I was scrolling through various sites earlier today, looking for interesting articles to post on Facebook, as I do daily. As always, I looked to “This Day in Music,” as I always find great content there. I came across a post in their “on this day” section about an Everly Brothers song from the 50s being banned on radio. Wait … what?!?!?!
Yes, in 1957 they banned the song “Wake Up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers for “suggestive content.” So I started digging a little further. Lots of songs have been banned from radio play. Some are pretty self-explanatory. And some are just head scratchers. I always knew this, yet I’m still just a little gobsmacked.
Of course, you have the obvious ones – anything even slightly drug-related has always been frowned upon by the conservative establishment. Songs like “Cocaine” by Eric Clapton got the kibosh pretty fast on mainstream radio. Some songs, like “Lucy in The Sky With Diamonds” by the Beatles seemed to reference drugs, and while...