The year was 1966 and that song was pretty scandalous. Ed Sullivan simply refused to allow the Rolling Stones to play it on his television station for lack of taste, and fear of being slapped with an obscenity fine from the Federal Communications Corporation. They substituted it for the hilarious adaption of "Let's Spend Some Time Together". Today similar things exist on the radio, but it's usually the blocking out of George Cartlin's seven dirty words and not any particular subject matter.

The scary thing is that today little kids hear "Let's Spend the Night Together" on radio that advertises itself as family radio. Spending the night together just isn't a particularly provactive anymore. Probably even describing sexual intercourse in detail wouldn't irk the FCC or other censors. Howard Stern several years ago had a program discussing sexuality with animals, and he didn't get in trouble for that. That's amazing with our society's puritan taboo against all sexuality.

I really do not mind songs that hint at sexuality. Having sex is an enjoyable process for married couples, though certainly even out-of-wedlock sex is not the same as killing or hatred. Songs like "Fishing in the Dark" by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band is funny, and isn't so explicit that little kids would necessarily understand what it's about.

There are nowadays songs on the radio that advocate killing versus those songs that just hinted at sexuality yesterday. Some Alternative Rock songs go "kill, kill, kill..." and "Kill Your Mother, Rape Your Father", etc. That might be a cultural product of some of the biggest malfeasance of our big cities, but it's not something as a society should be aspiring to become.

We have had violent television since the days of Gunsmoke in the fifties and sixties, but somehow it was different then the unbridled violence we see today. Somehow a gun battle in the wild west is much different then one in an urban environment. Moreover, dead people were never shown in such realism as on television today.

I just wish the media could use some more self-censorship and not be pandering to the lowest common-dominator's of society (the desire to kill and act lawlessly). Gunsmoke was fun to watch, but we don't have to be constantly pounding in a message of killing and hatred through our music. The eventual result of violent music may lead to censorship in our country, and that will inevitably lead to the covering up of political messages.