5 Classic Rock Songs That Got Banned From the Airwaves

Songs get banned all the time, but quite a few classic rock tracks from the golden era of music were banned for pretty silly reasons. Let’s take a walk through music history and explore five classic rock tunes that were (temporarily) banned from the radio!

1. “Let’s Spend The Night Together” by The Rolling Stones

This 1967 Rolling Stones track was banned for fairly obvious reasons. Nowadays, songs about going to Pound Town rarely ever get banned. But in the 1960s, songs like this one were considered pretty vulgar. It was banned shortly after it was released, but the band continued to perform it live with a few begrudging lyric changes.

2. “Hi Hi Hi” by Paul McCartney

For the most part, Paul McCartney was the least controversial member of The Beatles, unless you consider caring too much to be a flaw. At the very least, McCartney wasn’t as misanthropic as John Lennon, which was clear in his respective songwriting contributions to the band.

However, the 1973 Wings hit “Hi Hi Hi” was considered a pretty controversial release. At least to the BBC, that is. The song was taken as one big euphemism for wanting to get high, and the sexual line “get you ready for my polygon” also was considered a pearl-clutching lyric. The BBC banned the song for a while after it was released.

3. “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys

This 1966 classic rock song from The Beach Boys was surprisingly banned among more conservative US radio stations. The reason? Brian Wilson used the word “god” in a “blasphemous way” in the title of the song. However, the ban didn’t stop “God Only Knows” from becoming one of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys’ most beloved songs of all time.

4. “Jump” by Van Halen

The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 changed quite a bit about American culture, and those changes extended to censorship. “Jump” by Van Halen is a classic hair metal song about “jumping” into bed with a lady from a bar. However, the wound of 9/11 was still raw, and any references to “jumping” were considered in poor taste. 

The song was banned (or tastefully excluded, whichever term you prefer) for quite a while after 2001.

5. “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” by The Beatles

John Lennon stood by his defense that “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” was not about the elicit drug LSD. Rather, he claimed that it was about a little girl that his son Julian drew a picture of. It’s a pretty trippy song, so that defense is hard to believe. The BBC wasn’t buying it, either. They banned the song pretty quickly after it was released in 1967.

Photo by Roger Bamber/Shutterstock

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