Radio put on notice; the kiddies might be listening

By Richard Ackland
August 13, 2004

The Australian Broadcasting Authority has concluded that the lyrics "I want to f--- you like an animal" would not have offended the majority of the target audience of community radio station FBi 94.5FM. On one level this is a huge relief, given that a large chunk of the audience listening at that frequency is more than 30 years of age.

However, there is the secondary finding of the regulator that the licensee has not established adequate programming practices to protect children from harmful material.

So while the target audience is not likely to be troubled by the lyric, the possibility of toddlers picking up the message is a worry. Maybe the composition, which has the title Closer and originally came from Nine Inch Nails, should have been played after the tiny tots are safely tucked up in bed.

The version of Closer played on FBi 94.5 FM was a softer one, from the band Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. Cheese specialises in Sinatra lounge music varieties of harder edged ditties, including Nirvana's Rape Me.

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The fact that "I want to f--- you like an animal" is belted out four times in the song, lounge version or "clean pussy radio edit" version, illustrates how important repetition is when you stumble on a great line.

The broadcasting authority makes no comment about the impact on sensitive seniors who may have got an earful. However, FBi, along with other stations which face the possibility of fresh young souls straying into their orbit, have to put in place "processes" that show they have "adequate programming practices".

Presenters and disc jockeys have to think about the context of lyrics, whether the rude bits are gratuitous or have a serious significance. This might be difficult to determine in the hip-hop, heavy metal, hard rock world where you get words like:

"Skinny, slim women got the ghetto within them

"You can f--- them, lift them, bend them, give them something to remember

"Hail out timber when you fall through the chop shop."

Readers will recognise that as part of the libretto from the Atlanta-based group Outkast and its composition The Way You Move.

At the time the broadcasting authority was grizzling about Closer and the animal intercourse imagery, The Way You Move was listed in the Australian Record Industry Association Top 20 play list. As one authority explained, Outkast "is pushing hip-hop's envelope". So is another Top 20 number with the title F--- It (I Don't Want You Back) by a Staten Island rapper called Eamon. Or, Mr Eamon to you. This single has no fewer than 33 expletives and The Guardian said that essentially it is "a slow jam with Tourette's syndrome".

It has been top of the pops here and in England and America. How the context of the song is determined is a nice challenge for the disc jockeys and programmers.

Is it just a jumble of obnoxious rubbish, or a young man's painful cry from within because his girlfriend left him? The chorus may help us with this awful dichotomy:

"F--- what I said it don't mean s--- now

"F--- the presents might as well throw em out

"F--- all those kisses, it didn't mean jack

"F ---you, you hoe, I don't want you back."

One of my personal favourites, yet to be released in a lounge version, but nonetheless another Top 20 triumph, is Usher's song Yeah, with the gently poetic line in verse three:

"So gimmie the rhythm and it'll be off with they clothes,

then bend over to the front and touch your toes."

Licensees would have to be mindful of what the kiddies could make of that and whether there is a tendency for degradation or worse still, confusion.

The airwaves, whether commercial or community stations, are full of all this funky, ho-wop stuff. It is just that most people over 35 can't listen to it and so have no idea what is being pumped into the skulls of the impressionable youth of the nation.

Frankly, there is little the authority can, or should, do to save us. Young citizens have a far richer command of the tongue that we appreciate. It can only do enormous harm to officially temper what is already common patois. If it's not available on the radio, it's out there in the streets, the buses and the neighbourhood.

In the British magazine The Spectator, the food writer Deborah Ross explained that her young son could hear the neighbours using vibrant, strong language.

"Mummy," he asked after getting an earful of the slanging match, "what is a c---?"

Quick as a flash she explained to the boy, "It's a German biscuit, darling."

It may have saved her immediate embarrassment, but think of the damage it will cause the wretched kiddie.