BBC Bans "Drivel and Snivel": AUSTERITY ON THE AIR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 173, 16 October 1942, Page 8

BBC Bans "Drivel and Snivel":

AUSTERITY ON THE AIR

"The BBC has decided to ban, first, any form of anaemic and debilitated vocal performance by male singers; secondly, insincere and over-sentimental performances by women singers; thirdly, numbers slushy in sentiment and suggestive or otherwise offensive to good taste or religious and allied susceptibilities; and fourthly, numbers based on tunes borrowed from standard classical works."

t Sia above cable from London appeared in all New Zealand newspapers toward the end of July. Oddly enough, it attracted almost no notice. It was, however, obvious to close readers that it contained enough explosive for a yery big noise sooner or later, and we therefore abstained from comment until the overseas newspapers of that date should arrive with fuller details. This has now happened, and we quote some typical reactions. ea et a ae

BOTHER FOR BLISS ("News Review," July 2) HREE months after he became music boss of the world’s biggest radio organisation, Arthur Bliss ran into trouble. A composer of note, Bliss has liberal tastes in music, and can enjoy his jazz with the rest. But as the BBC’s Director of Music he has to watch the ticklish question of Good Taste. For some time, he and other music bigwigs of the BBC European and Overseas service have been uneasy about the number of "plugs" given to dance tunes with sloppy words. Because band leaders seem incapable of judging what is or is not Good Taste, the BBC inserted the thin edge of this musical wedge into a recent Forces programme. Banned was the arch-sentimental tiny-tot number "Mandy is Two." Last week, Broadcasting House news ‘scouts reported that Bliss was to have a meeting with leading music publishers to discuss the allied, but wider, question of pseudo-propaganda numbers such as the Judy Garland song from Babes on Broadway, telling the British people to keep their "Chin Up! Cheerio!" and military-sounding hearty items such as "We're in the Army Now," played to Overseas listeners last week on the day Tobruk surrendered,

Result of the showdown will be that either publishers will have to provide fewer songs about babies, shrines, Peace on Earth, and the gallantry of the British people, and/or bandleaders will have to take a course in common Good Taste, as well as keep up with current events and current popular feeling. Penglty: the BBC will close its air to anything but popular music of its own choosing. "ANTI-SLUSH" HEADACHES ("News Review,’ August 6) AST week, the BBC’s censors of "slush" were getting their first headaches over the job. Headache No. 1: ‘The irrevocable banning of a certain song may result in the scrapping of a favourite accepted

artist, with a consequent public outcry that the "new dictatorship" is being carried too far. A typical case in point is that of Bing Crosby, whose records are featured for the Forces every week in "Bing Time." Crooner Crosby’s very personal method of performance will pass the normal tests of good taste; but the same number sung by a less able artist may result in just the sloppiness the new ruling is designed to suppress. In such cases, is the song or the type of performance to be banned? No test case has yet occurred, but its early possibility is being considered. Where public taste is definitely known, the BBC is likely to give way and let the public have its slop as before. Ultrasentimental crooner Vera Lynn, for instance, is far too popular to make the BBC’s life worth while if she were barred. Even the Overseas Service, already strict in the matter of "suitability," grants troops stationed in the Middle East their numberless requests for Miss Lynn’s recordings in the regular "Forces’ Favourites."

Headache No. 2: While the general effect of the New Order on listeners’ taste and tempers is yet to be felt, the BBC anticipates an inevitable swing in the opposite direction. Radio authorities are expecting to have to ask songwriters and publishers to ease up a little on the production of super-hearty and "virile" songs about sergeant-fhajors. It was revealed last week that close checking of popular tunes is a new policy only in the BBC’s Home and Forces Services. Overseas broadcasts of dance tunes have been carefully watched for some months. Among the numbers considered too sentimental for overseas listeners have been "Lullaby to a Hero," "Somebody Else is Taking My Place," and vocal refrains of the "Dumbo Lullaby" and "Baby Mine." "Lullaby to a Hero" was outlawed as being in poor taste. "Somebody Else is Taking My Place" was barred as being bad for the morale of troops serving overseas. German propaganda to the French in the Maginot Line plugged this sort of thing during the."phoney war" period, suggesting that British soldiers were flirting with French troops’ wives behind the lines. Constant reiteration had -considerable moral effect on an already demoralised army. The words of "Baby Mine" were disallowed as the result of over-sentimental performances, including "mother’s-darl-ing" patter. BBC IN DORIAN MOOD ("Time,’ August 3) HE London Star ran a cartoon show- ‘" ing a frail BBC selection committee studying scores and saying " Remember, we must be fraightfully, fraightfully robust." The British Broadcasting Corporation had decided that it was time for its crooners to get tough. This latest austerity, explained the Corporation, had long been meditated. Surveys had indicated that the peptic was fed up with luscious thrushes loving lullabies. Let dance music be virile, BBC ordained — but not unrefined, (Continued on next page)

(Continued from previous page) Most of the press said "Hear! Hear!" and so did many band leaders. The Yorkshire Post declared: "Drivel and snivel, in days of challenge and strain, may almostbe classed as a minor form of Fifth Column activity." Said the Times, with a reminiscent rumble of thunder: "The nation is in the Dorian mood; it has a mind to hear something strong, full-throated, and vital." Others quiestioned the right of BBC, itself often assailed as schoolmarmy, to judge what is debilitated and what is not. One plausible jest was that the German radio would build up its British audience (as pre-war Radio Luxembourg had) by establishing a black market in crooners. Loudest squallers were music publishers. They thought BBC’s edict was directed primarily against songs (mostly U.S.) that, by moaning about unfaithful sweethearts, were likely to make members of expeditionary forces homesick and jealous. A prize example is the current hit "Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree," in which the singer melodiously complains that he has just had information from a friend (not a relation) that an unconscripted neighbour next door

was making pleasant woo with a charming creature who might be the girl he left to go to war. Others mentioned were "Miss You," "Someone’s Rocking My Dreamboat," and "Somebody Else is Taking My Place"’-all from the U.S. Nobody objected when BBC also banned "Deep in the Heart of Texas" from’ Music While You Work programmes, which go into British war factories: Reason: workers robustly beat out the clapping sequences with their hammers, sometimes damaged their machines! TWO OBITUARIES (English "Listener," August 6) NDER the caption, Requiescant, W. McNaught makes the following comment in the English Listener: This being the season for light topics, let us begin with a couple of obituaries. The radio crooner has been put out of his pain; and I feel that it is up to somebody on this page to assist in the obsequies. Crooning scarcely comes under the head of Drama; nor does it qualify as, though it may frequently invoke, the Spoken Word. There is no

getting away from it: crooning is Music. In fact, the impossibility of getting away from it has been the chief trouble; and here the BBC has covered itself with blame. By filling the air with these subhuman bleatings for many thousands of hours our dear, perplexing Corporation has made itself the biggest force in existence for the debasement of public taste. Apologists have pleaded that the public must be given what it wants; it is also true, and more to the point, that the public will want what it gets. As a well-known foreign expert has laid it down in another connection, the public will fall for anything if you shout it long enough and often enough. And here am I laying reproaches on the BBC when I ought to be patting it on the back for getting rid of the nuisance at last. Still, I could wish that the motive had been simpler. The radio crooner has been laid to rest because the spirit of the times calls for a more virile and robust type of song. I would rather have read that he had been put away merely because he was an offence. Doom has also been passed upon the Scrounged Melody. And quite time too, for this form of misdemeanour has long been a cause of pain and exasperation among musical folk. A crooner’s sounds may be inescapable, but you can ignore his songs, for they are musically null. But a well-known tune, in whatever form, is bound to catch your attention, and to set up irritation if it has been maltreated. Beyond this, however, I have to admit that I am unsound on the ethics of theft. The pillaged classic suffers no permanent damage (where now is "The Damask Rese"?); the thing can be decently done, and it can happen that a purloined tune is the only one worth listening to between the hors d’oeuvres and the coffee. But since. most of these robberies are done with violence the best course has been taken by forbidding them altogether, So thumbs down on the filched tune, _