A couple of months ago, I was driving in my car, flipping through the stations. I immediately stopped on Star 98.7 after hearing the first few beats of Alanis Morissette's "You Oughta Know." Like any angry girl worth her weight in Diet Coke, I cranked up the volume and sang along at the top of my lungs. I remembered a time when Alanis was still pissed, before she played God in Dogma, and when her albums sold at record stores instead of just at Starbucks. Ready to belt out the line that drives the point home, I screamed along with Alanis, "Are you thinking of me when you flove her?" I immediately stopped in my tracks despite the strong instinct to finish the song. Flove? What the fuck?

I never would have expected them to play the unedited version on the radio. Everyone knows that "fuck" is off-limits; the king of all naughty words. I was, however, completely caught off guard by the attempted substitution of the word "love." "Love" is the opposite of "fuck." By exchanging one word for the other, the meaning of the line is completely changed. It loses all poignancy. To make matters worse, they had laid the "love" track on top of the "fuck" track and so the two combined formed a new word, "flove." Worse than having the opposite meaning, "flove" has no meaning whatsoever.

I've since heard "You Oughta Know" on Jack 93.1. The "uck" was dropped off the back of the word. I find this less offensive, but I was still inspired to investigate the official rules. There has to be some master list of "Words You Can't Play On the Radio," right? Wrong. A couple of hours on the FCC's website and several unanswered emails to various LA radio stations proved that this was going to be more complicated than I originally thought.

Contrary to popular belief, the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) was originally founded to regulate "interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communications service" (www.fcc.gov). I had always thought that they were created to reprimand Justin Timberlake for the great Janet Jackson Wardrobe Malfunction and Eminem for his pissed-off lyrics. In fact, according to their website, the FCC is prohibited by the Communications Act (1934) "from censoring broadcast matter." Huh.

Apparently, each radio station is itself responsible for the content that it chooses to air. So, they can play whatever they want, right? Again, wrong. As it turns out, the First Amendment-guaranteeing the freedom of speech-protects indecent speech, but not obscene speech. Obscene speech is defined by the FCC as having all three of the following qualifications:


So, the definition of obscene speech, far from being a list of naughty words, is a complicated compilation of legal jargon constructed to allow almost anything to be described as obscene. Indecent speech, on the other hand, is described as "language or material that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium, sexual or excretory organs or activities" (www.fcc.gov). Indecent speech is protected by the First Amendment but only during the hours of the day when children are probably sleeping (10pm to 6am). It seems to me that the two definitions are quite similar except for the forgiving fact that poop jokes are, indeed, protected by the First Amendment. Thank God.

Clearly, each of these definitions is up for debate. Neither gives a definitive answer as to what is and is not allowed. George Carlin famously released a comedy album including a monologue entitled, "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television." In his order of presentation, these are: shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. In a later album, he continued this shtick in another routine called "Filthy Words," which used the first seven words, but added also: fart, turd, and twat. After broadcasting this monologue on the air, Pacifica radio station WBAI was taken to the Supreme Court after a man complained that his son had heard the broadcast. The FCC won.

So, while the FCC claims that they are prohibited from censoring anything broadcast on the radio, it seems that they still have quite a bit of pull in terms of what is and is not allowed. Interestingly, since there is no list of words not allowed on the radio (because this would interfere with our freedom of speech), the FCC cannot regulate what will be broadcast, but can only react to what has already aired. Therefore, the radio stations decide what to play based on how they think the FCC might react. The FCC does not have the power to edit songs or performances before they are played, but they do have the power to revoke the licenses of radio stations and to fine those involved with broadcasts deemed obscene. Thus, the radio stations end up censoring themselves in anticipation of what the FCC might say after the fact.

I specifically found the third characteristic of obscene language intriguing, stating that the material must lack literary or artistic value. What is music if not artistic expression? I truly believe that when Alanis Morissette wrote her lyrics, she sat and contemplated many different words and then finally decided on "fuck." "Fuck" is clearly the strongest word she could have chosen and a less-harsh, but First Amendment-protected word, like "screw" would have been much less effective. I think the song, as it was intended, is, without a doubt, a form of both literary and artistic expression.

So, if we must censor our music for public broadcast, the problem thus becomes how to do this without completely losing the originally intended meaning. There are several ways to edit songs for the radio that don't involve making up new meaningless words. Kanye West's Gold Digger replaces "nigger" by repeating the previous word in the line, "I ain't lookin' for no broke broke." Many artists choose to release a clean version of their singles to radio stations to ensure that the songs are edited to their liking. Furthermore, different radio stations allow different levels of vulgarity in the songs they play. "Fuck" doesn't seem up for debate, but some radio stations choose not to edit out "bitch" or "ass" or "ho." While the FCC claims to have no ability to censor what is on the radio, through their enforced repercussions, they seem to have scared radio stations into censoring themselves. So, I say: Flove the FCC.