History Bowdlerise / Music

** The censored version of "Let the Bad Times Roll" first mutes the word "bitch". Then, when it gets to the "fuck it" parts, the one from the lead singer is distorted while the background ones are muted. The first instances of muting the background voices causes the lead singer's voice to get cut off.

** Similarly, Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5" was rewritten to be about Lou hanging out with Disney characters at a candy store instead of buying some liquor and picking up women. Strangely enough, an instance of "Lord" was left alone as was the closing verse about falling in love.

** "C'est La Vie" by the Irish GirlGroup B*Witched had both its lines of "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours" replaced by "I'll be the queen, and you'll be the king". This resulted in the latter line being heard three times: once in the first verse and twice in the second.

* "The Duck Song" by Music/{{Songdrops}} is a more small child friendly version of an old joke about a duck repeatedly going into a bar (or in some versions a hardware store) and asking if they have grapes. The bartender/clerk gets fed up and says that if he comes back again he'll nail his feet to the floor. The duck comes back and asks if they have any nails, the bartender says that they don't, and then the duck asks for grapes again.

** According to Website/{{Wikipedia}}, while performing the song "Not Fair" on The Graham Norton Show in 2009, she changed the lyric "I spent ages giving head", to instead "I spent ages kneading bread". Yeah, we don't get it, either. Another censored version played on radio simply blanks out that entire line.

* Despite foul language and drug references in the lyrics, the label wanted to release Music/TheKnack's "(She's So) Selfish" as a single. A promotional radio edit changed "the Quaalude scene" to "the lame-o scene" and changed all uses of "fuck" to "touch". Also, the word "shit" was muted. This edit accidentally ended up on a CD reissue of ''Get the Knack'' as well as an iTunes release of the album that's not an Apple Digital Master. (The song is uncensored on the Apple Digital Master copy as well as on a compilation album. The official upload on [=YouTube=] from the original album is censored, but the one from the compilation album is uncensored.)

** By 2020, the Pogues had mellowed on the issue, as a tweet by UK alt-right provocateur Lawrence Fox complaining that the BBC had "cancelled" them by playing the censored version led to a public response, on the band's official Twitter account, reading simply "[[PrecisionFStrike Fuck off]] you little herrenvolk shite".

* The Natural Born Hippies song "Best Looking Guy in Town" was used for the Disney/Pixar ''WesternAnimation/{{Cars}}'' video game because the song fits the main character's egocentric, braggart personality. However, as the lyrics mention the sexual phrases "gonna get laid" and "making you cum" the edited version replaces these lyrics with repeated ones, turning it into a completely clean song.

* Some radio stations, such as KDWB, censor the words "skeet blanket" (a blanket males use to have ADateWithRosiePalms) from Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop".

* In Music/LilJon's "Get Low", the line "To all skeet skeet motherfucker, to all skeet skeet goddamn" replaced the swears with just a continued repeated "skeet skeet skeet skeet". As Creator/DaveChappelle [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKTqHsMqkb0 pointed out]], this arguably makes the song even filthier, putting the focus of the lyrics straight on the [[ADateWithRosiePalms uncensored reference to semen.]]

* 3OH3's "Don't Trust Me" originally had the line "don't trust a ho" in the chorus, which became something like "don't trust her". "I'm a vegetarian and I'm not fucking scared of him" also becomes "I'm a vegetarian and I'm not [DRUMBEAT] scared of him". Furthermore, a 'super clean' edit was released to some radio stations, censoring the controversial lyric "do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips".

-->"Curse like a sailor/Drink like a mick/My only words of wisdom are to/<''RADIO EDIT''>."

** He also parodied this in the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPOQE_LUESs "Cowboy"]].

* In "Runaway Love" by Ludacris, the word high in the line "Momma's on drugs, gettin' high up in the kitchen" is cut out, but that whole verse is about a girl who is being molested by her mother's boyfriend, and in general the song is about runaway teens.

* Music/TheNotoriousBIG's "Gimme The Loot" includes a line about robbing a pregnant woman at gun point. Apparently, this was considered beyond the pale by either album producer Music/SeanCombs or someone at the record label, because even the otherwise uncensored version of the song still censors that line. It's somewhat bizarre to listen to a song that's full of cursing and violence and realize you've just heard the word "pregnant" bleeped out. "Machine Gun Funk" also {{Sound Effect Bleep}}s out the phrase "the blue suits" (referring to police officers) with police sirens for unknown reasons, though the line is so relatively innocuous that this might have even just been done [[RuleOfCool because it sounded cool]].

* Averted in the Music/GreenDay album ''Music/TwentyFirstCenturyBreakdown''. Wal-Mart attempted to get Green Day to record a censored version of the album, as the store does not sell explicit albums. The band refused.

* The official music video for Creator/IdinaMenzel and Music/MichaelBuble's cover of "Baby It's Cold Outside", seen on [=YouTube=], cleans up some lyrics since it features two kids lipsyncing. E.g. "What's in this drink?" is changed to "Was that a wink?". Averted for the album version.

* In the Music/{{Nickelback}} song "Rockstar", the radio version bleeps out the word "drugs" in the line "The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap." The bleep, of course, only makes it sound [[CensoredForComedy worse]] (and redundant, because the bleep in the second line in relation to the "girls come easy" line that came before it could translate to either "whores" or "pussy"). However, many Canadian stations air the song uncensored, while at least one only mutes the word "asshole".

* In the Music/{{Nickelback}} song "Rockstar", the radio version bleeps out the word "drugs" in the line "The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap." The bleep, of course, only makes it sound [[CensoredForComedy worse]] (and redundant, because the bleep in the second line in relation to the "girls come easy" line that came before it could translate to either "whores" or "pussy").

* The synth-rock group Death In Vegas were originally called Dead Elvis, until objections from the Presley estate forced them to change it. ''Dead Elvis'' still remained the title of their first album.

* Music/DollyParton, Music/LindaRonstat and Emmylou Harris released a CoverVersion of [[Music/NeilYoung "After the Gold Rush"]] in 1999, and slightly altered the lyrics in two places: one change was simply updating the setting of the song ("in the nineteen-seventies' becomes "in the twentieth century"), but the other was removing a drug reference ("I felt like getting high" becomes "I felt like I ''could cry''").

* Music/DollyParton, Music/LindaRondstat and Emmylou Harris released a CoverVersion of [[Music/NeilYoung "After the Gold Rush"]] in 1999, and slightly altered the lyrics in two places: one change was simply updating the setting of the song ("in the nineteen-seventies' becomes "in the twentieth century"), but the other was removing a drug reference ("I felt like getting high" becomes "I felt like I ''could cry''").

* Music/DollyParton, Music/LindaRhondstat and Emmylou Harris released a CoverVersion of [[Music/NeilYoung "After the Gold Rush"]] in 1999, and slightly altered the lyrics in two places: one change was simply updating the setting of the song ("in the nineteen-seventies' becomes "in the twentieth century"), but the other was removing a drug reference ("I felt like getting high" becomes "I felt like I ''could cry''").