Daft songs to ban from radio? Anything played in the home country that might demoralize our boys and girls over there. How could they hear it? The jet stream?

Now, I am in favor of banning the over-emoted, over-produced "hey, listen, I've got pipes!" versions of great movie tunes--the ones that play over the credits and get all the airplay instead of the versions that were IN the movies. Angela Lansbury's "Beauty and the Beast" made me laugh and tear up at the same time, but the credits version, which was everywhere for months, was just annoying.

Yes, "Leaving On a Jet Plane." It's a sweet song and a SHORT song and she still managed to mess it up. Or was she told to dumb it down? Scary thought.

The most egregious remake, the one that should be burned, is what Madonna did to "Fever." Peggy Lee put on a long dress and stood behind a mic and sang it and the men in the room gulped and sat funny and the women leaned forward. Madonna bought the rights to the song. For the video, she dressed some guy--who had either a lot of, er, padding or very happy thoughts--in a head-to-toe mouthless pewter lame' catsuit with a starfish-shaped half mask and put him in a blank white room. She filmed him alternately writhing like a mime interpreting seaweed and squat-emoting like Edie Brickell while the usual thumpa-thumpa track galumphed along. Faintly beneath it, like a mouse expiring in the mouth of a cat, was "Fever." I was held transfixed by that video; it was like witnessing a multi-car pileup. And every time the real "Fever" comes on the radio, I see that creepy, faceless dancer. I must share the pain.