Rantings of a Religious Right-Wing Lunatic

Here's a copy of the e-mail I fired off to WFMK 99.1, a Lansing soft rock station this morning:

I'm an occasional listener from Howell. Last night on my way to work at 920PM, I heard an interesting version of Peter Gabriel's 'In Your Eyes'. I happen to be quite fond of that song, so of course when my radio scanning landed halfway through it, I stopped to listen.

As I get older, there are times when I hear things, and then wonder 'did I hear that right?'. I kept listening: sure enough, there was a line completely missing from the chorus. How strange. Now I know some stations play edited or chopped versions of songs to save time. This really annoys me, and I am disappointed that WFMK appears to pander to this phenomenon. But what really intrigued me was the particular line that was removed. 'I see the doorways to a thousand churches'. What, I ask, is the value in removing that line, other than apparently to save air time? The song is now rendered ridiculously awkward, since now there is no word to rhyme with 'searches'. Why that line?

I have a number of questions regarding the WFMK's playing of this bloodied version of a perfectly beautiful song:

Who chops these tunes? Is there a dark studio hidden away in some nondescript suburb of a big city where people hunch over boards and do this creative editing? And then they pass them on to the radio stations? Or do the stations themselves do it? Did the artist himself produce this version? I hardly think Peter Gabriel, after producing this piece, decided to remove the line, for fear of offending a segment of the population who chooses not to attend church. Surely I don't hear the distant strains of an anti-religious movement. Perhaps I'm being idealistic, but I tend to believe that an artist, after carefully writing each and every word in a song which lasts only minutes, would be highly offended at this doctoring.

I have no idea what your station's policy or mission statement is regarding promotion or non-promotion of faith or creed. And I really don't care. But how ignorant do you really think your listeners are? Do you believe they won't notice the omission of an entire line of a very familiar, popular song? Or that we haven't noticed the proliferation of foul language in so much popular music that *has* to be edited out in order to get airplay?

This is one listener who knows what a dirty word is. And the last time I checked, 'churches' is definitely not one of them. It's possible I don't know the entire story behind this song version. Perhaps someone at the station would care to enlighten me, if there is a story.

I have one simple request: please play the songs the way we know them and love them. And I'll turn a tolerant ear to the occasional genuine dirty word that might come out of my radio.