In the year 2012 you do not see the type of censorship you saw in the past on TV during the beginning decades of TV. The level of what is acceptable is easier than it was in the past. There are many examples from the past that showed how worried they were with things even if it wasn’t a swear word. You either had them flat out censored or sometimes filtered or modified in a subtle way which reflected the programming and cultural standards of the time. It would mostly be up to the sponsors or the network. Also the music nowadays has more inappropriate words or sayings compared to the past. They have to censor when they perform it somewhere where it has to be acceptable for all ages and at the place they perform.
One of the moments of censorship that will always be a memorable and an important moment in television and Rock N Roll history took place in 1967 on a show called the Ed Sullivan show. This show was supposed to have the performance by The Doors and Jim Morrison censored. Before the show Ed asked the Doors to not use the line “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” or try to figure out another saying to use. They agreed not to say that line. The audience wasn’t aware of the deal that was made before the show so they weren’t surprised at all until after the fact. The Doors made the song about seven minutes but also made shorter versions to play on the radio which would also be the version they played on TV show appearances.
Knowing who Jim Morrison was you would know that he was all about himself type of image not giving any care about anything or what other people say. So I think he took offense to what was asked of him. So as we all we know when he started to sing the song and the part of the song with the words he wasn’t supposed to, he was singing with such an attitude. That nothing good would come from this in terms of the relationship between the Doors and Ed Sullivan for not holding up his end of the bargain.
In general it was a very good performance and great work from the electric organ player, Ray Manzarek, who is one of the best ever and of course Jim himself right down to the pose at the end. At the end of the song you see Ed Sullivan so furious and that he wasn’t going to shake their hands which he didn’t. He told people later that “The Doors will never play the Ed Sullivan Show again”. In response to that Jim Morrison said “Well, we just played the Ed Sullivan Show”.
That line “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” was interpreted to be a reference for using drugs and they didn’t want that to be sung on the show and promote the use of the drugs in the 60’s. In the 60’s the use of drugs was something that was frowned upon more so than even in the 70’s and even now. Drug usage wasn’t as high as it now or at least wasn’t as high as it was till the 70’s. Nowadays there isn’t much that is censored unless it’s a swear word. They talk about violence and drug use all the time on TV and in Music. They also talk about sex as much on both TV and in Music.
I feel they over did themselves by asking some musical group to take out a line in their song if it wasn’t a curse word. You have to look at everything that is said or written in many ways. It can be mean something in so many ways so they shouldn’t assume that it means this and that or the literal definition.
There is a very good example of this, when you read the bible it might say “Thou shall not kill”. It doesn’t give you any real specifications or context in which you shouldn’t kill someone. So there is something called interpretation in which people with the bible takes things into their own idea of what it means and act on their own or go on what it says literally.
If you ask Jim and other members of the Doors, they will tell you that song wasn’t supposed to have meaning about drugs even though Jim died of an overdose and famous for taking drugs all the time, even passing out on stage before shows, or just taking drugs while touring overseas. They said it was a love song which is what most people view it as. If you look at their works like “Touch Me” and “Hello I Love You”, you see a pattern of their doing love ballads.
As a whole the current state of TV and music has been subpar and the bar has been lowered in what’s acceptable and what is good. What television stations and TV show is much different from the past. It shows things to do with sex, drugs, and alcohol, more than the past. It is like it’s centered around those three things and nothing else. All of the music nowadays has curse words left and right and inappropriate concepts in it.
All of these reality TV shows aren’t needed and we don’t need to watch a show about a real person’s everyday life. In the past we had whole hearted shows even if the show was violent. Music was better than in terms of context and not much censorship was needed as compared to now. Our society wouldn’t think what was considered inappropriate then as ok now because we have become more sensitized. The more and more we go on in time we will become more sensitized, because we are seeing more and more things on TV that wouldn’t have been considered appropriate in the past.
Most people will admire Jim Morrison for the stand he took during that time because of the way you can interpret things and that he shouldn’t have been told he couldn’t do his song the way he created the song. I personally love when an artist stays true to his work. But if Jim Morrison was around now he might have had something in his song that would have been more inappropriate because of the times now and what is considered ok to sing about or watch on TV.
If the music and TV shows back then could raise the bar on what’s good TV and music there would be some hope for us a society and what we view as appropriate, and not needing to be censored, or censored when its extreme when the bar is raised again. We need fewer songs where the guy is swearing every second, and TV shows not all about sex and about people’s personal lives. We need you, 1960-1970s, back in our life when Rock music was king and TV shows were great.