je t'aime... moi non plus" in the sixties.

And from that, we move on to the more than suggestive reggae songs like Max Romeo's "Wet Dream" which he insisted was about a leaky roof. Have a listen and see what you think.

Then an Englishman who called himself Judge Dread released a series of saucy cheap reggae songs which were the word "Big" followed by a number. This was "Big Seven"

Conclusion

I hope my music examples have not caused offence, some of them are funny and I found what they did with "Lola" and "All The Young Dudes" ridiculously funny although they are both great records.

Thank you so much for reading and listening.