I was just reading the wikipedia article on John Lennon's Imagine and read this part about censored versions of the song:
"Radio stations in America allegedly have been known to edit the song to remove or obscure the line "and no religion too". One station even went as far as to change the line to "and one religion too".
Why is it so bad to have anti-religious statements/lyrics, not just in this song, but in general? Why should religion be allowed to overrule freedom of speech and expression?
Nor I. There's the legal argument that (I bet) John Lennon never allowed anyone to censor his song in such a way, especially when the censorship goes completely against the spirit of the song.
And in general I think groups or stations that I likely to censor anti-religious sentiment would allow those whom they would "need" to be censored to be played. But yeah, there's really no need for it beyond the need of 'people of faith' to control those who aren't.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks, an informal list of songs with lyrics and/or themes that might seem inappropriate to some, would have been delivered throughout the music industry at that time.
The list of songs wasn' t meant as a way to censor stations. Radio programmers with Clear Channel began developing a list of songs, apparently through e-mail, with lyrics that some might consider offensive in the wake of the attacks.
As the list was forwarded from station to station, people continued to add songs. Eventually, the list had over 150 songs.
On the list were rather obvious songs to be avoided like Steve Miller' s "Jet Airliner," Queen' s "Another One Bites the Dust" and Led Zeppelin' s "Stairway to Heaven."
Even the BBC' s Radio 1 would have put a brief ban on certain songs, including ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell' s remake of "It' s Raining Men".
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This seems much more like an issue of taste and economics than censorship.
If you own a radio station, and the listeners don't want to hear people bashing religion, yet also want to hear John Lennon, it would seem to be the only logical decision.
Are you censoring music by not playing it on your stereo at home?
Hi.I'm new here.It wouldn't be good if the song would be changed.There is the freedom of speech.Everone may have his or her own opinion.God gave free will to every human being,because God loves mankind.Every human being has the right to chose God or chose him not.
true, but the freedom of speech does not extend to private companies or individuals.
Allow me to explain.
If you are a neo-nazi, and you want to rally and shout obscenities, you are allowed to do so on public property or on the property you own. However, if you come onto my property, I AM allowed to tell you not to say those things. I am also allowed to call the police to remove you from my property simply for saying those things.
So, for a radio station, yes, they have some degree of freedom of speech (The FCC and other organizations in most countries do try to keep really obscene stuff off the air, which is a freedom of speech violation). However, freedom of speech is not an obligation to play music unfiltered.
If it was the government (ala the FCC) that was saying that the song had to be played with the line "One god" then yes, censorship. For the radio station to just do it because their listeners don't want to hear bad words about God, thats good practice.
If that's true, then I gross and pathetic. For those who are religious (mainly Judo-Christian-Islamic), did you ever know that areas where (those) religions are the norm, are more violent than areas where they aren't?
KMC Community Forums
Apr 8th, 2007 04:30 AM
