Pearl Jam’s “Another Brick in the Wall” contained the lines: “George Bush: Leave this world alone” and “George Bush: Find yourself another home” I wondered what happened. You too?
It turned out that monitors hired by AT&T cut those lines in Webcast of the Chicago Lollapalooza concert last Sunday.
They’re sorry, and may post the entire song on the Blue Room site, www.attheblueroom.com
Pearl Jam made a song called Another Brick in the Wall?
They should’ve gotten slapped for that alone. At least their old stuff is gewd and original.
All part of the creeping, gradual, imperceptible stripping of our rights, our ability to communicate freely, etc, that ultimately lead to re-education camps and worse.
I wonder if those lyrics were specifically referencing Phil Ochs’ Here’s To the State of Mississippi?
they should make a pt. 2
They covered Pink FLoyd’s, and you alone think they should have gotten slapped.
Raphael: Thanks for that reference to a great man, great songwriter, and a great song. Where are the artists who could do that today?
They didn’t cover it, not if it had those lyrics in it.
And why is everyone obsessed with Another Brick in the Wall pt.2 all of a sudden? You hear it everywhere and that remix by some god-knows-how-crappy-he-is DJ.
Hey! People! Leave Pink Floyd alone!
Edit: and yes, I don’t think they should’ve been slapped, they should’ve been spanked with a vinegar sausage.
Mmmm…vinegar sausage.
Oh. You think when you cover a song, you have to do it exactly like the first band did it.
'taint necessarily so.
But you’re another Bushie against free speech, trying to usurp the US Constitution.
Here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of.
George Bush find yourself another country to be part of.
Who cut those lines? The government? No.* Let’s not lose sight of that, people. This is how it’s always worked. You can’t offend the advertisers because they will stop giving you money. Television, newspapers, magazines, radio… they’ve always been bound by this fact. Bush has been eroding our civil liberties, our privacy – it’s scary, actually – but you can still walk up to him and say those “offensive” lines to his face. You won’t be locked up. You won’t “disappear”. Take a moment to appreciate that fact.
[sarcasm]1984!!! Ah, it’s happening [/sarcasm]
I had missed this article when it came out. A quick search of Google News for Pearl Jam finds many articles since, including an editorial in my Seattle paper.
Ironic, the uproar after has gotten their comments our to more than if ATT hadn’t done anything in the first place.
But, this isn’t a First Ammendment issue. Corporations, including newspapers and rock bands, all censor to some extent in what they choose to say, or not say.
The link didn’t work, try www.AttBlueRoom.
Edit: No sign of Pearl Jam on the Lollapalooza Blue Room: http://www.attblueroom.com/music/events/lolla.php
You see a difference between the US government and the corporations that have bought it?
Still, the Bush administration SQUELCHES the citizen’s back talk, and the “White House presidential visit manual” proves it. Just google the term and you’ll get plenty of stories like this:
Sic 'em With the Rally Squad
And other tips for dealing with demonstrators from the Presidential Advance Manual.
By Dahlia Lithwick
Posted Monday, Aug. 20, 2007, at 6:36 PM ET
Late last week, the federal government settled a lawsuit with a pair of Texans who were arrested in 2004 for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts at a Fourth of July event in Charleston, W.Va. That’s right, friends, $80,000 (of your taxpayer dollars) will be paid out to Jeff and Nicole Rank, whose suit against Gregory J. Jenkins—former deputy assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Presidential Advance—has been dismissed.
White House spokesman Blair Jones managed to turn lemons into lemonade with the statement last week that “the parties understand that this settlement is a compromise of disputed claims to avoid the expenses and risks of litigation and is not an admission of fault, liability, or wrongful conduct.” This is, of course, vintage Bush, gloriously reminiscent of that Simpsons episode in which Homer arrives late to collect Bart in the pouring rain after soccer practice, then lectures: “I know you’re mad at me right now, and I’m kinda mad, too. I mean, we could sit here and try to figure out who forgot to pick up who till the cows come home. But let’s just say we’re both wrong, and that’ll be that.”
Because, you see, what the Ranks did wrong was attend an open-to-the-public, taxpayer-sponsored Independence Day speech by the president on the grounds of the state capitol, sporting homemade anti-Bush T-shirts. Their shirts had a red circle and a diagonal bar covering the word Bush. (His said, “Regime change starts at home,” on the back; hers said, “Love America, Hate Bush.”) The Ranks neither said nor did anything to disrupt the speech, but when they refused to remove their T-shirts, they were, at the direction of White House event staff, handcuffed, booked, photographed, and fingerprinted, charged with trespassing, and held for several hours in jail. (The charges were subsequently dismissed, and the city of Charleston has apologized.) Nicole Rank was also temporarily suspended from her job with FEMA.
(con’t, go to web page)
Time was when there were songs, and there were performances of those songs. Good songs became “standards” and everyone did them, and sometimes changed the words, or even the tune. There was no prejudice or stigma about “cover versions”. There were good performances, good versions, and bad performances and bad versions.
As for freedom of speech. They have the freedom to say those things. the publishers have the freedom not to publish them.
You lose your freedom of speech the day that your publication is banned, or seized, or you are arrested for what you say or what you write. You haven’t lost it because someone else chooses not to let you use their platform to say it, whether that platform is a broadcast or a publication.
Advertising revenue is what keeps publications and broadcasts financially viable. So it is up to the mass of consumers to influence magazines and TV programmes etc. Every Dollar (or Pound) you spend is a vote for the sort of world you’d like to live in.
Yeah, if you change the lyrics and especially put in all that stuff about Bush(totally irrelevant to the original song) it’s not a cover anymore. I’ve never heard that version and hope I stay that way.
And you should be spanked with a vinegar sausage for making such preposterous claims about me. I wouldn’t touch the US or its constitution with a ten-foot liberty statue.
I like Pearl Jam…I tihnk this is kinda stupid.
With Bush’s excellent strategy to keep dissenters from being heard (see the Manual), no one will ever have to lose their freedom of speech.
No one ever said you had a right to be heard…
Thank GOD this wasn’t around during the Civil Rights Era, or minorities would still be riding in the back of the bus, and still couldn’t vote.