Banned Songs: Street Fighting Man

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Ahhhh. Ooh, does that salad taste good. For a couple of days, anything that doesn’t taste like cherry glacier Gatorade, chicken broth, or a banana popsicle is going to be extraordinarily delicious. But music sounds good every day, and here’s another song that was banned by a number of radio stations. Street Fighting Man - Rolling Stones There are two acts on this list where I had A LOT to choose from. While I didn’t research this particular aspect, the Stones might be the most banned act on American radio. There was “Let’s Spend the Night Together” (which they infamously had to change to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together” for Ed Sullivan). And “Sympathy for the Devil” (offensive to Christians). And “She’s a Rainbow” or “Mother’s Little Helper” (drug references). Some stations wouldn’t play “Fool to Cry” after the ill-advised promotional billboard for Black and Blue, which had a battered woman saying, “I’m black and blue from The Rolling Stones and I love it.” Talk about a band that earned their sobriquet of “the bad boys of rock and roll”!! The original version of this song was called “Did Everybody Pay Their Dues,” and even that might have been banned with lines like “He beats his wife and makes her life a total wet vacation.” “Did Everybody Pay Their Dues” was recorded in March 1968. And, under normal circumstances, it would’ve probably been released in its original form. But if you ask anyone who was alive then, they’ll tell you that 1968 was NOT “normal circumstances.” It wasn’t just us in America, either. We had a slew of black eyes that year, from Reverend King to Bobby Kennedy to racial violence that burned a number of cities down to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Over in France, there was “May ‘68,” where strikes and protests and violence brought Paris to a standstill. Mick Jagger saw all of this and rewrote the lyrics to the song. Goodbye, “Did Everybody Pay Their Dues;” hello, “Street Fighting Man.” With the tinderbox that was the unrest of 1968, a lot of stations wouldn’t play this song for fear that it’d make someone take to the streets for fighting. Despite the fact that it seems more geared toward the Paris problems (“think the time is right for a palace revolution”) than the US issues, people weren’t going to take a chance. There’s no problem now, of course. However, if you read about the history of 1968 and then listen to this song, you can understand why there was hesitation on the part of radio programmers to give it a spin. Street Fighting Man Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards Recorded by The Rolling Stones From Beggars Banquet, 1968 Reason banned: fear of inciting violence with lyrics In sleepy London Town: