The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172093   Message #4164553
Posted By: GUEST,Nick Dow
05-Feb-23 - 07:35 PM
Thread Name: Delilah 'Banned' by Welsh Rugby Union
Subject: RE: Delilah 'Banned' by Welsh Rugby Union
All forms of song-making genres have their own self-appointed red lines. Those red lines are protean. Folk Music and Blues are my specialities as most people know. What we are seeing now, is the introduction of a red line that like all red lines is debatable.
We see Chanty's minus their racist words, we hear Folk songs censured for verses that support marital violence. The singer makes his or her choice, and the Folklorist suggests that a zoologist would not ignore warthogs because they are not pretty, so the sterile world of the rugby song and the violence of the ballad Lambkin, should be treated with equal importance. The Blues singers disguised the sexuality of their songs or as in the case of Lucille Bogan remain unabashed.
We are now left with the unenviable task of making some sort of decision as to the validity of the censorship. Therefore we must decide if the roar of a rugby crowd, or the harmony of a choir in some way corrupts the listener, or encourages negative stereotypes. If you agree with this context, then some of the song titles already mentioned in this thread are probably a better target for censure than the tongue in check financially driven lyrics of Delilah. Then again it depends on which side of the line you stand. How big is the axe and how large the grindstone?