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With thanks to M.A.
Taking this from the rear and moving forward, banning anything just makes people want it more. The most (un)successful ban I can think of in recent times is The Satantic Verses by Salman Rushdie. When the towelhead terrorists put a death sentence on Rushdie for the book, he packed it off to England and sales of his book skyrocketed. It's still being sold.
Meanwhile, I am trying like mad to get some of my books banned. I can use the money.
Banning stuff is idiotic. People with more sense than me have pointed to Prohibition as the single act that let the Mafia get a hold on American society. The War on Drugs is absolutely not working.
Anyway, some people would like to ban certain types of music because they find it offensive and degrading. Some record labels will put that "WARNING OFFENSIVE LYRICS" on the album cover. A few artists stuck that same label on their recordings in hopes to selling more. Their work was not offensive.
Or was it?
Many years ago, I sat back stage with The Kingston Trio and had a beer while they ate. The gents told me their song "Greenback Dollar" was nearly banned when it was released. Why? Because of the line "I don't give a damn about a Greenback Dollar." When they performed the song on stage that evening, they emphasized the "damn."
Today, the word damn is ubiquitous. Times change.
(C)rap songs today often glorify violence, put women down and brag about breaking the law. This offends a great many people.
Really?
"But I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die."
Pretty graphic. That's also a line from Folsom Prison Blues, recorded in 1955, well before the birth of the current crop of (c)rap performers. Hank sang about crying into his beer.
Today's crop of "country" music glorifies getting drunk, having sex anywhere and everywhere. The First Lady of Country Music sang about jackin' another gal up for messing with her man. She also bragged about birth control, a VERY controversial matter at the time.
The truth is, the most popular music of today is pretty inhumane.
The objections to (c)rap music are because it appears to represent - yeah, I'm going there - the Ferguson riots. In other words, it appears to represent a subculture of America that is resentful and is only waiting for a spark to ignite an inferno to destroy everything. The objection is less about the lyrics and far more about fear.
If you get the chance, watch Fear of a Black Hat. It explains in far more detail what I'm trying to say here.
Myself, I do not like most of what passes for popular music today. That is pop, country, (c)rap, R&B, soul and others I probably don't know about. It's not the lyrics I object to, it is the lack quality music. Learn to play and sing and I'll listen. Gimme old blues, soul, funk, rock and I'm a happy listener.
The views in this blog are not those of people who can't think for themselves and rely on others to think for them. For that matter, the views expressed here may not be those of people who CAN think for themselves, but it comes extremely close.
My only real thought on this incredibly insightful piece is this. In Folsom, I always got the impression that he wasn't so much regretting that he killed a man just to watch him die as he was regretting that he got caught and put in prison. An excellent song that covers horrible acts AND regret is One Way Track by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band where a man covers all the horrible things he did including leaving a pregnant girl at the altar and murder while he is waiting for his execution.
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