CINDI LAUPER - Her lyrics run the gambit [sic] from masturbation to prostitution. Her song, "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" is filthy. Her psychedelic hair and wild outfits are indications of her rebellion and anti-establishment ideals. She gets her spiritual advise [sic] from wrestling promoter Lou Albano. [COMMENTS: Again, I think they meant gamut, not gambit. The reference to masturbation comes from "She-Bop", I believe. I have listened to that song many times, and, unlike most people, I pride myself on listening to and familiarizing myself with lyrics. The PMRC has also publically denounced this song. The PMRC has called for a ban on songs containing EXPLICIT SEXUAL REFERENCES, such as, perhaps, the word "masturbation" as used in Prince's "Darling Nikki". In this song, however, the word never appears. While the word "bop", the reference to beefcake magazines, and the line "They say if you don't stop it, y ou'll go blind" (I don't have a lyric sheet, that quote may not be exac t) indicate that the subject matter is masturbation, I strongly doubt that any of these references would be picked up by a seven or ten year old. Smut is in the eye and mind of the beholder.] LED ZEPPLIN - On the inside of their album, HOUSES OF THE HOLY, there is a naked man holding up a dead child in sacrifice to a mysterious light atop some ruins. Their song, "Stairway to Heaven" contains many occult references and uses backward masking to say, "Oh , he is my prince, Satan . . . the one who lit up the night, Lord, you make me shout in glory to Satan." Jimmy Page, a former member of the group, purchased Alister Crowley's (a famous occulist [sic]) masion and owns one of the largest occult bookstores in Britain. Robert Plant, the former lead singer, has a fascination for black magic. Plant also blames Page's "obsession with the occult" for the troubles the group had. John (Bonzo) Bonham died at Page's mansion, choking in his own vomit after ingesting forty measures o f Vodka. MADONNA - Rolling Stone ma gazine said about her Seattle concert, "Madonna seduces Seattle". Her song, "Like A Virgin" is the title song of her first album. She says, "I knew when I recorded 'Like A Virgin', it would appeal to teenagers with active hormones". PAUL McCARTNEY - He and his wife Linda were arrested and fined for possession of marijuana. McCartney has been known for his open use of drugs since his days with the Beatles. [COMMENT: Still another denouncement containing not one reference to the artist's music.] MALCOM McCLARN [sic] - "Rock N' Roll is pagan and primitive and very jungle and that's how it should be. The moment it stops being those things it's dead. That's what Rock N' Roll is meant to be aobout isn't it? The true meaning of rock . . . is sex, subversion and style. " (ROCK magazine, Aug. 1983) MEAT LOAF - Their [sic] album BAT OUT OF HELL features a picture of a demon biker on the cover, and speaks of a mutant biker riding out of the pits of Hell. Compser, Jim Steinman says, "I've always been fascina ted by the supernatural and always felt rock was the perfect idiom for it." He also said, "When I go on stage, I get possessed . . " MELLE MEL - "I wanted to create my own image. It's a way of being Anti-Christian. (NEW SOUNDS magazine, April 1984) MOODY BLUES - "In Search of the Lost Chord" speaks of music whose vibrations have supernatural properties. The inside of the album contains a 'yantra', which is the visual equivalent of a 'mantra' in T.M. While the album is being played, the listener is to ld to stare at the geometric designs and thereby enter an altered state of consciousness. MOTLEY CRUE - According to Mikki Sixx, the lead singer, their aim is to be the "loudest, sickest band on the planet earth". He also says, "I know people who pray for us everyday . . . they can't save us, we're gone". "People love sleaze, and we're the sleaziest. The only type of women we get have one thing on their mind, sex, that's fine cause that's all we have in mind." Their second album is entitled SHOUT AT TH E DEVI. ROCK SCRAPBOOK says it is, "dripping with impure and perverted lust, it is a call to arms for American youth. Whether it's life on the street or sex with the high school slut , Motley Crue shouts out their message with a vengance [sic]. Songs from that album include: "Shout At The Devil", "God Bless the Children of The Beast", "Bas---d", which says, "Out go the lights/In goes my knife/Pull out his life/Consider that bas---d dead/Get on your knees/Please beg me, please/You're the king of the sleaze./Don't try to rape me." CHORUS: "(Bas---d)/Consider that bas---d dead/(Bas---d)/Won't get screwed again" SOLO - "Whoa! Whoa!/Bas---d/Make it quick, blow off his head./Got your neck in the noose/I got nothing to loose[sic] /We're really gonna screw you./Consider that bas---d dead./Quick as a shark/Beast has its mark/You can't bear the dark/Don't you try to rape me." CHORUS: SOLO: CHORUS. The song, "Knock 'em Dead Kid", says, "I'm prime for hate. CHORUS: Knock 'em dead, kid (Knock 'em dead)/ Knock 'em dead, kid (Knock 'em dead)/The blade is red, kid (Knock 'em dead)/Knock 'em dead, kid/Knock 'em dead. And finally, "Ten S econds To Love" says, "Reach down low/Slide it in real slow/I wanna hear your engine roar/Before I'm in the door/You feel so good/Do you want some more/I got one more shot/My gun's still warm/Was it hot for you/Did you fire this round/The second I'm through/I'll be leaving this town. NAZARETH - "Hair of the Dog" is an album that pictures demonic manifestations on the cover. NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE - They promote drugs by singing songs like, "Acapulco Gold" and "Panama Red", which are two cuts of marijuana. STEVIE NICKS - According to ROLLING STONE magazine, s he is openly involved with the occult. She would like to build her own pyramid and live in a little "witch house" on a cliff overlooking the ocean. "I love the symbolism of the three roses" Nicks said, "which is very pyramid, very maya", occult terms she uses frequently. [COMMENT: This is so nonsensical as to be almost beyond comment.] TED NUGENT - He refers to himself as the guitar gunslinger and calls his music combat rock. He is quoted as saying, "Rock is the perfect primal method of releasing our violent instinct. I like to rape the audience." Twleve people died in a riot following one of his concerts in South Carolina. OHIO PLAYERS - They deliberately use nudity to sell records. An album entitled ANGEL unfolds to show a full length nude. Other albums portray such scenes as a nude covered in honey and another nude suggestively nuzzling a horse. [COMMENT: Nudity per se is not sex. Many children are taken to art museums on class field trips, where they may view paintings and statues that inclu de nudes or scantily clothed figures. Again, smut is in the eye of the beholder.] OZZY OSBOURNE - "I'm thinking about starting a school for Rock N' Roll. I can teach all my demented ideas to a whole generation . . . that would be the ultimate revenge." Osbourne once bit the head off a bat in concert and had to be given rabie [sic] shots. He has been know to throw pig instestines into the audience during his concerts. He has 14 tatoos, including one of the grim reaper on his chest, with the number 666 on it. He claims he was compelled to see THE EXORCIST 26 times. His albums include THE ULTIMATE SIN and SPEAK OF THE DEVIL, which includes the songs, "Black Sabbath", "Fairies Wear Boots", "War Pigs", "The Wizzard", "Never Say Die", "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "Children of The Grave". He has been quoted as saying, "I don't know if I'm a medium for some outside force or not, frankly, whatever it is I hope it's not what I think it is, Satan." I'm afraid we got some bad news for you, Ozzy! PINK FLOYD - " The Wall" was voted the number one album for 1980 by ROLLING STONE magazine. It includes songs like "Young Lust", plus songs of violence, drugs and rebellion. The most popular song on the album, "Another Brick In The Wall" says, "We don't need no education . . . hey teacher, leave us kids alone." [COMMENT: They left out a line: "Another Brick in the Wall" also says, "We don't need no thought control." In passing, you may find it interesting that during Peron's second administration in A rgentina, THE W ALL (album and movie) was banned as one of many restrictions placed on expression. The word "vector" was banned, too (nobody seems to know just why). Arbitrary censorship is a mark of many an authoritarian or dictatorial government, but cannot be tolerated in a democracy.] POLICE - Their song, "Murder By Numbers" contains the following, "Now if you have a taste for this experience/And you're flushed with your very first success/Then you must try a twosome or a threesome/And You'll find your conscience bo thers you much less./Because murder is like anything you take to/It's a habit-forming need for more and more/You can bump off every member of your family/And anybody else you find a bore. PRINCE - His award wingging album, PURPLE RAIN is also nothing but pure garbage. On the album cover, he says, "The only things I can make besides eggs is babies." Lyrics describe how he seduces a woman to have sex with her and then says, "shall I wash you first or you wash me?" His song, "Darling Nikki" says, "Met a gi rl named Nikki,/Guess you could say she was a sex fiend./I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine." His song, "Let's Pretend We're Married" says, "Escuse me, but I need a mouth like yours to help me forget the girl that just walked out my door." ROLLING STONE said of his DIRTY MIND album, "at it's [sic] best, DIRTY MIND is positively filthy". Songs include, "Do It All Night". [COMMENT: Regarding the first sentence, I do not consider it the place of such organizations to make value judgme nts unless they acknowledge that that is their intention, rather than delivering value judgments in the guise of education and consumer information. As to the last sentence, the fact that ROLLING STONE says something doesn't automatically prove its validity.] QUEEN - Their name is a drag term meaning homosexuality. Freddie Mercury, the bands [sic] lead singer states, "We want to shock and be outrageous". Their songs include, "We Are The Champions", which has become the official anthem of the Gay Liberat ion movement, and "Another One Bites The Dust", which incorporates backward masking to say, "Start smoking marijuana". Freddie Mercury wears his own special brand of purple fingernail polish, and onstage, he often strips to hot pants. Their song, "Get Down Make Love" is about homosexuality. Lyrics include, "You take my body, I give you heat,/You say you're hungry, I give you meat;/I suck your mind, You blow my head,/Make love inside your bed,/Everybody Get Do wn Make Love." [COMMENTS: The adoption of a song as an organization's anthem does not imply an absolute interpretation, but merely allows a group of people to share a common interpretation. Whether or not "Another One Bites The Dust" contains backward masking encouraging listeners to smoke marijuana, I have listened to the song many times, yet have never smoked anything in my life, leading me to one of two conclusions: either the backmasking is nonexistent, or backward masking has no effect on listeners (of course, both could be true). Finally, as far as I can remember, while "Get Down Make Love" may be considered sexually explicit, I cannot recall any mention of homosexuality in it.] RATT - They began in a one bedroom apartment. "You should have seen how hard it was to have sex there", exclaimed Robbin, the king Ratt. When asked what life on the road was like, he answered, "Sodom and Gomorrah". THE ROLLING STONES - They have been together for 20 years and into everything. STICKY FINGERS is an album whose cover has a real zipper that can be unz ipped to reveal the underwear of a male with an erection clearly visible. "Beast of Burden" is a song of sado-masochism and many of their songs deal with occult themes. "Sway" is a song about demon power. An earlier album was THEIR SATANIC MAJESTY'S REQUEST. GOAT'S HEAD SOUP was another album which dealt with the occult. Their song, "Dance With Mr. D." is about a midnight dance with the devil in the graveyard. Another song, "Sympathy for the Devil" has become an unofficial anthem for ma ny churches of S atan. Keith Richards, their lead guitarist, was arrested for possession of heroin. [COMMENT: I can't think of anything sado-masochistic about "Beast of Burden".] LINDA RONSTADT - In one song, she sings, "I'm on the other side of town, all strung out on heroin". In an interview, Linda said, "I can perform better after shooting smack (heroin) in both arms than after eating too much". On the back of her GREATEST HITS album she is wearing occult jewelry. RUSH - The album, CARESS OF STEEL pictures a robed man levitating a pyramid, and most of their albums have a pentagram (Satanic symbol) on the cover. They perform in front of a pentrgram on stage. In one of their songs, "By-Tor and the Snow Dog", there is a low rumbling sound that says, "I want your mind and your body . . . I want you . . . I'm By-Tor". SANTANA - Carlos Santana said, "I am the string and the supreme is the musician . . . when I'm really in tune with the supreme, my guru, and my instrument, forget it man, cause it's totally beyong anythi ng - that's where I want to be". The song "Abraxas" is about the foremost demon spirit. Other songs include, "Black Magic Woman" and "Evil Ways". [COMMENTS: The quote from Santana seems very spiritual to me. Whether or not he's talking about the same God in which I believe (and I have no indication that he's referring to another), I find inspiration in those who wish to be tools of their Maker. As for "Evil Ways", the fact that it is called " Evil Ways" does not make it a harmful song; on the contrary, it encourages the person to whom it's directed to change those evil ways.] SAVOY BROWN - The album HELL BOUND TRAIL pictures a train filled with and surrounded by demons. BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - His latest single is entitled "I'm On Fire". Some of the lyrics are, "Hey little girl is your daddy home./Did he go away and leave you all alone./I got a bad desire, I'm on fire./Tell me now baby is he good to you,/Can he do to you the things that I do./At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet./Only you can co ol my desire, I'm on fire." [COMMENT: I find it disturbing that the song is quoted so poorly, without ellipsis marks (. . .) to show where lines have been omitted. Also, for all the concern these people seem to have for the video representation of a song, I find it significant that in the video for "I'm On Fire", Springsteen is shown to be tempted by a beautiful married woman, and RESISTING THE TEMPTATION. Perhaps including such information in the d escription would have weakened the case that this artis t's work is "murder music". ROD STEWART - He said that he dresses and acts the way he does because he has to appeal to men in his audience as well as women. In his song, "Tonight's The Night", he asks his angel to "spread her wings so I can come inside". One of his songs is entitled, "I'm Gonna Kill My Wife". STYX - Their name comes from the mythological river that is supposed to flow through hell, the river Styx. One of their albums is entitled THE SERPENT IS RISING. [COMMENT: As a longtime Styx fan , I am especially upset at this denouncement. First, here is another denouncement that contains not a single reference to the band's music. Second, if these people are really concerned with accurately discovering (what they consider to be) potentially harmful music, they have failed miserably here; I can think of several Styx songs that are fairly explicit with respect to drug use, sex, and what some people might consider to occult subjects. The fact that the band was singled out and attacked because the y happen to have a name taken from Greek mythology is not only ludicrous but criminally misleading. Finally, I have listened to all of Styx's music over and over. I have heard every song many times, including "Light Up", "Snowblind", "You Better Ask", "Grove of Eglantine", "Lords of the Ring", and "The Serpent is Rising". Despite my repeated exposure to sex, drugs, and the occult, I have never smoked ANYTHING, have never worshipped the devil or the forces of evil (nor have I ever felt any desire to), and I am currently involved in a monogamous relationship. By virtue of my prolonged exposure to this group's music, much of which probably falls under the censors' criticism for explicit sex, drugs, and occult references, and the total lack of any negative consequences, I must conclude that the fears of the PMRC and of Freedom Village are completely unfounded. They simply have no case.] DONNA SUMMERS - She is in regular tough with her astrologer and arranges her traveling around the configurations of the h eavens. Sometimes known as "The First Lady of Lust", her music is filled with sexual references. Her first big hit was a 17 minute song entitled "Love To Love You, Baby", in which she repeated the title over and over and simulated the sounds of 22 orgasms. [COMMENTS: I thought Donna Summer was a born-again Christian? Also, just out of curiosity, does anyone know what 22 orgasms sound like?) TWISTED SISTER - Their album UNDER THE BLADE has a song called "Burn In Hell". Some of the lyrics are, "Welcome to the abandoned land,/Come on in child;/Take my hand./Here there's no work or play./Only one bill to pay./There's just five words to say as you go down, down, down. CHORUS: You're gonna burn in Hell/Oh, burn in hell." Another song on that album is "Beast". They are the self-proclaimed "dirtbags of Rock". "He dresses like a supervillain, screams out his lyrics, and introduces songs wiht a stream of profanities. Heavy Metal is raucous, loud, obnoxious, irritat ing . . . it is rebellious . . . there is no inbetween." Their lead singer said, "When I am on stage I scream, stomp, jump up and down and curse my brains out". FACES OF ROCK [COMMENT: It is generally considered bad practice to use a pronoun, such as "he", above, without mentioning the person to whom it refers. I assume the reference is to Dee Snider, Twisted Sister's lead singer.] JETHRO TULL - Ian Anderson, the lead singer, not only plays the flute, he also uses it for obscene jestures. In several of his songs, like Aqualung, he attacks Go d and Christianity. He told ROLLING STONE, "If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim. Then we'd get crucified in the morning. One of the group's songs explaims [sic], "We are our own saviors and if Jesus saves he'd better save himself". They also say, "In the beginning man created God . . . " [COMMENT: I don't believe, if memory serves me correctly, that "Our Father" says "We are our own saviors" . The song does say, "If Jesus saves, he'd better save himself from the glory glory seekers who use His name in death" - indicating, in conjunction with the rest of the song, that religion has been corrupted and perverted by greed and power-hunger. If organizations are concerned about bad influences on this country's children, they would do well to investigate public schools and church youth groups, since these harbor many bad influences on young people, mostly i n the form of peers and classmates.] TINA TURNER - ROLLING STONE states, "Tina Turner is loose". Her album PRIVATE DANCER includes a song called "What's Love Got To Do With It?" Her dress is vulgar and her songs promote "free sex" and lust. THE UNDISPUTED TRUTH - This group has an album out whose cover shows a demon hanging on the cross of Jesus Christ. URIAH Heep - Their album THE MAGICIAN'S BIRTHDAY has many occult references. DEMONS AND WIZARDS is another of their albums which features several satanic songs, such as "Travelers In Time", abo ut astral projection or out of the body experiences. VAN HAVEN [sic] - This is another very vulgar group. Even their album covers show scenes of lewdness (like obscene jestures [sic] with a microphone). An interviewer for ROLLIN STONE [sic] magazine traveled with the group for several days and later commented, "I've seen enough nude women and heard enough abasive language and morning-after anecdotes to fuel an article about Porn-Rock". David Lee Roth, the lead singer, said, "Whatever your sexual ideals, whatever somebody else can't do in his 9 to 5 job, I can do in Rock and Roll. I'm giving our daily lives melodies, beats and titles". It is reported that Roth has taken out paternity insurance to protect against women suing him for child support. One album includes the songs, "On Fire" and "Running With The Devil". [COMMENT: In reference to the song "On Fire", which I don't believe I've ever heard: The use of the word "fire" in a song title does not n ecessarily indicate that the song has occult refer ences or is, even by these people's standards, potentially harmful.] VENOM - A group that brags about its Satanic existence. Blasphemy, demon possession, and Satan worship are all rolled into one song that contains the following words, "Without any fear of God/We're possessed by all that is evil./The death of You, God, we demand./We spit at the virgin you worship/And sit at lord Satan's left hand." THE VILLAGE PEOPLE - Jaques Morali, the manager of this group of 5 gays and one straight, said that he form ed the group as a protest against Anita Bryant and declared, "I am sincerely trying to produce songs to make the gay people more acceptable". Songs inclue "Y.M.C.A.", which talks about "hanging out with all the boys" and finding many good ways to have fun. "Cruising" is taken from the practice of homosexuals driving around attempting to pick up other homosexuals. [COMMENT: While not familiar with most of this group's music, I am amused (and disturbed) that none of the quotes given here include any refer ence to anything harmful to young people. Accepting homosexuals into society is not tantamount to becoming homosexual, nor even to approving of their sexual preferences (I have many friends who, with varying degrees of frequency, do things I don't like). Also, according to a good friend of mine who happens to be gay, "cruising" doesn't usually involve driving around, but rather refers to eying other patrons of a bar.] W.A.S.P. - "We Are Sexual Perverts" is what W.A.S.P. stands for. Chris Holmes, their l ead vocalist, posed nude for HUSTLER magazine. Their first single, Animal ("F*** Like A Beast") was banned on 80 percent of the British radio stations. Many stations around the country have banned their records and many countries around the world have banned their concerts. Onstage antics include the staged torture of a woman on a rack, the drinking of blood from a skull and throwing raw meat into the audience. When newspapers in Britain wrote about them, group member Blackie Lawless com mented, "I dont' knwo if you saw any of the news clippings that came out of there, (Britain), but if you had you would've thought the devil himself had come to Britain". WAYNE COUNTY - An admitted homosexual, he declares, "I always wanted to be Homecoming Queen. I was such an unlucky girl". His songs include, "It Takes a Man Like Me to Like a Woman Like Me". WHITE WITCH - The cover of their album is in the shape of an ankh, and the concept of "White Magic" is false, for it is all founded in the occult. Even Anton LaVe y, the priest of the First Church of Satan in California said, "Call it black, call it white, call it what you will, it's all evil, and it all gets its power from the source of hell". THE WHO - They are followers of eastern mysticism and the teachings of Meher Baba, a guru. Townsend put out a solo album dedicated to Baba and included a Hindu prayer. Peter declared, "Baba is Christ". The group is famous for the production of "Tommy", which was a filthy blasphemy against Christianity. Keith Moon, of the group, was known to have exposed himself publicly and to have had his living room littered with human excrement. His life ended with an overdose of drugs. [COMMENT: Regardless of how the opera and the individual songs were intended, I always took the last movement, "See Me, Feel Me/Listening to You" to be homage to God, and that was how I interpreted it.] STEVIE WONDER - He released the album SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE to correspond with his astrological charts. The cover of INNER VISIONS depicts the sy mbol of astral projection. In the song "Jesus Children of America", he puts down Christ and Christianity. He says that "Transcendental Meditation speaks of peace of mind". [COMMENT: One man's statement that a discipline or religion speaks of peace of mind does not mean that it grants such peace, or even that the individual has found such peace through the discipline, but merely that it speaks of peace of mind.] YES - The album TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS is supposed to reveal the science of God, cert ain sexual rituals and reincarnation. The album jacket explains that the lyrics are based on Hindu Scripture. A COLLECTION OF COMMENTS BY KRISTI WACHTER (otherwise known as the person who typed all this information into computer-readable files) There are a few points made elsewhere in these files that I'd like to summarize and emphasize. 1. A great deal of the outcry over rock music has to do with RELIGIOUS content. By law, church and state are separate; no organization or government body has the righ t to dictate personal spiritual beliefs to anyone (to my knowledge, minors have the same rights in this area as everyone else). As you may have noticed, many of the complaints and accusations refer to satanic, occult, supernatural, or un-Christian (i.e. Hindu or Buddhist) content. As regards occult and supernatural content, I find yet another inconsistency with these organizations, since they have not complained about Amy Grant or Andre Crouch albums, even though their music h as to do with supernatural ma tters (the difference being that they take their inspiration from the Judeo-Christian God, a religious choice which is currently considered acceptable by most of Western society). As for the "occult" label, that would seem to include Christian music as well; my dictionary defines "occult" as 1. not revealed, secret; 2. abstruse, mysterious; 3. of or relating to supernatural agencies, their effects, or knowledge of them [The Merriam-Webster Dictiona ry]. In other words, occult matters are supernatural ma tters, which are otherworldly matters (whether heavenly or hellish). The attempts of these organizations or any others to ban, label, or in any way restrict music because of the religious nature of its lyrics must not be tolerated. 2. There is no evidence that exposure, even prolonged exposure, to words or ideas will have any influence, whether favorable or negative, on the listener. On the other hand, there is considerable evidence that people can listen to rock music for years without any adverse effe cts. I, for one, have listened to pop and rock music unwaveringly since I was five - that's three-quarters of my life - with no adverse effects. I am not a sex-crazed, drugged-out, devil-worshipping maniac. Quite the contrary: I am involved in a monogamous relationship, I have NEVER smoked anything, nor indulged in any illegal drugs (other than some alcohol before I was of age), and I have never worshipped any god other than the Judeo-Ch ristian God, nor have I ever felt any desire to. I have found stre ngth, joy, and pleasure in music; rock music has enriched me rather than harming me. (One further note: a much-publicized study recently disproved the public's fears that birth-control information would cause young people to become more sexually active. The researchers found that the teenagers who received birth control information lost their virginity at a later age and had fewer pregnancies than the group without such information.) 3. These ratings are not like movie ratings in two important ways. Fi rst, instead of a gradient (i.e. G, PG, PG-13, R, and X), the PMRC demanded specific labels (i.e. S for sex, V for violence, O for occult, and D/A for drugs and alcohol). Second, recording artists are closely associated with their work, whereas actors are considered to be "pretending" and if, for example, an actor portrays a mass murderer, he is exposed to much less criticism than a musician who writes about mass murder (thanks to Fran k Zappa for pointing that out). Organizations like the PMRC and Freedom Village have no case. There simply is no evidence that rock music or any other kind of music can harm a young person. In all honesty, I must admit that if I had children, I would very likely be uncomfortable to find them listening to certain extremes of music. However, I would continue to fight the censorship efforts of such organizations for two reasons. First, I would want to base my judgments regarding my children's listening habits (and my own) on my own values, not on anyone else's. Second, I bel ieve that the best way to combat whatever potential harm may lie in song lyrics is by educating kids and discussing with them what they're listening to. Forbidding them from listening to something will not protect them from other songs/TV programs/influences of which I was not aware. Lastly, I would like to mention that many of the influences considered harmful come from many other sources. During the PMRC hearing, one of the senators mentioned that studded leather wristbands, weapons, and leather harnes ses were being produced in children's sizes and offered to children through advertisements in comic strips. The senator took this as evidence that five and ten year olds were becoming warped by listening to sado-masochistic lyrics in rock songs. A few weeks after the hearing, I was visiting some friends, and their five-year-old boy was wearing one of the studded leather wristbands. I asked where he got it and was not very surprised to hear that it was part of his fascination with Conan the Barbarian (not only a movie, but also a very successful television cartoon and a complete collection of toys and accessories). Whether or not these things can really harm children should be left to the parents' discretion. I am quite confident from the information I have, however, that organizations like the PMRC and Freedom Village cannot help parents to make informed decisions, but will only disseminate misinformation and breed more prejudice and ignorance. X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X Another file downloaded from: The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven & the Temple of the Screaming Electron Taipan Enigma 510/935-5845 Burn This Flag Zardoz 408/363-9766 realitycheck Poindexter Fortran 510/527-1662 Lies Unlimited Mick Freen 801/278-2699 The New Dork Sublime Biffnix 415/864-DORK The Shrine Rif Raf 206/794-6674 Planet Mirth Simon Jester 510/786-6560 "Raw Data for Raw Nerves" X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X