The Fairytale of Radio 1

This was the week that the big cheese behind Radio 1 decided that a 20 year old song needed to be censored from their impressionable listeners. Who would have guessed of the media furore that this decision would have made?

The first I heard of the controversy was on the big TV's at Euston Station. 'BBC REVERSES CENSORSHIP DECISION' screamed the gratuitous screens. My thoughts about this issue immediately turned towards the defense of this classic song. The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's 'Fairytale in New York' is probably the best and most original festive track ever written. Why should one radio station suddenly feel that the lyrics of a well-loved Christmas song be offensive? Have we all ignored the backlash for years?

It all revolves around the word 'faggot'. Radio 1 decided that this and the word 'slut' needed to be removed in order to avoid offense. Apparently, members of the gay community could find the f-word an attack on them. What the station has forgotten is the fact that the questionable lyrics form part of a verse where Pogues singer, Shane McGowan and Kirsty MacColl insult each other. He sings: 'You're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old slut on a junk, lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed' and she replies: 'You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, Happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last.' The words are clearly part of a sing-song conversation. So although a Radio station can't be seen to condone the use of insulting language, surely they can understand that this is part of Shane and Kirsty's musical performance, the relationship between two passionate characters.

Peter Tatchell, the gay rights campaigner didn't seem too worried about it. Calling it all "a storm in a teacup" and "obviously...not intended as a major hate campaign against the gay community". The media doesn't seem to interested in the Feminist opinion but as one myself, I can see that although slut isn't a nice word to call a woman, it isn't encouraged as an everyday word. Looking at the video we can see that the characters evoked are drunken Irish immigrants, fallen on hard times. They are hardly people to be imitated or looked up to.

However it was all over in the space of a day. Andy Parfitt, controller of Radio 1 announced that they would play the full unedited version and that their listeners were obviously more intelligent and aware than they thought. Maybe it is time for the station to get rid of Chris Moyles, a man famed for his controversial topics? Last year he was criticised for using the word 'gay' to mean rubbish on his Breakfast show, "giving a large endorsement of bigotry" according to gay station, Gaydar.

Next year Radio 1 could always play it safe with the version recorded by Ronan Keating and Marie Brennan, who changed the lyrics to 'you're cheap and you're haggard'. Rock and Roll.