Ballad of the Banned

The Pistols got their record banned on Radio One,
Frankie found 'Relax' was treated the same,
The Stones re-wrote a line to get a song on TV,
Although the Doors refused to play the same game,
But I did something that's eluded all of those groups,
I wrote a song that got a ban from WikiLoops.

'Strange Fruit' by Billie Holliday's a favourite of mine,
It has echoes you can hear to this day,
It's beautiful, political and changed the whole world,
But it was banned across the U.S. of A,
Sometimes you speak your heart instead of jumping through hoops,
Even if that means you get a ban on WikiLoops.

'Je t'aime' made Jane unpopular in many locales,
For just suggesting to them women like sex,
And Abba's 'Waterloo' get's banned each time there's a war,
Which is insane and makes you wonder "what's next?"
I guess nobody wants to be offending the troops,
Which I support - but still my song got banned on Wikiloops.

The Lebanon banned Gaga in a "literal" sense,
'F*** tha police' was kinda asking for it,
And the Beatles had a 'Warm Gun' people misunderstood,
Unless they'd studied Charlie Brown for a bit.
So be carefeul what you write or you'll be hollering "oops!,
I must have woken up the censor down at WikiLoops."

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Something of a landmark here as this is the 100th Lyric that I have submitted on this forum (unless it gets banned).

The previous banned one was back in November 2021 and to be fair I wasn’t bent out of shape about it as there was a specific “leave your politics at home” rule that I knew about. Mind you, in other lyrics in the 100 I smuggled in comments about Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Homophobia, Big Tech, Global Warming, The Epstein Scandal, Gun Control, Election “fixing”, Brexit, Racism, Big Oil green-washes, COVID mismanagement, Vaccines, Arms Sales, Carbon Offsetting, Military Collateral Damage, Knife Crime, Misogyny, Social Media Narcissism, Copyright Infringement, Immigration Double Standards and Police Shootings. You may know the saying: “political with a small ‘p’”.

So I do write a bit about what’s going on in the world around me as well as Killer Robot Mice, Vampire Cows, Xmas Zombie Reindeer, Lusty Necromancers, Sinatra-Loving Basilisk Slayers, Flying Cats, Mutant Chainsaw Girls and time travelling Ice Cream Salesmen. I try not to offend and can only apologise if/when I do.

I joined WL in December 2020 after finding it whilst looking for places that published music without bass parts that I could practise to. It is an amazing resource for that reason alone, but I noticed the lyrics section too. I have written poetry and song lyrics for most of my life but haven’t always completed them or indeed preserved them… So as the lockdowns dragged on, I thought I’d make a point of trying to do just that – all of the nonsense you have read was written since that time, largely based on stuff that occurs while practising that I later work up to completion.

Other writers cover more traditional subjects well enough, my work is a bit different drawing on things like nonsense, sci-fi, mythology, gothic horror, history, folk tales, technology, current affairs, crazy engineering, western legends and crime. As well as quite a few “from the heart” songs about good old love. I like rhyming and rhythm a lot and enjoy trying to make many songs funny although there is no specific musical genre that I adhere to. I often think “that’s a great punk lyric” and then someone records it as a blues. Brilliant! I’m not precious, I see them as templates that others can mess around with add to and alter to their heart’s content if its helpful to their own work.

100 took 18 months which is a rate of 1.3 a week – I have less time now that work is back to normal though. I have a program I wrote that complies them all into one document (anyone foolish enough to want a copy of same just ask me) so I know it’s about 26,000 words or about the length of a Novella. I do look at the forum and think “too much me”, for which I apologise but I just can’t stop them - hopefully more people will write more and I particularly enjoy reading Zoot, Jane and dash1’s work.

People have used 16 songs in sessions (with three of them being used more than once) and I have enjoyed listening to every single one! Thank you so much. Special mention for Sami’s take on “Harpoon Heart” and axenvocs(Gary)’s ability to make so many sound so damn great.
Thank you to everyone who has liked or commented as well, there are now over 50 who have interacted with lots of great feedback from all but in particular GBD, GrooveEnth, petebass, TeeGee, Ernie440 and (of course) the legendary Mr axenvocs.

So, a massive alpa-sorted and heart-felt shout out to:

Ananda, arcifric, axenvocs, cmdr_chill, dash1, Daveca, davidaustin, deezee, Donn5150, Ernie440, Fishinmissio, FrankieJ, GBD, gioganotti, GrooveEnth, Gruff, hartmut, ivax, JACKS, janixbonham, JeanPaul66, jjdf, JustinL, LittleWing, Major 3rd, MarcoTJ, mdn, Mickey, mindjob, Navota, Newman100, OilVBee, OXO, Pasticcio, petebass, Pranasound, rootshell, sami, seriouss, Shi, slin, snuffles, stgeorges, szimn, TeeGee, TheCadd2, Tofzegrit, Tu, Vladaroo, WanHu, Warhawk, Wirework, wjl, Zenga59 and Zoot.

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congrats on 100 bassMonkey, that's very cool! i was just perusing your lyrics last night, trying to fit some stuff in (which i couldn't quite get it to fit, but it's always nice to have a catalog to go through). always a pleasure to read your stuff <3

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Congrats bro on 100 .. always enjoy reading your awesome songs/poetry. :W

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