All I Want To Do Is Shoot You And Take Your Money

From Jim Metrock:

It’s summertime, so it’s time for some summer fiction reading. My problem is I’ve been reading too much nonfiction: American Lion (Jackson), Outliers (success), House of Cards (Bear Stearns), Over the Edge of the World (Magellan), and Rocket Men (Apollo 11). I’m in need of some good fiction.

Oh, I know, I’ll read BusRadio’s answers to the FCC’s questions again.

I’ve already discussed the fictional Content Review Board. BusRadio marketed the Board as nonfiction, but when they had to answer the FCC, they admitted the Board never review content.

Now let’s look at what BusRadio told the FCC they would not play:

What a wonderful protector of children BusRadio is. (Yoda would say.)

But the reality is BusRadio daily promotes artists who have made their careers putting out music that contains all of the above. Check out Nice Little Songs and you’ll see that a steady dose of BusRadio programming will make children and teens very familiar with artists whose songs are filled with violence, whose songs glorify criminal and gang activity, whose songs are saturated with drug and alcohol references, whose songs are filled with vulgar swear words, and whose songs degrade women and girls. I research many of the artists played on BusRadio. I read the lyrics of the songs play on their show and I also read the lyrics of the other songs that are on the CD that song came from. I also read the lyrics from other CDs that artist has put out in the past. I have read utterly detestable lyrics. Researching the works of many artists heard on BusRadio is often a trip into the sewer. It’s all documented on this site.

You can go back through our articles and see over and over again foul and filthy artists get air time on BusRadio’s show or get mentioned on their web site. Sure, they blank out the f-word and the other words and they remove whole sections of songs and they honestly think this will make a song "age-appropriate."

The company says they are based in Needham, Massachusetts, but I really think the top management of BusRadio are from another planet. They have to be if they think their policy of playing clean or cleaned up songs by artists known for their explicit content will EVER be acceptable to parents.

Let me leave you with a short clip from a song BusRadio played.

This song is called Paper Planes by M.I.A. This song is catchy and you may remember it from the sound track of Slumdog Millionaire, but it is very controversial. This article in the Houston Chronicle is chilling.

I normally make note about whether the song was played on the elementary, middle school, or high school program. I did not do that for this song. I feel comfortable in saying it was not played on the elementary school program. I also wished I had recorded more of the song than I did, but I also feel comfortable that BusRadio edited out "get high like plane" and the lines about murdering people.

What you ARE hearing on this clip are GUNSHOTS. GUNSHOTS followed by the sound of RELOADING and then the ka-ching of a cash register. Now the original song had very distinctive gunshot sounds. This version distorts the gunshots but not much. More than several people have posted comments on YouTube and other sites saying the "clean" version still sounds like gunshots.

The mind reels at the thought of the repeated sounds of gunshots blaring out of BusRadio speakers.

If a young person was forced to hear this song on a bus equipped with BusRadio and decided that it’s a pretty good song and went to iTunes to download, they could only download the song with the more distinctive gunshots. Check it out by typing in "Kala" (the name of the CD) and preview the song.

You can imagine young people on a BusRadio bus aiming an imaginary rifle at fellow students and singing along, "All I want to do [is shoot you] and take your money."

Below: Typical comments on the Web about this song.