[Closed] Olivers Army censorship.

What word?

I can’t remember anything offensive in it..

N word.

Agree with the OP, guess I am officially old

Let's hope Costello doesn't get any stick for it.

I know the song but can't remember that word in it

'only takes one itchy trigger;

one more widow one less white n**** '

There's been a radio edit since March 2013.

I always thought it was "figure".

“one more widow one less white n****”
I think a lot of people miss the word ‘white’, which changes the context. I thinks he’s using the term in a similar way to Steve Earle in ‘Copperhead Road’, where he sings “...draught the white trash first ‘round here anyway”.
That’s how I’ve always interpreted it, anyway.
It’s rather ironic that it’s Virgin Radio censoring a record, though.

BBC Radio 6 were the first to do it.

'fewer'

I wonder if they've heard any of that hip-hop music that has come out since 1979... loLZ

As far as I can remember that particular word has been being censored out for a good few years, so it is not some recent 'woke' conspiracy. I am happy to be proven wrong, though.

I don't have an issue with there being a blanket ban on that word. Context or not, reverse meaning or not, best just to get rid all together. No need for a fuss.

White n.... derogatory term in the US for the Irish no? Since the song is kind of about The Troubles it makes sense in context.

Having said that, it is a tricky one. Leave it in and help normalise the word which IMO is a bad thing. Take it out and take some meaning away...

Yeah that word has been blanked out on radio for years.

As others have commented it's been blanked out for a few years.
We saw him play in Liverpool last Friday & he played Oliver's Army,I don't recall him singing the N word.

41 years old. Dear Lord!

he's changed the lyric on this 2018 version

though he uses the n word in 2013 glastonbury appearance.

I'm happy to expunge that word from my vocabulary. I don't care about context, I don't care about the meaning of the song and I don't care If the people on the receiving end for hundreds of years want to reclaim it and use it but don't want me to, I'll never use that word.
I do like to sing along to hip hop and other songs tho, so I substitute 'wriggler', doesn't ruin the flow of the song and no-ones offended.
'I ain't sayin she's a gold digger, but she ain't messin with no broke wriggler'

Wriggaz in Paris.

I think a lot of people miss the word ‘white’, which changes the context.

Quite. To be honest if he feels uncomfortable with using the word in the context intended he would be better not singing the song at all. Before you know where we are they'll be changing the name of that dog in Dambusters.

I'm ok with it being edited out, the world has moved on

I’m ok with it being edited out, the world has moved on

The difficulty with that is you're meddling with history.

Reducto ad absurdum a bit but if you edit out a word to make the people saying them seem palatable and expunge racism from history, then where do you stop. Invoking Goodwins law if you took all the bad stuff out of Hitlers speeches you just end up with a militant patriot and Holocaust denial.

I do like to sing along to hip hop and other songs tho, so I substitute ‘wriggler’, doesn’t ruin the flow of the song and no-ones offended.
‘I ain’t sayin she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t messin with no broke wriggler’

Sweepy earlier today:

I vaguely remember Top of The Pops tried to censor Oliver's Army when it was in the charts first time around.

The difficulty with that is you’re meddling with history.

And censoring art.
Another reason I'm glad I'm done with radio.

So you had better do as you are told
You better listen to the radio

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me

I always though the white wriggaz in question were the boys from the Mersey and the Tyne, interesting that its not.

I usually err on the side of intent, so I'm fine with the use of the word in this context, it's not clear cut though

So you had better do as you are told
You better listen to the radio

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I want to make them wish they’d never seen me

confused me for a minute:

What if this whole crusade's a charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood on which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine
Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you wanna change it?

There's a fair bit of wordplay around Nazi themes crops up in EC's first 2 or 3 albums too, and it can be a little jarring to hear now we're a bit more considered in our use of these things. I don't think they'd pass his personal filter these days on grounds of taste rather than anything else but the songs are from 40+ years ago and the past is another country.

To be honest if he feels uncomfortable with using the word in the context intended he would be better not singing the song at all

As someone else pointed out, Golddigger by Kanye is the best/ worst example of this. The radio edit is
"I ain't sayin she's a gold digger, but she ain't messin with no broke [dead air]" - it's impossible to miss what the lyric is/ was and how it was written. And sadly "broke wriggler" doesn't *quite* fit...

Censored version I heard went
“I ain’t sayin she’s a gold digger, but she ain’t messin with no broke-di-broke-di-broke"

Anyway, it's all about context. There has to be a million rap songs that repeat the word over and over, but none of them are vaguely racist. If the radio don't want to play the song as it was recorded, then they should just not play it.

In true John Cooper Clarke fashion

definitely NSFW

Google John Cooper Clarke - Some c*** used the N word

John Cooper Clarke – Some c*** used the N word

Recording a live gig is far more offensive than the N word in my book.

Well he changed a whole verse in Olivers Army when I saw him on Friday. Confused the crowd trying to sing along to it.

Was still excellent though, as was the whole show 🙂

Recording a live gig is far more offensive than the N word in my book.

Totally missed that but agree entirely I have no connection to said uploaded video

We saw him play in Liverpool last Friday & he played Oliver’s Army,I don’t recall him singing the N word.

Paid special attention last night in Sheffield. He just skipped that verse.

Lethal Weapon TV edit of Riggs:

"Now that's a real badge, I'm a real cop, and this is a real FIRING gun!

Ha.