Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Summer Music 1966: Banned in Chicago

Pope Paul VI lauds Cardinal Cody
for banning Lou Christie's 1966 summer hit

It's just too hot to even think about Chicago politics. So it's a perfect time for our annual Chicago Lampoon summer song fest.

This year I'll include one that was banned from the Chicago airwaves.

When I posted my favorite summer songs last year, I didn't realize that 2 were from the summer of 1966. Frank Sinatra's "Summer Wind," hit #1 that year and the Lovin' Spoonful's "Summer in the City" hit was the #4 top seller of 1966.

Since we'll almost certainly have another thunderstorm tonight,  for good measure, this year, I thought I'd throw in another favorite from the summer of '66, Lou Christie's Rhapsody in the Rain which reached #16.

It would have done a lot better on the charts, but the Catholic Cardinal of Chicago in 1966, John Cardinal Cody, had it banned from airplay on WLS and WCFL -- the two major pop stations at the time, in the nation's 2nd largest market.

Seems the Cardinal thought that the rhythmic windshield wipers while "makin' out in the rain" and "makin' love in the storm," were just a little too morally corrosive for our young souls.

Anyway here are the summer sounds of 1966.

Maybe they'll help mitigate the Chicago's 99 degree, July 20, 2011 heat a little bit:

Frank Sinatra's #1 1966 hit, The Summer Wind:



The Lovin' Spoonful's #4 1966 hit, Summer in the City:



And Lou Christie's banned, morally corrosive #16 1966 hit, Rhapsody in the Rain:

4 comments:

  1. "and in this car we went too far"?! Oh my gosh! That's so funny! I bet it was really hip and hot at the time but now it's just hysterical. :)

    That was a new one for me - the others of course, are old classics. :)

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  2. "and then in this car, our love went much too far..."

    SHOCKING!!!

    And compare this to the "lyrics" of those animal rap musicians today.

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  3. And where is the Cardinal on those, hmm?

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  4. The current Cardinal, to my knowlege hasn't uttered a peep about the moral degeneracy of rap or hip hop. It might show his "racial insensitivity" to come down hard on singers advocating rape and murder.

    Cardinal George is too busy cow-towing to the reprobate Fr. Pfleger and his essentially Southern Baptist-AME, black-supremacist, Catholic-in-name-only, St. Sabina's flock.

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Comments invited, however anonymous commentors had better deal directly with the issues raised and avoid ad hominem drivel. As for Teachers' Union seminar writers -- forget about it.