Top Ten Banned Songs: Welcome to the Boomtown (#5)

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Before I shuffle off to Buffalo I’ll give you another song on the list of my favorites from a month of songs that found themselves banned. Today’s is, maybe, a bigger head-scratcher than “Rumble” the instrumental. Oh, well. Who said there was any sense when it came to protesting these songs? #5: Welcome to the Boomtown - David + David David (Baerwald) and David (Ricketts) only made one album. It’s a dynamo, though: a look at the bad side of just about everything. That includes the underside of Los Angeles, featured here the quasi-title track of the album. Needless to say, lines like “Pick a habit, we got plenty to go around” won’t make the Chamber of Commerce show up, begging to use the song in a tourism commercial. However, please note the date this came out. No typo. 1986. The decade of Miami Vice and “say hello to my little friend” Scarface. Also, musically, nearly a decade after Eric Clapton’s version of the JJ Cale song “Cocaine,” the Jackson Browne rendition of Rev. Gary Davis’ song “Cocaine,” and all the songs that explicitly or implicitly discussed it in the 70s. So with that precursor you should be able to guess that the offensive word in this song was cocaine. The record company was asked for a “cleaner version,” so D+D complied, changing the line “cocaine on her dresser” to “cheap thrills in her dresser.” The punchline, of course, is the line “deals dope out of Denny’s, keeps a table in the back” was left intact. Oy. Welcome to the Boomtown Written by David Baerwald and David Ricketts Recorded by David + David From Boomtown, 1986 Reason banned: reference to cocaine Satisfaction oozes from her pores: