Fairytale of New York - people LIED to me!!!

OU812

“You can’t change the lyrics….

“It’s nothing like the original…”

“They watered it down…”

”Political Correctness gone mad…”

Turns out, there was a radio edit recorded

https://youtu.be/BkoYgN3N1KQ

The original artists changed the lyrics.

The covers still don’t come close to the original in any way though

Gregor Samsa

The radio edit was only created in 2020 by Warner Music, using a live recording to replace the offending words:

https://completemusicupdate.com/article/warner-music-creates-new-radio-edit-of-fairytale-of-new-york-to-the-annoyance-of-homophobia-fans/

that said, Shane MacGowan never had any problem with the offending words being bleeped.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120034625#Comment_120034625

Pretty sure a radio edit with the swears removed existed before 2020. Not replaced though, I don’t think.

That said, Shane might not have cared, but jaysus Ronan Collins surely does. https://www.joe.ie/amp/music/fairytale-of-new-york-ronan-collins-rte-apology-763023

Burt Renaults

It's hard to maintain outrage about your favourite homophobic slur being replaced when it was the original songwriter who replaced it in the first instance.

spankmemunkey

What ever happened to if you don't like something turn it off?? The problem with the world today is, if you disagree with the general consensus your rounded on and hounded out.

We live in a very homogenised society today, people should always have a right to their opinion without being PC bullied into submission.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035458#Comment_120035458

For as long as I can remember, they've been bleeping out swearwords, or playing the radio edit of songs that contain them. This isn't a new thing.

Say Your Number

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035484#Comment_120035484

A few years ago there was a song with the word wanker edited out getting a lot of airplay, don't remember anyone being outraged about that.

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035458#Comment_120035458

We live in a very homogenised society today

1950s ireland wants its ball back.

as does 1960s ireland, 1970s ireland, 1980s ireland...

cj maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035524#Comment_120035524

Not just Ireland. I remember years ago the Frankie goes to Hollywood song was edited on ToTP and English media because it had the word cum in it.

Beechwoodspark

So it looks like the original artists recorded an alternative version of the lyrics. - this was never Mentioned at all by the usual suspects who are “woker than woke” -

Will Shane and Kirsty be cancelled now by the wokerati????

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035670#Comment_120035670

That never happened. Urban legend fuelled by the internet.

cj maxx

oh it did , i saw it / heard it.

Holly sang ‘when you want to ‘ hmm

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035717#Comment_120035717

CJ Maxx - Proof???

NewbridgeIR

I bought the 7" of Fairytale Of New York in 1987.

That version was identical to the mix on If I Should Fall From Grace With God which came out in January 1988.

The 12" had an extra track. No extended version or remix.

I think the edit came much later - mid 2000s - and wasn't released on any format.

Fiesta on the other hand was remixed for single release, as were so many other tracks.

It's worth nothing that the single mixes of Duran Duran's The Reflex and Big Country's In A Big Country are far superior to the clunky album versions.

cj maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035721#Comment_120035721

You may troll through BBC archives

Beechwoodspark

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035742#Comment_120035742

I’d rather you provide proof???

magicbastarder

FWIW, any time i've heard it on the radio recently, it's the unedited version.

also, despite elvis costello asking radio stations not to play the original 'oliver's army', they're still doing it - i heard it on nova a few months ago.

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035926#Comment_120035926

Oliver's Army is being sidelined elsewhere though. He won't play it live and it doesn't appear on compilations anymore. The Now Yearbook 1979 and accompanying Extra release pointedly didn't have it. We did get Accidents Will Happen....

Strumms

Olivers Army..it’s made him millions… he’s worth about $70 million im reading .. he’s 68 years old. Just earlier this year he signed a massive publishing deal with BMG… he can sacrifice that track and virtue signal away…it will cost him nothing tangible.

Just checking though it’s still on Spotify… on his records.

magicbastarder

he’s worth about $70 million im reading

yes, and i am a sentient duck made of cheese. i read it online, anyway.

head82

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035926#Comment_120035926

Did he really ask radio stations to stop playing it? Like yourself, I've heard it many a times recently on Nova.

I was under the impression he just asked the BBC to stop playing the 'bleeped' version of it as it was drawing unwarranted attention to a lyric that previously nobody had any issue with. Basically, if they weren't going to play the original version.. then don't bother replacing it with the new 'woke' edited version.

magicbastarder

Did he really ask radio stations to stop playing it?

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59950583

head82

Fair enough. Makes for depressing reading though when bands / performers start 'cancelling' their own songs.

Agent Coulson

I doubt Shane really cares because no matter what edit is played he still gets paid.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120036595#Comment_120036595

Congrats, 🙄

He’s been a prolific and successful songwriter ( for himself and others ), producer, recording artist and live performer, for almost 50 years…… the cast of people he’s worked with such as Tina Turner, Burt Bacharach and many many more besides is eye watering.

He is one whom doesn’t seem to live by the standards of a rockstar, doesn’t have by all accounts an unbelievably ostentatious lifestyle.

so…….. considering everything I’d say him being worth $70 million ? considering the work and successes he’s had I’ll tend to veer towards that been somewhat accurate.

cj maxx

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035708#Comment_120035708

Googled it and you’re right. I was sure one of their songs was edite on the bbc. Maybe confusing it with george Michael and ‘I want’

ah , I knew it was off air by someone.

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/bbc-ban-frankie-goes-to-hollywood-relax-homosexual-lyrics/

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037618#Comment_120037618

I Want Your Sex just wasn't played during the daytime on BBC Radio. There was no censored edit.

Song is in three parts.

The 7" had Part 1 with Part 2 on the B-Side. The 12" and CD single had the Monogamy Mix which is Parts 1, 2 and 3 together.

The album Faith had Part 1 and Part 2 segued together.

The track was big in the US as it appeared on the soundtrack to Beverly Hills Cop 2. I think there was an edited version of the music video that aired on MTV at the time.

pgj2015

Just saw ed sherans version, just proves how $hit I always knew he was.

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035670#Comment_120035670

It wasn't edited, it was banned on BBC. Not on Irish radio after 9pm, though. I remember Gerry Ryan playing it on his night time show. It was one up on the Beeb.

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037666#Comment_120037666

Gerry was a big fan. His frequently played the 12" mixes (of which there are many) of both Relax, Two Tribes and Paul Hardcastle's 19.

spankmemunkey

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035524#Comment_120035524

This is the type of extreme response i was talking about,I said if you don't like it turn it off, you will spend the rest of your days auditing history and things that shouldn't or wouldn't be said these days. If you don't like any particular song lyric or statement don't listen to it, problem solved!! switch it off.

History is history for a reason, its in the past, and guess what, we did and said things differently that we can mostly agree shouldn't be done or said again, but unless you get yourself a time machine go back and tell the artist how bad its going to look in the future, do yourself a favour turn it off and don't listen to it if it upsets you, the vast majority of people it doesn't really upset and a lot of people just agree cos its a sheep thing, oh be god ye cant be saying those things today people will round on me, if it was a modern song written yesterday it would be slated but ye cant have all things all your way and all your point of view.

Teen age dirtbag has the worst edit ever

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037675#Comment_120037675

extreme response? i was contradicting your claim that today's society is excessively homogenised. if you think people disagreeing with you is 'an extreme response' i suggest you follow the advice you have given out, and just switch off the internet.

cj maxx

The song might not have been edited but totp wouldn’t say it. They introduced it as ‘I want’

Sardonicat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037674#Comment_120037674

Just to add, the Beeb bab wasn't official. Tony Blackburn (I think) was looking at the overtly homo erotic cover art on the single sleeve while he was playing Relax on his show, abruptly stopped playing it and declared it filth and refused to play it anymore. Other DJs followed suit. It wasn't played on TOTP, either, even though it was No. 1 for weeks, again because of the DJs presenting the show. It had nothing to do with the word 'cum' and everything to do the blatant homopobia that marked the 80s.

Having said that, the "ban" was the best thing that could have happened to Frankie. It made the controversial and forbidden and this made hem cool and sought after by teenagers.

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035407#Comment_120035407

What is your opinion on books on history that still use the words

NewbridgeIR

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037718#Comment_120037718

Mike Read was the appalled DJ. Relax had finally made the top 40 (#35) a couple of months after its initial release.

Chris Barrie does a great impression of his outrage which was used at the start of The Power Of Love (Extended Version)

I remember it being #1 for 5 weeks and the TOTP presenters pointedly ignoring it.

Its inclusion on Now That's What I Call Music II (released March 1984) was for some people, their first exposure to it.

The track had serious staying power and remember it climbing back to #2 during Two Tribes nine week run at #1.

In Ireland, Two Tribes was knocked off the top spot by Neil's Hole In My Shoe for one week before going back to #1 for another fortnight.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037729#Comment_120037729

Fascinating question, I would have always said do not censor, but is it right to force black children to read Twain ? It probably isn’t. Even if he’s on their side it may not be fair to “force” to read those words, so more diversity of books is the answer

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035524#Comment_120035524

As other have said its not just ireland it's any country US state in any decade depending on there attitudes

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120035458#Comment_120035458

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037677#Comment_120037677

The word very in Radioheads Creep is sung in a way to say there should be another word here

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037749#Comment_120037749

America is a million times worse than here and the uk for conservatives

the confusing bit might be they have more uncensored private broadcasters who can say anything

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037742#Comment_120037742

Who is forcing anyone to do anything.

I have no problem with the word bleeped or silenced it the way others are recording the song and publicly showing how good they are with changing one word. If you can handle listening just see how Imelda May says crackhead and Glen Hansards and Tubs reaction we are great. Though Hansards laugh could have been a good lord

sniperman

i will only ever listen to and play and sing the original version of fairy tale,and for those who who dont like that,well you can kiss my.........

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037776#Comment_120037776

Oh I agree but the point it happens everywhere to varing degree and not really something to beat Ireland with a only in Ireland stick

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037796#Comment_120037796

YOU GO GIRL!!!

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120037729#Comment_120037729

I'm fine with that. I'm also fine with radio stations playing whatever version of Fairytale of New York they wish to play. I just don't understand why replacing that particular line (with one that the songwriter himself was happy to perform on Top of the Pops) upsets some people (especially on here, for whatever reason) so much.

It’s no Merry Christmas by Slade.

Count Dracula

I think it is more about the tone of the particular word, it's delivery is connected and yet it can also be separated from context in subtle transmission. It is the delivery of the tone that accentuates your narrative, that is what they are trying to stop you from saying, they don't want you saying that, you are not allowed do that, it is forbidden.

Burt Renaults

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT3QOKam-XI

The best version.

spankmemunkey

if it offends you, turn it off

Star Bingo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120034677#Comment_120034677

I miss ronan already. What of the golden oldies slot now will it be stuff like rap and Travis?