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A powerful array of artists raised many millions of dollars with their recording of
"We Are The World." They did this out of concern and anguish over the physical
health (indeed, the lives) of children in Africa.
But what about the moral health of children in America, or elsewhere in the
world? Aren't their emotional health and developing values also worth our attention?
If those same artists who have so dramatically shown what a dedicated joint
effort can accomplish were now to focus on this burgeoning problem, their influence
could go a long way toward shutting off the spigot of tasteless, blatantly sexual
lyrics, and the shockingly graphic videos saturating the TV channels. There is
surely enough violence in our society without glorifying it in the music aimed at our
youngsters.
This would be a far more palatable method of restoring sanity and subtlety to
songs than the dangerous
[From the Washington Post, June 19, 1985]
A group of Washington women, including the wives of some of the city's most
powerful men, may be about to do for our children what we
The polluters these women have in mind are not the smokestack industry but the
record industry. Like us, they are sick of the filth that passes for lyrics on some of
the most popular records, tapes and videos. Unlike us, they are prepared to
Mrs. Albert Gore, Jr. (he's the Tennessee senator) and Mrs. James A. Baker III
(he's the Treasury secretary) are no blue-nose record smashers. They are mothers
who are distressed that their children are being exposed to a filth, violence,
sadomasochism and explicit sex whenever they switch on their favorite radio station or
watch televised videos. They aren't demanding censorship; they want a choice.
As a very minimum, they want the record industry to label their products after
the style of the movie industry, so that at least they and their children know what
they are buying. As it is now, you can't always tell.
Tipper Gore, mother of four, found out the hard way, when her 11-year-old daughter
came home with Prince's "Purple Rain." "She bought it because she liked 'Let's
Go Crazy,' but then I heard the words to 'Darling Nikki,' with its lyrics about a girl
masturbating with a magazine, and I started paying attention.
"Then I happened to talk with Susan Baker, whom I had met through an international
club we both belong to, and I found out she was going through the same thing
with her children. We got together with Pam Howar [whose husband is a construction
executive]. [,] Sally Nevius [her husband, Jack, is a former chairman of the D.C.
City Council] and Ethelann Stuckey [wife of the former Florida congressman] and
decided to try to do something about it.
They formed the Parents Music Resource Center and managed to swing enough
clout to get Stan Gortikov, president of the Recording Industry Association of America,
to come down from New York to meet with them. They also persuaded Edward
Fritts, president of the National Association of Broadcasters, to ask 45 recording
companies to supply written lyrics for their albums so that broadcasters can know
what they are playing.
That may help, though surely the deejays must be aware that "Bitch, Be My
Slave" is not exactly what parents want their pre-teens to listen to.
"The children really don't have a choice," Tipper Gore says. "They flip through
the record bin and they see a cover with a nude woman gagged and chained to a
motorcycle, or another one simulating maturbation [sic] with a light bulb. There's one
Much of the filth and depravity is, if the youngsters are to ge [sic] believed, purely
gratuitous. They say it is the melody and the beat that are the principal attractions,
and that they would still choose many of the same records if the lyrics were far
milder.
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