Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder

21 Jan 2004, 13:20 p.m.

I thought it was "champagne"

Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2004 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.

A roundup of censorship and other suppression of texts through the ages told me: "1954: Cole Porter's lyric 'Some get a kick from cocaine' is changed to 'Some get perfume from Spain' for radio airplay."

I first heard of this song from a Lois Lowry book. Young Sam sings the song at the top of his lungs around the house, and his parents ask each other, "What will the neighbors think?"