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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To wonder why this song is still ok to play on the radio

463 replies

CoedynSbageti · 14/01/2018 12:57

Jealous Guy

Written and performed by a man who admitted he was violent towards women.

Just that really.

OP posts:
starzig · 14/01/2018 16:17

Seriously. Get a grip OP. it's just a song

TinklyLittleLaugh · 14/01/2018 16:18

Hmm, that's interesting Curious and confirms my view that Roxy Music are completely overrated and Bryan Ferry is a bit of a dick really.

Andrewofgg · 14/01/2018 16:18

If the late lamented Victoria Wood were still with us and wrote the Ballad of Barry and Freda now the line Beat me on the bottom with a woman's weekly would have to go, wouldn't it?

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 16:19

Sorry Betty... I was enjoying the melodrama of taking to absurdist heights!

Then again, we are due another Mary Whitehouse, aren't we. We have had much in the way of Public Morals as Rallying Cry recently.

poetry Would you prefer to be a pilgrim? Smile

Who so beset him round
with dismal stories
do but themselves confound
his strength the more is.

or... the more you try to drown me in sad, moralistic twaddle the more scurrilous I will be Grin

Original poster
CoedynSbageti · 14/01/2018 16:22

Wow! I so wish I'd posted a thread saying that songs with criminal/violent lyrics or performed by an artist who was criminal/violent should be banned. It would have been my most replied to thread ever!

However, I did not post that thread so I am curious as to why so many of you have replied thinking that I had..... Hmm

OP posts:
TheMathsTrainee · 14/01/2018 16:23

Yabvu with such ❄️ attitude. Much bigger things to worry about and be offended over in life.

Original poster
CoedynSbageti · 14/01/2018 16:24
Grin
OP posts:
TinklyLittleLaugh · 14/01/2018 16:25

Notevil thanks for that snippet of interview; I'd only ever read that John Lennon was a nasty wife beater, not that he'd completely admitted it and apologised. It's made me want to know a bit more about him as a person. Sounds like he changed and grew a lot.

Xmaspuddingdisaster · 14/01/2018 16:25

Victoria would be fine, Andrew unless she was singing about beating you on the bottom with a woman’s weekly.

It’s a consent thing Wink

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 16:27

Coedyn Given that some have complained about songs that don't say what they think they say, I think YABVVU to expect anything else Smile

Though, to be fair, you did ask why such songs got air play. Taking songs off air is analogous to banning them.

Andrewofgg · 14/01/2018 16:29

I don't agree, Xmaspuddingdisaster - someone would complain that it was glorifying or perhaps normalising domestic violence.

Rubies12345 · 14/01/2018 16:31

You know that song:

"Please don't bother trying to find her, she's not there"

Is that because he murdered her, I always wondered that.

SheGotBetteDavisEyes · 14/01/2018 16:31

How do you judge? Who gets to choose and why do we need to be protected?

It's not going to happen. It's just an exploratory debate.

It's interesting that you said about the need to be 'protected' from controversial lyrics though. My take on it is more about not promoting or normalising misogyny to another generation.

Creative output will always be there to be discussed and referenced and have it's value measured, but do we need songs promoted on the radio, making money for someone, when the content is about beating up/controlling women?

Original poster
CoedynSbageti · 14/01/2018 16:32

Curious do you think it's worth mentioning again that I was wondering about the fact that someone who was violent wrote a song which sounds as though it is excusing said violence? Or do you think that people just don't want to answer that particular question? Grin

OP posts:
SheGotBetteDavisEyes · 14/01/2018 16:33

Sorry Betty... I was enjoying the melodrama of taking to absurdist heights!

Oh I've been there and done that myself Grin

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 16:40

You know that song:

"Please don't bother trying to find her, she's not there"

Is that because he murdered her, I always wondered that.

S'OK. She wouldn't dead for long... it was by The Zombies Grin

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 16:41

Or do you think that people just don't want to answer that particular question? Again, my apologies. I have hit an absurdist vein and am making light of your question... but you could be right, no one wants to consider it too much!

colleysmill · 14/01/2018 16:43

What I can't always understand are the double standards applied. Some artists do appalling things and still get their music played. Other do similar or less awful things and are never heard on radio again.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 16:47

Could be true then... the devil, nasty people, do get all the good music!

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 14/01/2018 16:48

So many songs that have inappropriate lyrics are still played on the radio though.
In the Summertime is one of the ones that sticks in my throat the most:
In the summertime when the weather is hot
You can stretch right up and touch the sky
When the weather's fine
You got women, you got women on your mind
Have a drink, have a drive
Go out and see what you can find
If her daddy's rich take her out for a meal
If her daddy's poor just do what you feel...

So - you need to chat her up nicely before you have sex with her if her Daddy's likely to take you to court, but if he can't afford it then off you go and rape her because there'll be no come back.
That's how I read that.

Brown sugar - ugh.

THing is, those lyrics don't come from nowhere - that's probably how those writers felt about things. John Lennon said that he wrote songs almost like a kind of diary - he was writing from his personal experience - I expect that's true of a lot of other songwriters too.

That would mean a lot of songs would have to be removed from playlists.

Justanotherlurker · 14/01/2018 16:50

Some artists do appalling things and still get their music played. Other do similar or less awful things and are never heard on radio again.

Unfortunately depends on the artist, if in the keeping of the OP the musician writes/preforms their own songs and has an established career it kind of gets glossed over, if its some face for the pop machine they can easily be discarded.

Pretty much the same with Hollywood, Roman Polanski etc

Again, my apologies. I have hit an absurdist vein and am making light of your question... but you could be right, no one wants to consider it too much!

I think people are considering it but are highlighting the slippery slope argument, what outcome do you want, you have already said you do not want to ban it and where do you draw the line?

morningconstitutional2017 · 14/01/2018 16:57

If we want to get upset how about 'Imagine' by John Lennon which contains the line, 'imagine no possessions' whilst he and Yoko lived in a very large Grade II listed mansion?

For all that, I do love that song and 'Jealous Guy' so I put those thoughts aside.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 14/01/2018 17:00

you have already said you do not want to ban it Me? I haven't said that, have I?

I would draw the line in the same place the law would. Exhorting people to violence, violent specifics... the existing laws on indecency etc.

Apart from that, as I know I have said, as far as I am concerned poets, authors, song writers all explore the human condition, that is what most acts of creativity do. I may avoid, dislike, feel revulsion, but that is my reaction, not a reason to ban anything!

I know it will happen, this generation haven't had one, there will be a new Public Decency debate. It will be as loud and puritanical as every one that came before! But it won't stop such music re-emerging.

I don't think it should either!

AlmondPearls · 14/01/2018 17:06

So should they just not be played on the radio if they promote violence against women, but not banned completely? E.g. people would still be able to download the music and buy the album etc, which would still be generating money for the artist... Or should they earn no money of such a song at all, fullstop?

(To pp saying about earning money out of promoting the violence etc)

Amoregentlemanlikemanner · 14/01/2018 17:11

"Imagine if all of a musician's songs were banned as soon as they were convicted of a violent act...

I am ALL FOR that"

Actually, going forward that might work!

OP I do not think there is any reference to violence in the song you chose so it's an odd example. But it is interesting to think about.

I think the real solution is to have more songs that are genuinely written with a "female gaze", say 50%

"I remember my finest hour
The one I spent watching you shower"