A Liverpool music historian slipped into the world of sex, God, drugs and executions to unearth the BBC committee that banned songs. David Charters reports

WELL, we are all blessed with special gifts and it is our duty to make the most of them.For example, a few eggheads made their name by shredding the atom, others have dedicated themselves to helping the blind to see, while some eager chaps scuffed their wellies on the moon’s surface.

All deserve their place in history.

But, deep in the shadows, another group of men toiled tirelessly against the forces of darkness to ensure that our ears would never blush to the risqué sentiments expressed in popular songs.

They believed that, behind the seemingly innocent crackle of the webbed speaker on the wireless in the parlour, there lurked experts in the dark arts of innuendo, euphemism and veiled vulgarity.

Although names of the watchdogs have not yet been disclosed, they were first known in the British Broadcasting Corporation as the Dance Music Policy Committee – or simply the “Committee”, surely one of the most chilling words in our language.

From miles away, the keen antennae of members could sense the surreptitious creep of a double entendre. For them, beds never creaked. Bodies started at the feet, stopped at the knee and resumed at the upper-hip, before passing discreetly between the bosoms on their way to the neck. Extreme emotion could only be expressed with a “blinking” or a “blooming”, and sex began and ended with a moonlight kiss at the garden gate.

If a song breached their code, it would be banned with “This Record Is Not To Be Broadcast” stamped on its cover.

We haven’t an exact account of all the committee’s conversations leading to these decisions. But, in 1939, when lesser minds were considering the outbreak of World War II, we can surmise that one went something like this.

Carruthers: “Have you heard this record by George Formby? Don’t let his goofy teeth, gormless manners and silly accent fool you, there is more to that fellow than meets the eye. He’s talking here about his Little Stick of Blackpool Rock.

“I fear that he is not referring to the familiar pink, tube-shaped, peppermint-flavoured, boiled-sugar confection, with the name of the resort running through its middle. Far from it, Pomfrey! I think he is making an oblique reference to the male part.”

Pomfrey: “Good God, Carruthers. My sister’s heard that song!”

The Committee finally buckled in 1964 before the permissive mood sweeping the country, though, from time to time, records are still banned – either by the Corporation itself or individual DJs.

Keen to unearth the commit- tee’s secrets was Spencer Leigh, writer and authority on popular music, himself a BBC broad- caster, as presenter of Radio Merseyside’s popular Saturday night show, On the Beat.

After meticulous research, Spencer has produced an informative booklet on some of his findings. This accompanies a box-set of three CDs, containing full versions of 75 records banned between 1931 and 1957. Spencer writes about why each record was banned. The package was made possible by the rule which takes records out of copyright after 50 years.

Most of Spencer’s information came from the BBC Archives Centre, at Caversham, near Reading. It holds thousands of files, scripts and working papers from all parts of the BBC, from its beginning in 1922.

By and large, the banned subjects ran the span of a standard pub conversation – sex, drugs, and religion (blasphemy was out, but so were recordings which sought to capitalise on God). Records which mentioned commercial products or could damage national morale, particularly at a time of war, were also banned. Others fell under the blanket cover of “bad taste”.

With the advent of skiffle and rock and roll in the 1950s, our guardians’ work intensified. Preachers foamed in the pulpit about the dangers of the devil’s music. This wasn’t bike-shed giggles about sticks of rock or Little Ukuleles. It was the real thing.

“Auntie” found her knickers in a twist quite regularly.

“No one is more alive than I to the need to buttress the forces of virtue against the unprincipled elements of the jungle,” intoned one senior official.

But, as Spencer reveals, a document from the BBC in 1942 had said: “Music is an ennobling spiritual force, which should influence the life of every listener”.

However, The Christening, by the Liverpool comedian Arthur Askey (1947) was not considered ennobling by the BBC Commit- tee, presumably because it made fun of a religious service.

Other local contributions to the banned list included Send Me to the ’Lectric Chair (1951), despite a superb vocal performance from George Melly, described as “a rather hungry-looking young man of untidy and rather effeminate appearance in black trousers and windcheater.”

Liverpool’s Lita Roza longed for the BBC to ban her How Much is that Doggie in the Window? (1953). Instead, they disapproved of the lyric, “Someone who’ll hold you and do it up right”, in her version of an early Burt Bacharach song, Keep Me in Mind (1955).

For generations, Liverpudlians had sung of Maggie May, who roamed Lime Street and was sent to Botany Bay for robbing a Homeward-bounder. When the Vipers Skiffle Group recorded the song in 1957, it was banned.

Frankie Vaughan’s Garden of Eden (1957) was on its way to number one before the BBC banned it for being blasphemous. Spencer noted that, by then, sections of the media were calling for its exclusion, indicating that on matters of taste the Beeb could be swayed.

These days people would wonder what all the fuss was about, though we are now more sensitive to racial references than we were then.

“I had already used the archives in Caversham from my series of Liverpool entertainers called Starry Eyed. I thought then that I would love to see the files on banned records,” says Spencer, 62.

“I found that they had files going back to 1931. They didn’t want to tell anyone they were banning records. They wanted to do it as furtively as possible. They certainly didn’t want the people on the committee to be named in case they were nobbled or criticised by members of the public, or that the record companies might try to get to them – all sorts of things.”

But performers knew of the committee’s existence. Norman Long even recorded a record called, We Can’t Broadcast That (1932), and the Beverley Sisters came up with We Have To Be So Careful in 1953. Both were banned for cheek.

Sir Arthur Bliss (1891-1975), composer and music director of the BBC (1942-45), was charged with ensuring that the classics weren’t “mutilated” by modern interpretations. “In about 1947, they had a slight revision of that and said if you ‘burlesqued’ the music, instead of doing a dance-band version, it could go through,” says Spencer.

This cleared B. Bumble and the Stingers’ Nut Rocker (a 1961 rendition of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite).

Slushy religious songs were marginal. “The Committee didn’t allow anything against the Christian religion,” says Spencer. “They felt that prayer shouldn’t be used for getting a girlfriend or wife. Even if they thought it might be sincere, they would ban the song because it had been written for commercial reasons.”

With the passage of time, the bans were lifted or simply ignored, but Spencer finds records with “not to be broadcast” still stamped on them.

From the realm of crudery, rud- ery and prudery, arises the quest- ion first asked by William Booth, of the Salvation Army: “Why should the devil have all the best tunes?”

Perhaps the answer is that some were not only good, but not really as wicked as the Committee had once thought. Our souls can endure the occasional reference to sticks of rock.

THIS Record Is Not To Be Broadcast, from Acrobat Music, chosen and annotated by Spencer Leigh, is available at music shops and online, at prices around £10.99.

WOULD you have banned this record? Listen to With My Little Stick of Blackpool Rock at www. liverpooldailypost.co.uk/listen

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