The Shoebox and the Watershed

I love music.  I digest music in a way that I know most people don't, have the Lyrics Plug-In installed with every copy of Windows Media Player I own or use, and have literally sat through repeated passes of songs while tweaking the graphic equalizer to figure out precisely what that one word was.  Most of the music in my collection is there as much for what the author is saying as the way in which they're saying it, I keep Red Hot Chili Peppers reluctantly because I love their groove but they make no sense whatsoever, and I was a long time reconciling The Tragically Hip's mixture of poetry and narrative before they passed my scrupulous screening process.  "Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" is what was really said, the chorus of Blow Up the Outside World by Soundgarden is "...I've given... I'd give... I'd give... I've given..." though I could swear he does it differently at least once in the MTV Live n Loud recording, and the one thing that drives me nuts about local artists is that I can never find their lyrics online, so I'll never know exactly what Drive was saying in Pavlov's Dogs and I'm still puzzling over parts of Arrow of Stones by Pathological Lovers.

To anyone who knows the obsessive-compulsive rules-lawyering type that I am, none of that comes as a surprise to you.

So it didn't come as a surprise to me when it was recently pointed out to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) that the lyrics of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits contained the word "faggot".  It's in there three times, in fact, though there exists a special 'radio edit' version that uses "mother" instead.  But then, I've known this since the mid 80s when a friend got Brothers in Arms on vinyl and I purchased my own on cassette shortly after.  Granted, I didn't have the internet to look up the exact lyrics back then, but "faggot" was always pretty unmistakable.  I also understood the overall tone and message of the song, saw the animated video many times, and knew it was Sting singing back-up at the beginning.

When the CBSC recently ruled the word "faggot", and therefore this song, was offensive, I was amongst the chorus of old-schoolers for whom this song was a "classic!" that "you can't mess with!" and who with much fervor exclaimed "it's been 25 years, did no one notice the word 'faggot' until now?!"

I read Mike Doherty's "Censors in dire need of context" and thought "fuck yeah!" and argued you can't tell important stories like American History X without dropping the word "nigger" in there a few times.

Then, as the swell of righteous indignation faded, and with a calmer sense of reason, I read what many others had to say, turned it over in my mind, and things finally began to congeal in a very different way.  I'm still not entirely sure I'm settled on my final position, to be honest, but I definitely have some strong - but calm - opinions, and I've come to the conclusion that there are some vital questions to which I don't have the answers, most of which center around the notion of "The Watershed".  I believe in "The Watershed", and while it's primarily concerned with television as opposed to radio, I think it's the standard that needs to be applied.  So what I need to know, that I don't know, is this:

1.  What time of day was the offending music heard?
2.  What exactly, was the CSBC ruling?  "It can't be played midday, unedited" would be very different than "It can't be played.  Ever.  Period."

It took me some time to arrive at this position, so come with me on the journey, if you will:


Censorship without Context


I believe in individual freedom, but also in individual responsibility, and I believe they must necessarily come hand in hand.  In an adult world, you are free to listen to whatever music you like, however offensive others might find it, provided you accept the responsibility to turn off what you don't like, and don't forcibly subject others to what clearly offends them.  Your house, your rules.  You keep Beyonce off my doorstep, and I'll keep Nine Inch Nails out of your backyard.

So yes, the idea of the CBSC telling me what I can or can't listen to offends me.  But radio censorship existed long before this happened.  Whether because of some legal-ruling of long ago, or because the station simply understands the will of its listeners, the version of Creep by Radiohead you hear at midday will say "so very special" and not "so fucking special".

So the censorship already existed and always has, it's just a question of on which side of the line does something fall.  Money for Nothing?  It's been 25 years.  But communities evolve (thankfully), and so too must those community standards.  So if, in the current social climate, the word "faggot" is taboo, then so be it. Append it to the list of naughty words we don't blurt out over dinner with strangers, and break out the special radio-edit version that has long-existed.

But wait... what about the context in which the word was said?


Censorship with Context


Context should be everything.  As someone familiar with the song, and who knows that someone singing in the first person is not necessarily being literal (David Bowie is not an astronaut, and Gordon Downie doesn't have a brother who escaped from prison), I fail to find Money for Nothing offensive simply because of its inclusion of the word "faggot".  Understand the song; understand why.

A long time ago I read about how, for a long time, Denzel Washington refused to play any role that 'portrayed a black man in a negative light'.  I thought that was admirable, until I heard about how another actor (I believe Kiefer Sutherland playing a racist Klan member in A Time to Kill) was asked in an interview how he felt about playing such a despicable character, only to explain 'If it's an important story that needs to be told, someone has to be willing to play the bad guy.'

We cannot simply start bleeping every occurrence of a word, regardless of place and time, and expect the underlying problem to go away.  More importantly, there are times and places when that word actually needs to be used, to open the door to civil discourse, to bring it out into the light and expose the offense.  Sometimes the story (or song) is important, and getting that message across means someone taking on the role of the villain and using the terrible, naughty words.  When I read "An Open Letter to a 21 Year Old University Student in Corner Brook" by Neil Butler, I couldn't possibly agree more when he so succinctly wrote:  "I think the best way to counter bigotry is through education.  I do not think we can bring an end to bigotry and discrimination by removing opportunity to examine instances where they occur."


Leaving the word "nigger" in Huckleberry Finn is a doorway to discussion: about the time and place in which the book was written, about the meaning, use, and power of the 'N-word' then and now, and about whether or not something long-regarded as a great work of literature gets to retain such accolades amidst ever-changing social standards.  It provides a needed opportunity for education, to examine this instance where it occurs.

But the CBSC's argument, as I understand it, was "... in the case of a song... the exposition of a context is less likely to be present".  Surely, as adults, we're all capable of listening to a musical work in its entirety and judging it based on that overall work.

Capable?  Yes.  But do we?  I pay a great deal of attention to lyrics.  Obsess over them, some might say.  But do others?  I was reminded of two things from long ago.  First, I read from an interview with Sting a long time ago how he found it disturbing how many people used "Every Breath You Take" at their weddings when it was so clearly a song not about love, but about dark, unhealthy obsession.  Second, I remembered "the shoebox incident".

The Shoebox


A decade ago, there came a time when, for about a week, each day at lunchtime several of my coworkers would put on a popular new song by Barenaked Ladies and sing aloud to the chorus each time it came by, while mumbling through or simply ignoring the rest of the tune.  I was familiar with the song.  I knew their grievous blunder.  I bit my lip day after day as they joyfully prattled on, "Shoeboooooxxxx... shoebox of liiiiiffffeeee...."


Finally, be it simply an irritable mood or my undeniable compulsion for accuracy, I spun round in my chair one fateful day and burst their little care-free bubble with the truth:  "It's 'Shoebox of LIES'.  Not 'life'.  LIES."  "Shoebox" is a Barenaked Ladies song which, while sung in an upbeat way, is the tale of a heart-broken young lad disillusioned by the realization that the shoebox of memorabilia he's kept is little more than the physical embodiment of the deception that goes on in relationships.  Or at least, that's my interpretation, but then, that's largely irrelevant.  It's definitely, absolutely a shoebox of lies.  I owned the album.  I had the liner notes.


Context should be everything, even with music on the radio.  And as adults, we're all capable of listening carefully, puzzling it out, determining our interpretation, deciding how we feel about it, and engaging in open, civil discussion on the matter.  Some of us adults are certainly more capable than others, or at least more interested, but nonetheless, there will always be those who won't or don't take the time to listen, to puzzle, to determine, to decide, and to engage both their mouths and their brains.  This is especially true out in the public, where the odds of turning to the next person at the food court to ask if they agree about Jay-Z's veritable ability to infect and destroy every other musician he comes into contact with is highly unlikely to occur.

Public.  There's the rub.

The Watershed

Out in public, things are a little different.  They no longer simply boil down to personal choices and personal responsibility.  If the local radio station is being played in the local market, the option to "turn if off if you don't like it" has slipped from our grasp, so if, as a community, we're going to share that 'music-space', we'll need to come to a consensus as to what's being played.  That's where everyone is supposed to take the responsibility of standing up and making it clear what they do or don't want.  You call the radio station and tell them what you do want to hear, and you tell some sort of regulatory board (i.e. the CBSC) what you absolutely don't want to hear.  Each gathers together all those opinions - on an ongoing and evolving basis - to determine where the lines must be drawn, such that we can all comfortably inhabit that shared music-space together.

And yes, there are still those who will say "if you don't like that store X plays music station Y, who play music containing word Z, shop elsewhere", but herein lies my problem.  After five years of playing step-father, I'm only now starting to recognize the duality of my dilemma.  If you backtrack, you'll find I used the word "adult" four times, once in each section.

"Public" is not comprised solely of "adults", and you cannot 'un-ring' a bell.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, brings me to my current position.

While I am a fan of public, candid discourse, and while I am a strong proponent of individual liberty and responsibility, and while I am neither so ignorant nor so arrogant as to think I can shelter my little girl from the terrors of the world forever, I am tasked with the duty of easing her into the sordid affairs of this messy world bit-by-bit, exposing one tiny corruption at a time, with the opportunity to educate at a pace she can handle, in the hopes of arming her with the necessary understanding and tolerance that by the time she's an adult she will have a proper appreciation for why words like "faggot" sting some people when used in a spiteful context while simultaneously only serving to denigrate the speaker not the subject.

The first song she ever asked us to turn up on the radio was Highway to Hell by AC-DC.  I was elated (anal-retention be damned!) as she sat in the back seat chanting "... hiiiighway -n- hoe!"  I have no idea what she thought it was about.  I suspect she didn't care.


At age six, she's already had conversations about people with different colors of skin and about how sometimes boys fall in love with boys or girls fall in love with girls and how that's ok too.

I'd like to be able to turn on OZ in the car in the morning without fear of being prematurely forced into a conversation about why the word 'faggot' should not cross her lips, while simultaneously trying to get her to school on time.

I'd also like to have some hope that if I turn it back on again at 10pm, there's a chance, however small, that Cop Killer by Bodycount will come rattling through the speakers, screwing up the faces of all kinds of listeners out there.

I don't profess to have the answers for everyone.  I'm not trying to speak for an entire community.  But as I said in the beginning, I feel everyone has a responsibility - not just right - responsibility to decide for themselves and make that position heard.

It's just one man's opinion.