Singles they wanted to ban (14)

Denim is Lawrence Hayward an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, born 12 August 1961 in Birmingham, England, UK.

EMI self-banned this release because the planned release date is in the same period when Princess Diana died by the car crash although this song is not made of it. That’s why this hasn’t turned up much in the market. However, some of the album’s tracks have been released on a subsequent Lawrence project, the 2005 Go Kart Mozart album Tearing Up The Album Charts, as well as a complete reworking for the next album On the Hot Dog Streets.

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Singles they wanted to ban (13)

The Shamen were a British psychedelic-influenced electronic dance music band from Aberdeen, Scotland. The founding members are Colin Angus, Derek McKenzie and Keith McKenzie. Peter Stephenson joined shortly after to take over keyboards from Colin.

“Ebeneezer Goode” is a song by The Shamen, which, after being heavily remixed by The Beatmasters, became their biggest hit when released as a single in September 1992. The band’s original version also featured on the vinyl edition of their album Boss Drum. “Ebeneezer Goode” was one of the most controversial UK number-one hits of the 1990s, due to its perceived oblique endorsement of recreational drug use. The song was initially banned by the BBC, and the single was eventually withdrawn after the band were hounded by the British tabloid press.

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Poor Amy Winehouse who they wanted to ban

Rumor has it that Amy Winehouse is finally cleaning up her act, but the talented singer has left a trail of trouble behind her. So outrageous were Amy’s antics that she was barred from performing in the United States twice — once in 2008, which forced her to miss that year’s Grammys (where she won 5 awards) and again in 2009. Amy Winehouse has withdrawing from all scheduled performances since June. Hopefully, Amy will learn to keep her beehive, and her behavior, in line.

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Singles they wanted to ban (12)

Back in 1990, before Madonna discovered Kabbalah, yoga or Malawi, she occupied herself with making titillating music videos designed to excite, and sometimes offend its viewer. Her most outrageous piece of eye candy was “Justify My Love,” whose raunchiness makes Lady Gaga look like Mother Theresa. The black & white clip shows Madonna in various states of undress engaging in naughty acts with men, women and a few scantily-clad people of questionable genders.

MTV, who was all set to premiere the clip, banned it outright once they got the first peek. But the controversy only piqued the interest in the clip — 260,000 VHS copies of the video were sold, and the song spent two weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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Singles they wanted to ban (11)

They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa! from Napoleon XIV was banned from airplay in the US. The recording is a first-person rant by a seemingly mentally ill patient who is bemoaning the loss of either a wife, lover, or dog who ran away. Napoleon XIV is Jerry Samuels, a recording engineer from New York. He himself never performed the song, it was always other people who did the live act.

The July 30, 1966 issue of Billboard magazine contains an interesting bit about the uproar this song caused.

An interesting fact about this “song” is because there were no musical notes or melody, the record could not be copyrighted as a song. Instead, though, it was copyrighted as a lecture intended for oral delivery. This still means other record companies couldn’t copy it without permission.

A group called Josephine XV was created to record an answer song to this called “I’m Happy They Took You Away, Ha-Haaa!” Another answer song was Teddy And Daniel’s “They took you away, I’m glad, I’m glad.”

Following the original record’s success, Jerry Samuels wrote and recorded a sequel to it in 1990, “They’re Coming To Get Me Again, Ha-Haaa!

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Singles they wanted to ban (10)

Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg duet “Je t’aime … moi non plus”, translated: I love you… me neither, was the first ever number one hit to be banned by the BBC. It was also banned from radio play in Portugal, Spain, Italy, Poland and denounced by the Vatican in a public statement.

Although at the time of its release, in 1969, the sexual revolution was celebrated, most radio stations still were not able to cope with such explicit lyrics, as “Je vais et je viens, entre tes reins” (“I go and I come, in between your loins”),  “L’amour physique est sans issue” (“Physical love is pointless”) and “Tu es la vague, moi l’île nue” (“You are the wave, I the naked island”) not to mention Birkins moans and groans. 

Originally the song was recorded with Brigitte Bardot in 1968, but due to the fact that she got married in 1969 with Gunter Sachs, she pleaded with Gainsbourg not to release it with her voice.

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