back to article Beeb censors Fairytale of New York

The BBC has censored The Pogues' xmas classic Fairytale of New York lest the lyrics offend homosexuals, the Telegraph reports. The line in question is, of course, "You scumbag, you maggot you cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas your arse I pray God It's our last", now gracing the airwaves with "faggot" beeped out. A Beeb …

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  1. Jim Jones
    Dead Vulture

    How about this one then?

    Perhaps the BBC should also "adjust" their own web site as well...

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/2698507.stm

  2. Graham Marsden
    Thumb Down

    A certain irony....

    ... In the quote from the Telegraph:

    "You scumbag, you maggot you cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas your a*** I pray God It's our last."

    So they're quite happy to print "faggot", but they won't print "arse"?!?!

  3. Steve Sutton
    Coat

    @ old slut on junk

    Oooh, have I just been too impatient?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No...

    "non-indigenous arrivals that CHOOSE to come here then OBJECT to what they find here and INSIST that *WE* change to accommodate them."

    No, you have got it all wrong. None of the are objecting as far as I know, and never have done to anything like this. It's the BBC / Government / whoever who take it upon themselves to censor / change things because they are scared of offending them in the first place... fools.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Oliver's Army

    On a tangent, I wonder if Elvis Costello's "Oliver's Army" is ever censored in a similar way, to remove the N-word ("only takes one itchy trigger etc")? Do Costello's slightly blemished PC credentials overwhelm the word? Was it the first top ten single to have the N-word in it? Hmm?

  6. Andrew Garrard

    Censoring by word, not meaning

    As has been said, of all the lines to censor...

    Mind you, it's not just the BBC. Virgin are currently playing "Rock star" with the lines "Hire eight bodyguards who like to beat up assholes" and "I'm gonna dress my ass in the latest fashions" beeped, but no issue with "Everybody's got a drug dealer on speed dial" or "Gonna pop my pills from a Pez dispenser".

    They might, quite rightly, assume that the people who are going to object to this kind of song are those who aren't listening to the lyrics properly - and are almost definitely objecting on the basis that they imagine someone *else* will be offended.

    I've given up on predicting sensibilities after someone called in a radio show to complain that the Cadbury's advert with a gorilla playing the drums was on just after a black guy won Big Brother. (I've never watched Big Brother, and I'd always assumed that , if anything, the gorilla ad was a dig at Phil Collins being bald, but in a million years I'd not have thought it was racist.)

  7. Martin McNulty
    Thumb Down

    @Nick

    The BBC never play the 'faggot' line from Dire Straits' Walk of Life - in fact they drop the whole verse. That one's been pissing me off for years!

  8. g e
    Thumb Down

    Censor the BBC, quick!

    I think the 'BBC' should henceforth be known as '' because B, B & C could possibly stand for B*****d, B****r and C**t and may cause offence to people with young children. So, Happy C****tmas to everyone at the beeb. Oh, and Christmas should be renamed because it's Christian and may cause offence to all the other religions in the UK who forget they're actually living in a non-<insert your non-christian religious denomination here> country. Dunno what it could be renamed to... suggestions, anyone?

  9. F Cage
    Thumb Down

    BBC pandering to US English

    The Video has had faggot blanked out on MTV/VH1 etc. for years, but I always put that down to their copies being the American versions, having been censored for fear of litigation over the pond.

    This however is the UK, and the BRITISH Broadcasting Corp.

    Stop pandering to American English usage!

  10. Mark Reed
    Stop

    As one of those who the line is mean to offend..

    I would like to say that this has been one of my all time Christmas favourites, simply because its full of arguing (really gives a true representation of how Christmas usually pans out).

    The BBC should stop wasting our licence fees on censoring songs which have been around decades and spend more time fixing their programming schedule.

    I shall be continuing to listen to the song on my non BBC controlled CD player.

    Sincerely,

    More irritated by the censorship than the song.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hate-slurs - appropriate?

    The song is a creative work, in which two *characters* argue, and it's one of the *characters* who is inclined to use a pejorative word, "faggot", at the other. In the way that old (and maybe ex) friends might do, if having a pop at each other.

    And we censor this as inappropriate for general daytime broadcast? "Sorry - that character can't say that."

    Obviously we as broadminded sensible people throw our hands up in the air - "it's political correctness gone MAD!"

    But what if, say, it wasn't an anti-gay pejorative word, but a racially pejorative word, that these two arguing old/ex-friend characters were using - "you cheap lousy nigger", say?

    Ah, most of you would say. Unsuitable for general daytime broadcast.

    I encourage you to think a little deeper. If your only reasoning is "well, the n-word, that's not generally allowed is it, but 'faggot', that's not generally seen as being in the same league", well, that ain't good enough: one is an expression of hatred/disdain towards gays, and one towards blacks. "X is OK because it generally has been OK, but Y isn't OK because it generally hasn't been" - nope, not good enough, I'm not asking you to reflect on what people have until recently got away with and declare that to be "reasoning", I'm asking you to defend, logically, the use of "faggot" if you wouldn't defend the use of "nigger".

    If your only difference is that "nigger" would cause a larger outcry, then you are exactly the same as the BBC controllers, except that they've set their bar a little lower, in terms of allowable outcry; you're not doing it through any reason, but through practicality. Through politics: "*this* would only cause a ripple, so let's go with it, but *that* would cause an outcry, so let's not."

    I contend that either all forms of hate-slurs are appropriate for use *in character* in general daytime musical entertainment, or none are.

  12. Ferry Boat

    and that's not all...

    ...some people burn faggots. Not only are they beeped out of a song but people throw them on the fire. Make the 25th Faggot Freedom Day.

  13. Taskis

    @Anonymous Coward

    << I really object to this imported middle eastern death cult called Christmas anyway.

    why should I pretend to be a Christian once a year so I can celebrate the winter solstice.

    After all pagan festivals are a lot more fun, they are all about food, beer and fertility [...] >>

    And, incidentally, the death and resurrection of the sun god, according to modern pagan thinking; but feel free to ignore all that if it helps you complain about someone ELSE'S 'death cult'...

    Where's the eye-roll icon when you need one?

    Hey ho. Maybe you're being facetious, I dunno - but I know the predictable indignant bleating of some neo-pagans around this time of year about how the Christians 'stole' their midwinter festival does a perfectly good job of satirising itself.

    --

    Taskis (pagan)

  14. David Adams
    Paris Hilton

    Won't someone think of the.......

    .... IPhone??

    I was going to ask where the PH angle was but then I saw "You're an old slut on junk" and that question was answered.

    Faggot is also a term used for a bundle of sticks, usually firewood.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @Nige

    Actually, the nursery in question did not change 'Baa Baa Black Sheep' to 'Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep', they merely *added* extra verses to it which included "Rainbow Sheep" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4782856.stm)

    As per usual the 'Daily Mail' crowd edit the story to fit their own preconceptions...

  16. Eponymous Cowherd
    Flame

    How the HELL........

    can the BBC censor Fairytale of New York as offensive when they employ Moyles.

  17. Cris Page
    Unhappy

    Wrong song

    Umm no.. its not "Walk of Life" that has the "faggot" lines - they come from "Money for nothing", if you have been listening for them in "life" that would explain why you say they have been cut from the song.

    The BBC never learn do they? This really does make them look stupid.

  18. Mike
    Unhappy

    Let the people decide.

    Surely unless a lot of people have complained about this, and if they had we would have seen their complaints, the BBC deciding that certain groups will find this word offensive is just being patronising?

    Insulting certain groups by saying that they are too fragile and can't handle such words.

    Sad really, as one of the gay blokes I know is the strongest minded person I have ever met and finds this being told what offends him the biggest insult going.

  19. Richard

    Please dont offend me

    Has the whole country gone completely insane?

    When did we become such a nation of soft skinned losers that get offended by insignificant things.

    I mean bloody hell we survived the plague and who knows how many wars, recession and natural disasters only to end up a nation of whiners just because someone interprets something in a manner that upsets them.

    GET A BACKBONE AND SOME HARD SKIN you pansies, better still slide under a rock and let the rest of us get on with our lives without being made to feel selfish for not considering other peoples feelings whenever we do anything

    ahhhh much better rant over.

    P.S anyone offended by what i said can meet me outside! lets settle this the old fashioned way, or does the fact you have no backbone and bruise easily mean you'll back off?

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Bawbags

    Kirsty would be happy, still stirring the shit. The Beeb should be nominated for the old Jobsworth award on Esther toothsome Rantzen's show.

    Efros

  21. kerr smith
    Stop

    Offended?

    I find it more offensive that they think I would be offended by the lyrics of a song!

  22. Stuart
    Stop

    RE: hate-slurs - appropriate?

    I think the main point here is where do you draw the line, personally I think its all crap we should never sensor words at all. WHY?

    Well 'faggot' is only rude because we believe it to be as with all the rest of them, it's about time we as a nation started to grow up, at the end of the day a four letter word is a four letter word, if it be cock, slut or slow it's just a bloody word!

    For those of you thinking 'nigger' or 'faggot' are any different you are wrong, yes the word 'nigger' has a history but then so does the Holocaust but are we banned from using it, NO! People should not be lined up & shot for the use of it, CONTEXT is what is important here not arrangement of a few simple letters.

    It infuriates me to see all this fuss over a few letters, ok I don't really like the use of them & I wouldn't want my kids using them but thats another issue the sooner we accept the use of words like this the sooner we start to accept them as normal.

    So in light of the above have a good xmas you fekers. :P

  23. Fenwar
    Thumb Up

    you scumbag, you mucker...

    The bleep is great. Just sing along and insert even ruder words according to [lack of] taste.

    And of course the more bleeps, the more funny it gets. In my head is now playing the following version:

    You're a b**

    You're a p***

    You're an old s*** on j***

    Lying there almost dead on a d*** in that bed

    You s******, you m*****

    You cheap lousy f*****

    Happy C******** your a***

    I pray G** it's our last

  24. Joe
    Alert

    The BBC should be consistent

    I have a friend who can understand Jamaican patois, and he tells me that he's often heard homophobic lyrics broadcast on Radio 1 and 1Xtra calling for death or violence towards gay men.

    Presumably it escapes the censors because they don't understand it. I've certainly heard Buju Banton and Capleton on the BBC, but - like the censors - I don't understand most of the lyrics!

    Perhaps it's a storm in a teacup, but it doesn't sit right with me.

    To be fair, however - http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/news/20070723_banton.shtml

    Yet they bleep out Kirsty MacColl?

  25. Shakje

    I've been waiting for someone to mention

    Winterval, after QI the other night.

  26. Derek Williams

    Anyone remeber the Ronan Keating version

    No? Anyone? Not surprised......

    but he was too keen to have his sexuality questioned (again) so the lyrics were changed to "you're old and you're haggard".... seiously

  27. EvilFairy
    Pirate

    @hate-slurs - appropriate

    if they were both black, then her calling him a nigger would have been fine as apparently they're alowed to call each other that its just others that aren't

    take some Jackie Chan + Chris Rock film (no idea what it was) they walk into a bar Chris say "yo my nigger", gets a handshake type thing, Jackie copies and gets a dirty look

    so far as I'm concerned no word should be censored if its use is appropriate to the situation, and as she was deliberately insulting him HE was supposed to be offended, so using a word that may be offensive is appropriate and therefore should not be censored

    the songs been played for 20 years why all of a sudden does it need censoring?

    (C)Rap music is much more offensive to anyone with any taste and all "lyrics" should be censored form that so people can enjoy what's very occasionally a good tune spoilt by some talentless ex/soontobe-con talking about drugs sex and violence

  28. Test Man
    Stop

    A couple of posters...

    ...

    Re: Double standards

    It's "Soulja Boy"

    Re: Plotical Correctness Gone Mad

    Actually, the "non-indigenous arrivals" don't demand it, it's the "native" PC people that *thinks* stuff like this to be offensive to them, which of course is completely wrong and they would find out if they had actually ASKED them beforehand.

  29. Robinson

    Arse

    "This step has been taken as this is a word that members of our audience would find offensive."

    Rubbish. Look at the poll on their website. Over 95% of people think it should *not* have been edited. As usual, this is nothing more than the PC bullshit typical of the BBC.

  30. Steve
    Thumb Up

    BBC is getting a few comments too

    This story is carried on the BBC news website. Stats for the "debate" as they quaintly title their forum are:

    Total comments: 1740

    Published comments: 759

    Rejected comments: 25

    Moderation queue: 955

    Busy moderator :)

    Story at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7149525.stm if El Reg will permit the URL.

  31. archie lukas
    Coat

    The problem with cheap faggots

    The beeb really shouldn't buy cheap faggots,

    the best ones are from prime cuts of Angus organic steaks you know......

  32. David Shaw
    Thumb Up

    The Pogues

    Has Auntie Beeb yet realised that "the Pogues" is derived from Pogue Mahone — being the Anglicisation of the Irish póg mo thóin, meaning "kiss my arse"

    they were awesome by Lake Annecy in 1987 and Shane was only perfectly drunk

  33. Andromeda
    Unhappy

    I couldn't be arsed giving a title

    This political correctness is absolute bullshit. Radio 1 has been paying this song every CHRISTMAS for the past 26 years without censoring out the word FAGGOT without a single complaint about offence being taken by the word FAGGOT being broadcast to the general population of this country and now anyone who wishes to listen around the world via the internet.

    If there is anyone out there that takes offence the word FAGGOT being used within the context of this song should turn of the radio for the duration of the song as soon as it starts just so they cannot be offended by it.

    As usually it is the majorities enjoyment that is spoit by the opinions of the minority (but not in this case), it is happening far too much in this country and the NANNY state that the goverment is producing is now rubbing off on normal institutions, as they now believe that they can censor what ever they want with out any backlash from the majority.

    I could carry on forever but I suppose I should stop there, but I have just a few more words to say.

    FAGGOTS, ARSE, BOLLOCKS censor that you fuckers.

    Grumpy old man getting coat, going to car, putting "Fairytale of New York" on at full blast WITHOUT ANYTHING BEING BLEEPED OUT.

  34. Colin Millar
    Go

    If Auntie has the vapours over this

    it's a good thing they never released Bottle of Smoke as a single.

  35. sue

    @ Andrew Garrard

    Re: 'Rock Star' - was channel hopping during adverts about 5am and MTV 1 I think were playing it, and blanked out 'drug dealer'

    All the networks are inconsistent because everyone is trying to be goody two shoes and pre-empt the next addendum to some oddball law. In my opinion anyway.

  36. Colin Millar
    Go

    @ Steve

    Just followed that link - if the Beeb are worried about offensive material they need to have a think about that pic of MacGowan

  37. Vulpes Vulpes

    Baby was a black sheep, baby was a whore,

    baby, baby, baby, was a Rock 'n' Roll ni............

    ooops, sorry.

    Pattie Smith will laugh herself silly if she reads this story, wondering whether her storming song from the triumph that is "Easter" will ever get aired on Radio Doh! again.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    @ Taskis

    Ow no. now I've upset the pagan fundamentalists, They'll be round measuring the length of my wife's beard and dig up my phallic symbol from the front garden.

    I am pretty sure that it's supposed to be about the rebirth of the Sun and renewed life not about the suns death and beginning of the after life. If I'm wrong then sorry although I think perhaps the Christians have corrupted you. Still my winter solstice is about celebrating life by drinking eating and beeping not about the birth of a martyr to masturbation.

    The point is it's not being PC not calling it Christmas, It's just being honest because it isn't Christmas unless you happen to be a Christian and in this country they are in short supply.

    This is NOT because of immigration, Christianity itself is not native to this country, it's because of education.

    It's not being British to call it Christmas it's just cowardly hiding behind tradition, not having the guts to establish your own identity (unless you happen to be a Christian). If anything calling it Christmas is politically correctness gone mad to avoid offend the Christians.

  39. Mark

    Re: Great editing

    "Happy Christmas your arse-hole"

    Is I think the right line. Though that may have been an improv change over the official lyrics.

  40. Mark

    What do we do to faggots?

    Burn them!

    But only if they are dry wood...

  41. Martin Beckett Silver badge
    Coat

    The irony

    The band's name comes from "Pogue Mo Chone" meaning "kiss my arse" in Gaelic.

    They had to change it when the BBC finally got a producer who spoke Gaelic -

    after years of English DJs carefully pronouning it.

  42. Mark

    Rainbow Sheep?

    That's some serious shit you're smoking if you can see *them*!

  43. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Not surprised..

    that the BBC has its priorities wrong. Not long ago in a program about neonazis, the c*ns*r deemed it necessary to beep out all the Fuck and Shit instances, but happily left in the N-word (derog: person of african descent).

    A group of people that lets a term of abuse for part of our fellow man uncensored whilst removing terms that describe the procreative act cannot reasonably be expected to have any idea what they're doing.

  44. This post has been deleted by its author

  45. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    @ hate-slurs - appropriate?

    From the comments on here and on the BBC it appears the word 'faggot' does not actually offend homosexuals so I think it is ok for it to appear in a silly oft played song on the radio.

    Of course, going up to a homosexual and venemously spitting the word 'faggot' at them is probably not ok, and is likely to cause offence.

    The word 'nigger' is offensive, it is understood to be offensive, and we understand that people in US movies who are black call each other by this word nobody else would use the word because it would be offensive to do so.

    Political correctness is about context and circumstance.

    The can Beeb play rap songs late at night that contain black gangsta rap stars chanting about 'niggers' beating up 'ho's' and 'sniffin crack' and doing unpleasant things to their mothers (or somebody elses mother) before shooting pigs etc. It is allowed at certain times and nights of the week by the Beeb.

    Given all of this fuss over a word homosexuals appear not to find offensive, it appears that either the Beeb have gone as mad as our government have (they are mad, that or unbelievably corrupt and incompetant at the same time, a dangerous combination); or it is a publicity stunt of some kind.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    @ T. O'Hara

    I'm with you! I wonder if they're going to check the betting activities of BBC employees over the Xmas No. 1?

  47. Anonymous Coward
    Go

    @ El Reg censored me

    IMO the Reg is not censoring this or even moderating it, IMO they are not reading or editing the comments.

    This can be proven by my own post with two instances of me typing words the wrong way round.

    What they appear to be doing is letting any post in so long as it doesn't say c*#t.

    Which I think is rather boll**k*ng m*ther f***ingly bloody liberal in my view.

    I wonder if the El Reg bot notices m**ge or tw@t or fud?

  48. Pete James

    Must be a stunt then.

    ITV has some spotty kid winning a phone-in. Said adolescent records mildly tweaked song to make his svengali lots more wonga in time for the New Year sales (30 pais of high-waisted slacks, and make them elasticated!).

    BBC decides to wee on his bonfire and gets everyone talking about some old Christmas song instead. Outraged population, headed by the fatsome Moyles, inadvertantly cause the old song to scream up to the top of the charts instead of acne-riddlled virgin and so Cowell's festive domination is ruined by a rather naughty little demonstration by a rival network on how to mobilise people to stop a rival making any dosh.

    I'm dreaming of course, it would never happen. No, never.....

  49. Keefey

    At Last!

    As a bender I for one welcome an end to this maddening outrage; I can now put away my placards, and I'm glad I don't have to burn an effigy of Kirsty MacColl, it took me so long to get the make-up just right. Still, I think it would have been better if they'd "replaced" the offending word with something more appropriate, like they did to Ghostbusters ("Forget you!"), for example: "You scumbag, you maggot, you're a - *male brummie voice* WATCHER OF TAGGART"

    Now, excuse me, I'm off to sing some non-denomination, non-judgemental winterval carols, while I think of other as-yet-intact songs that have been going for the best part of 20 years that can be the focus of my rage.

  50. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    I really hope ...

    .. they work through that moderation queue in the Beeb's Have Your Say page for this. Took me ages to carefully spell the C-word in the left hand column to just fit the page layout.

    I also don't buy the conspiracy theory of this being a publicity stunt. As much as I'd love to believe that, I just don't think the people who made this decision are that cunning.

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