BBC Bans Anti-War single

Post by **faceless** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 4:58 pm

The BBC have decided to ban the anti-war single "War" in case it "offends the government". The single, recorded by the band Ugly Rumours, is a simple cover of the original Edwin Starr song though the video contains a satire of Tony Blair being arrested (by George Galloway and Lauren Booth in police uniforms) for war-crimes.

I've never known a song to be banned on political grounds like this and I'm not happy about it at all. Still, the media kicked up about the banning should give it a fair amount of coverage in other sources. You can listen to the song below. You can also buy the single...

<embed src="https://www.indiestore.com/stores/flash/mp3player.swf" width="300" height="110" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="https://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="config=https://www.indiestore.com/stores/flash/ ... /tracklist">

and here's the video:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/ydt0SL5rYow"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/ydt0SL5rYow" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="575" height="460"></embed></object>

Marcella-FL · Post by **Marcella-FL** » Fri Mar 02, 2007 6:09 pm

disturbing that they are banning the video. Is this guy always so goofy when he sings? I love this song (always have) and think this is one of the weakest versions ..

major.tom · Post by **major.tom** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:31 am

This is truly shocking. Banning a song for fear of offending the government??? BBC should be speaking for the people (their owners), not the gov't. And what kind of government does GBR have that we should be concerned about offending them? This is what you see under totalitarian regimes...

Post by **faceless** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:38 am

Marcella-FL wrote:disturbing that they are banning the video. Is this guy always so goofy when he sings? I love this song (always have) and think this is one of the weakest versions ..

it isn't the best version at all - in the Galloway section there's a thread called Ugly Rumours where you can hear all the versions that seem to be available. My personal favourite was The Temptations version, though I quite liked Springsteen's version too.

The guy in the video was just playing it up cos he looks quite like Tony Blair - but that is him singing the song as far as I know.

Post by **faceless** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 1:42 am

major.tom wrote:This is truly shocking. Banning a song for fear of offending the government??? BBC should be speaking for the people (their owners), not the gov't. And what kind of government does GBR have that we should be concerned about offending them? This is what you seen under totalitarian regimes...

it really is eh? I'm now pissed off that I pay my licence fee. Fucking arses that they are!

The last song I remember the BBC banning was something by some Jamaican rapper that was completely misogynistic, which was fair enough - but where's the offence in this song? If there's a problem why didn't they ban it before? Frankie Goes To Hollywood did their version in the 80s and it was fine - even though they mocked Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov - yet this version is bannable?

I'd happily punch a bbc exec in the head for this and then have a "self-defence" approach in court!

IRiSHMaFIA · Post by **IRiSHMaFIA** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 5:11 am

That's utterly ridiculous them banning it. What in hell right does the government have doing that? Is it turning into a police state so as to not offend the pricks that are responsible for murdering 100's of thousands of people?

The only thing that should be banned here is the government trying to take liberties over peoples civil rights to release and to listen music or videos of their choice. Suspension of that is going back to the dark ages as far as I'm concerned.

They've caused more grief for themselves by doing this as it will promote more attention.

Marcella-FL · Post by **Marcella-FL** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:21 pm

faceless wrote: Frankie Goes To Hollywood did their version in the 80s and it was fine - even though they mocked Ronald Reagan and Yuri Andropov -

I loved their "Two Tribes" video with Reagan and Gorby mud wrestling

Post by **faceless** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:33 pm

was it Gorby? Ah well - these russkies are all the same! haha

nekokate · Post by **nekokate** » Sat Mar 03, 2007 4:54 pm

faceless wrote:The last song I remember the BBC banning was something by some Jamaican rapper that was completely misogynistic...

I think that might have been Baja Banton. It's a shame that a lot of reggae is so homophobic because I kind of like the style of music.

I'm so enraged that they've tried to mute the publicity for this single, especially since every person who owns a TV is forced to essentially "subscribe" yearly to them or face a court appearance - they are totally disrespecting a large portion of their customers. Makes me go crazy!

One good thing that might come out of this situation is that people who aren't necessarily strongly anti-war, but have an intense dislike of the BBC, may well hear about this on another channel and buy a copy of the single as a way of sticking 2 fingers up at the corporation. Hopefully, anyway...