Is there too much effing and jeffing in the creative arts?
I’ll be honest with you; I love a good swear from time to time! It’s true that, in the right hands, it can be an absolute art form. However, it’s important to have the understanding that there is a correct time and a correct platform for such linguistics.
Using profanity in the creative arts can massively elevate a piece to convey anger, passion, frustration – even elation. But it seems that, in the world of music, there’s an increasing trend of swear words popping up in songs purely because someone thinks it’s ‘cool’, ‘edgy’ or ‘attention grabbing’. You know, like when a six year old discovers the word ‘willy’ for the first time! On the radio we, quite rightly, attempt to make sure any song we play is ‘sanitised’. Often, we’re provided with a version of the track with questionable language omitted. Here’s the problem, though. Often a young pair of ears will hear a song they like on the radio.
You then call up the track on a streaming service and discover (sometimes too late) that the only version on there is peppered with “effing and jeffing”!
Back in 2017, One Direction graduate Niall Horan released “Too Much To Ask” – a beautifully crafted, contemplative song about a lost love. I really enjoyed it….until just under two minutes in, when sweet little Niall drops a completely pointless ‘F-bomb’ that sticks out like a sore thumb and, worst of all, made me spit out my tea at the ridiculousness of the choice he’d made!
While I’m a big fan, Pink is a major culprit when it comes to sticking in profanity when it adds absolutely nothing to the song. In a 2012 interview, the lady herself said "(Now) I'm a mamma I'm more aware of it. I get it why my friends are ****** at me when they have kids in the car and my songs come on." She added : "The record company always say, 'Have you got a clean version?' And I say, 'No, just ******* bleep it." No problem. Just make sure the bleeped one is readily available. Services like Spotify put a tiny
‘E’ next to song titles to warn you that ‘fruity words‘ are contained within. You can also set up filters to make those tracks unavailable. But what if songs haven’t been flagged? And what if (as often happens) you find a clean version of a song, but the lyrics displayed on screen are still the explicit ones? Whoops!
Maybe I’m a prude. But when pop music is attracting an increasingly younger audience, I think it’s more than fair to ask “won’t somebody think of the ******* children”?!!!