Okay, so I'm feeling very prolific today. Well, that, and I only left the house today to go to church, allowing myself time to recover from yesterday's long day. And, as I was returning from church this evening, something that had been bugging me on a recurring basis resurfaced again, so I said to myself "Why not make it a 3 post day?"
Anyhow, as you know if you've been a fan of this blog for very long, I mainly listen to sports talk radio during the day. However, I listen to country music for the first couple hours before Dan Patrick comes on, and country music is generally what I have on during the car. One of the songs that's currently hot on country playlists is "Picture to Burn", which is written/performed by Taylor Swift. Taylor, who is all of 4 1/2 months north of her 18th birthday, is one of the most popular artists out there at the moment.
You're probably aware of the fact that artists/labels very often end up releasing different versions of songs for radio play than are actually recorded for the album. Often, this is just for time considerations, but there are also times when the radio version contains alterations to content that is either not allowed by FCC rules, or might be deemed offensive. Country music is generally pretty tame in this regard. Usually if there's a modified version like that out there, it involves the word "ass", or something like "screw you", and generally you'll find that some stations will choose to play the original version anyhow.
So, anyhow, there's an alternate radio cut of "Picture to Burn" that some stations are using, and that was used for the video and any countdown shoes or other shoes that are syndicated nationally across a variety of stations. The Harrisburg station uses the actual version, and so the first time I heard the alternate cut, I was pretty well shocked at the lyrics that had been altered. Never once occured to me that there was anything offensive about the song.
So, it's pop quiz time. Here are the original lyrics to "Picture to Burn". One of the lines has been altered for a radio version of the song. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to identify the offensive line. If you listen to country music or know the answer for some other reason, please refrain and let people guess. I shall post the answer at some point in the next 24 hours.
2 months ago
5 comments:
I normally don't sign in to Blogspot from work, because I don't know if "The Man" would be okay with it. But I HAVE to comment. I haven't listened to country music in a while, so I'm not familiar with the song.
It has to be "I told mine you're gay."
There's another line it could be, but this is my official guess.
Since I don't listen to country, I have no clue.
:)
Lyric changes do annoy me. And don't get me started on those take secular songs and "Christianize" the lyrics so they can be used in church. Ugh.
Jeff - It's long been a dream of mine to write something so compelling that someone would risk getting fired to read and react to it, so thank you for that ;) Although honestly, if "The Man" cares, he probably has all the dirt he needs on you whether you sign in or not.
Amanda - Oh boy, then you wouldn't have been a fan of the Young Life group in my town :)
Oh, and BTW Jeff, did you know the internet thinks you work in San Francisco?
Well, I guess I won't wait another day to do the reveal.
Jeff is correct. In the alternate version, the line "That's fine, I'll tell mine you're gay" is changed to "That's fine, you won't mind if I say"
Rather silly, if you ask me, which obviously they didn't.
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