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Post by baylink on Sept 4, 2013 20:46:49 GMT -5
Last week's 70s show included the song "Play That Funky Music".
Some stations aired a bowdlerized version of that song where the lyric "white boy" was replaced by "whoa, funky music".
I am wondering, and Shannon may be the only person who knows for sure:
Did the original vinyl include the bowdlizeration, or the real lyric? Was this one fixed in the remaster to conform to today's standards -- which largely don't give a crap -- or did Casey play the original version in the original mastering?
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Post by countdownmike on Sept 4, 2013 21:51:29 GMT -5
"Play That Funky Music" is an institution. It should be left alone. I have the vinyl LP and single which contains the "offending" lyric. This song was popular during a time when All In The Family, The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son were trading places each week at being #1 in the ratings. Those shows were #1 for a reason. Richard Pryor and Don Rickles were hot, too. Wild Cherry took a chance that the open dialogue of the time would be fun to play with. Like those TV shows, it won over people of all races, back when it was kind of fun being offended (because it was done in a non-hurtful context that attempted to turn racism on its head). Those shows and that song took away the pain from when such dialogue was used to hurt people. Wild Cherry played on an assumption (about whites and music) and won. Things are just way too politically correct for me today, that the Wild Cherry song from 1976 would be an issue in 2013. Is banning Archie, George and Fred next? Whew!
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Post by countdownmike on Sept 4, 2013 22:04:55 GMT -5
Come to think of it, I remember being concerned that "Play That Funky Music" would be problematic because the phrase "play that funky music" can sound like something else altogether. Go to a high school prom when it plays and you'll know what I mean.
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Post by davewollenberg on Sept 5, 2013 17:16:43 GMT -5
Even BMR, with their countdown of every year's Billboard top 100 songs in the '70s, went with the bowdlerized version of 'Funky'.
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Post by mstgator on Sept 8, 2013 14:12:49 GMT -5
The bowdlerized version of "Play That Funky Music" was a promo version. I never heard it until I found it on a CD sometime in the 1990s, but I guess some radio stations must have played it back in the day. I think AT40 always played the regular "white boy" version though.
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