Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands & Censored Songs

by Peter Blecha

In this extensively researched ode to scandal, Peter Blecha recounts the travails of musicians who have dared to air “unacceptable” topics. Filled with several centuries' worth of raunchy sex ditties, morbid murder ballads, satanic songs, paeans to intoxication and radical political anthems, this book lays the censors' stories bare, and casts a much-needed spotlight on civil liberties and artistic freedom in our post-9/11 world. Highlights the work of hundreds of controversial musicians, the Beatles, Ray Charles, the Dixie Chicks, Dylan, Eminem, Billie Holiday, Nirvana, Elvis, Public Enemy, Sex Pistols, Springsteen, Zappa and others. “Blecha tells a story of how free we aren't. It's a story every music fan needs to know.” – Dave Marsh

Genres: Music, History, Nonfiction

214 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

Reviews

[Rocco Riccardi · Rating 5 out of 5]

An incredibly well researched and authoritative work (at the time of it's publishing), Blecha does a great job of establishing timelines, making the history of music censorship into a well-told history.

Reading it 20 years later can be gloomy, especially like predictions in Chapter 6 that society will soon understand the symptoms of crime instead of incarcerating everyone, or be able to speak better to potential school shooters, but I'm struck with some hope that there can be progress. Authoritarians in the US today still use moral panics to try and influence politics, but at least banning music is more or less a lost cause.

[Josh B · Rating 2 out of 5]

Taboo tunes deals with how governments around the world have banned songs and other forms of media that they do not like. The reasons are political, social, and religious. Peter Blecha definitely puts a slant on everything he talks about to make it seem more outrageous. He is completely against censorship. He is definitely anti-religion(mainly Christianity) and anti-republican. It shows in his writing.
I do admit he does a good job of finding songs and people that have been censored. Some of the facts he has in the book are interesting. It is a great resource for banned material. I would have not thought about some of the artists that were censored. The main one is John Denver. Who knew?
Reading this book made me mad, but that is because I have a different world view than he does. Other people will probably not have a problem with it. That is all a matter of opinion.

[Adam Bregman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Music may not seem the most potent weapon nowadays, but throughout history, as documented in Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Books and Censored Songs, songs with a social conscience--like the Industrial Workers of the World's (IWW) radical folk tunes and the Dead Kennedys' biting satirical numbers--have been viciously attacked by the government, which perceived them as real threats. (IWW singer Joe Hill, who wrote "There Is Power in a Union," was executed after being convicted in a very questionable murder case.) One of censorship's worst casualties was singer-actor Paul Robeson, who had his passport revoked and his career eventually ruined for being one of the few African-American performers who dared to speak his mind in the late '40s.

Along with the idealists and high-minded folk who've caught flak for their beliefs are the thousands of musicians who've written songs about the joy of smokin' reefer, being naked and horny, or their often phony allegiance to Satan. These artists have also been arrested, prosecuted, and banned from the radio.

Peter Blecha, a music historian who has written for Vintage Guitar, Life, and the Rocket, has organized his very comprehensive history of music censorship according to topic: sex, drugs, murder, etc., so the reader must traipse through the folk era and the Reagan years more than once. Blecha is also partial to very long, though impressive, lists of songs in various categories, such as dirty blues tunes ("Let Me Play with Your Poodle," "Doodle Hole Blues," and "Somebody's Diggin' My Potatoes") and anti-Reagan punk anthems ("Bonzo Goes to Bitburg," "Reagan Der Fuhrer," and "Who We Hatin' Now, Mr. Reagan?").

Virtually every act of censorship is covered and many of these stories of suppression and wrongful discrimination will perturb the reader. Others, especially those from the first half of the last century, seem preposterous now.

For example, as Blecha explains, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was the oh so risqué waltz that had the fuddy-duddies fuming. Later, popular animal-named dances like the kangaroo hop, the lame duck, the grizzly bear, and the boll weevil wiggle were outlawed--perhaps successfully since you don't see anyone doing those dances anymore. When jazz first arrived, it was a favorite target of racists who called it "jungle music" and tried to associate it with "cannibalistic voodoo rites." The '50s was a particularly grand era for censors, who managed to ban Link Wray's "Rumble," which was an instrumental. "Louie Louie" by the Kingsmen sparked a two-year FBI investigation into its supposedly raunchy lyrics. The song was eventually exonerated. But few songs pissed off authorities as much as "Cop Killer" from Ice-T's rock band/side project Body Count. Ice-T's kids were pulled from school for interrogation, he was notified that his finances would be audited by the IRS, and he was eventually intimidated into removing the song from the Body Count record.

Although his historical knowledge is comprehensive, Blecha includes too many examples of nutso Christians spouting off about the evils of rock 'n' roll, heavy metal, and jazz. Just a few would be sufficient. He also inserts too many uncontroversial personal opinions, mostly about censors being bad guys--the majority of readers will agree with him on that. But his research is topnotch and it's the various historical anecdotes that make the book a pleasant read, even if they're not so relevant to the present.

However bad censorship may seem in America, Blecha points out that it's worse in most other parts of the world. Japan's initial reaction to the rock 'n' roll invasion was to cancel tours by threatening bands like the Beach Boys, raid dances, ban long-haired groups from the radio, and expel students listening to music it deemed dangerous. President Sukarno of Indonesia banned Beatlemania because it was "a form of mental disease." But nobody went as far as those nutty Taliban dudes (angered perhaps because they believed they were referenced in the famous Harry Belafonte song "Banana Boat [Day-O]"). The Taliban's restrictions banned caged birds, made even the act of humming risky, and caused Afghan music fans to bury their record collections in their backyards.

[Joseph Schlesinger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Extensive & well-researched history of banned music, particularly in America. There are a few very minor factual errors--I blame those more on less-than-attentive editors than on the author--& the tone of the writing is sometimes uneven. There are passages that hit the nail on the head when viewing certain actions within the big picture, but there are also places (notably those in which political motivation is identified as the culprit) where the writer's tone becomes shrill & didactic. Nevertheless, the book does try to maintain a fair sense of balance throughout. Blecha is a very accomplished writer, & it's evident from reading his other book, Rock & Roll Archaeologist, that he enjoyed researching & writing this one. It's certainly worth reading.

[Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

- very interesting
- extensively researched history of musical censorship for reasons such as: the immorality of music (in general), dancing (promotes other immoral behaviour such as pre-marital 'relations' and sex crimes), satanism ("Rock Music is the Devil's tool"), gateway to drug experimentation, etc.
- Nixon feared the 'anti-establishment' folk songs of the 1960's and threatened to revoke the operating licences of radio stations that played songs that displeased him personally
- South Africa banned the performing of: songs that contained the words "peace" and "freedom", and bands that contained members of more than one race

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taboo Tunes: A History of Banned Bands & Censored Songs (Backbeat Books) is a treasure trove of facts and trivia about the often-losing battle fought for free speech in music. Musician and author Peter Blecha backs each paragraph with a heady density of factual information, names, dates and more, making this read educational and enlightening. Songs and albums that have been banned if not altered litter pop music and underground music history and Blecha gathers from those incidents to compile a fascinating story that touches on Billie Holiday, Frank Zappa, Sheryl Crow, 2 Live Crew, and more

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Glad it was a library book and I didnt waste my money on this book. I thought it was going to tell of actual songs and artist. Nothing more than an Opinion work by Blecha that didnt really go into detail about the actual songs. WASTE OF TIME READING.