"The Bitch Is Back" - Elton John

Santi Paradoa wrote: Where does the "Levon" radio edit appear? This is news to me.

I meant to say "edits," not "radio edits" in particular.
The commercial and promo 45 for "Levon" are shorter than
the album version.

Edited by Brian W.

Bill Cahill wrote: I don't know of one. I only knew of stations not playing it, or only allowing the DJ's to say "Elton John from the album Caribou" or simply "Elton John from Caribou".

That was the dictate at the station I worked at in 1974,
there was a note on the cart itself that said essentially
you NEVER mention the song title on air. Upthread I
referenced Billy Joel's "Worse Comes To Worst" which was
out at around the same time, and the b-word was ducked on
the promo copies. I recall at the time one of my fellow
jocks commenting on the air after playing it saying how
he wondered how Elton John's new song if they did the
same thing.
As far as Meredith Brooks' song in the 90s, I don't
recall that we had a specific policy on announcing the
title...I'd always just refer to it as the "big bad b-
word song".

PopArchivist wrote: Not just that have you ever really seen any radio edits for Elton? His songs often pass 5 minutes (think of Bennie and the Jets and Little Jeanie) and no one tries to shorten them they just play them as is.

While MCA never put out an official edit for any of EJ's
songs (aside from "Tiny Dancer"), many stations did their
own...I definitely remember we did house edits for "Lucy
In The Sky..." (shortened intro/early fade) and "Someone
Saved My Life" (one verse removed, early fade). We might
have done one on "Philadelphia Freedom" too, don't recall
for sure.

The RKO-General chain was pretty strict on song lengths
then, I'd imagine they created their own edits too.

I may have mentioned this previously, but I never recall
hearing either "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka (there's Elton
again!) or "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates being edited at the
time they were popular. In many ways, people just weren't
as uptight about such trivial matters back then.

Also, many stations across the country did in-house edits
on those longer Elton John hits.

Edited by Paul Haney

Paul Haney wrote: In many ways, people just weren't as uptight about such trivial matters back then.

Yet songs like the Devil Went Down To Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band in 1979 avoid the bitch lyrics on the 45 version that were present on the LP ("I told you once, you son of a bitch I'm the best that's ever been").

So they were more uptight in 1979 then just two years earlier with Rich Girl? Hell who's the genius who thought "white boy" in Play That Funky Music needed to be edited out? Now that's destroying a classic...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On6VtPhOxr4

Edited by PopArchivist

Interesting to note (going back to "Bitch") that WLS and WABC did play an edited version of "The Bitch Is Back," but not censoring the B
word. Seems ABC had more problem with the verse ending in "I get high in the evening sniffing pots of glue."

(Although it did help make it a tight (3:13) run time to suit their "nothing over three minutes" tastes. :) )