[MR] Re: Music censorship (view from the trenches)

[TychoandBert at aol.com]

A good post from another list, from someone you may know.


In a message dated 9/18/01 4:01:01 PM, Maugorn at aol.com writes:

<<     Yow.   Whether or not to play a certain song that
contains "big triggers" in a time like this is a topic that
I can actually confess to having some experience with.

Two very important songs in my repertoire, songs that
I perform every week because I do them very well and
get such a good response from them are 
John Denver's "Leavin' On A Jet Plane"
and
James Taylor's "Fire And Rain"

I have to confess that I was very nervous playing these
two last week.   But I decided to do so.   Their messages
are not negative, even though both songs have a lot
of sadness in them.   I decided that I would go ahead
and risk a possible recrimination because anyone
*did* "get it" would no doubt share my feelings of catharsis
at taking something negative and making a piece of 
beauty from it with art.  That was the energy I put into
the songs and that was the energy I got back.  I play these
songs well because I *can* feel the meaning in them,
and especially the larger meanings that have grown to
embrace them.  And nobody said anything bad.

   There are lots of songs that have acquired additional
meanings, I'm approaching them gently and when I
feel ready I'll play them too.

I've played several 60's "peace and love" type songs.
Despite the loudness of the hotheads who are
venting, alot of people "get" the message of
temperance I'm proferring and have responded
very positively.  In the mess of my "what to
play" ponderation, I kind of forgot about "Imagine".
It will be back in the rotation this week.
Thanks for the reminder!

I was a little ambivalent about The Who's
"Behind Blue Eyes", but decided that reminding
people that even villains can be complex people
wasn't a bad idea.   And the folks who listened
nodded in appreciation.  And it's a *good* song!

And that's something that bothers me alot about
this kind of heavy-handed paternalism.   There's
alot of songs that are as well known as they are,
not because of marketing or luck, but because they
are just damn good art.  Not everything worth writing
about is happy sappy pop music topics.  Some of
the world is ugly, and that invokes feelings and feelings
inspire us to create.  So not all art is pretty or stays
pretty.   I get real tired of the notion that art is only
and always supposed to be just some sort of benign
harmless decoration in our lives and should only
be pretty or happy.   The Muses are there to help
us make our feelings into a tangible thing that 
transcends it's medium and goes beyond normal 
communication.
It's one thing to be considerate of people and not
try to just be hurtful or insensitive.  It's another thing
to get paranoid or controlling like this because next thing you
know, you wind up paralysed.  I've found that marketing
and manager types don't really get this distinction.

Most censorship is "sold" as "protection".  I've found
that 99% of it winds up being protection of the censors' 
interests and not the people that they use as excuses.

It's one thing to encourage people not to abuse the power
of words, like the good old "not yelling fire in a crowded movie house"
cliche'.   But I've rarely seen any censorship that DOESN'T
accomplish more harm than they good that is always
rationalised in favor of it.

In a message dated 01-09-18 13:31:37 EDT, you write:

> Is it really
>  > necessary to ban John
>  > Lennon's "Imagine"?
>  

There are some "potential" problems with some
of the lyrics if you're trying a little too hard to
not *potentially* offend a large market share.
There are a couple of very controversial and
radical ideas that are expounded.  But...
That's something for the next post.

Maug >>