{"id":134736,"date":"2025-09-11T08:01:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/134736\/"},"modified":"2025-09-11T08:01:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T08:01:07","slug":"on-this-day-in-1973-the-bbc-banned-one-of-the-rolling-stones-most-obscene-singles-after-it-appeared-on-a-tv-broadcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/134736\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Day in 1973, the BBC Banned One of The Rolling Stones\u2019 Most Obscene Singles After It Appeared on a TV Broadcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day (September 10), in 1973, the BBC banned \u201cStar Star\u201d from The Rolling Stones<\/a>\u2019 album Goats Head Soup. The song, written about groupies, originally had a much more explicit title. It also features a chorus that largely consists of repeated F-bombs. As a result, it is easy to see why the BBC banned the song.<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones originally called the song \u201cStarf**ker,\u201d another word for \u201cgroupie.\u201d However, Atlantic Records forced the band to change the title. However, they repeat the original title a dozen times in the song\u2019s chorus, and that might be the least NSFW part of the song.<\/p>\n

Some believe that Mick Jagger wrote the song about Carly Simon. Their affair ended a little under a year before the band released the song as a single from Goats Head Soup. By then, she had married James Taylor and relocated to Los Angeles. The song\u2019s second verse begins with the lines, Honey, honey, call me on the telephone. \/ I know you\u2019re movin\u2019 out to Hollywood \/ With your can of tasty foam. The song also seemingly references lyrics from \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain,\u201d on which Jagger provided backing vocals.<\/p>\n

The BBC Banned \u201cStar Star\u201d Before The Rolling Stones Released It<\/p>\n

The Rolling Stones didn\u2019t release \u201cStar Star\u201d as a single until December 1973. However, the album came out on August 31, and they were touring Europe to support the LP. Part of that tour was a three-night run at Wembley Stadium<\/a> (then, the Empire Pool), which received late-night news coverage in the United Kingdom. A snippet of \u201cStar Star\u201d played during the broadcast, and the BBC took notice.<\/p>\n

Many groups were outraged by the song\u2019s lyrics, calling them misogynistic. Jagger didn\u2019t beat those allegations when talking about the song during a 1975 tour stop.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople always give me this bit about us being a macho band, and I always ask them to give me examples,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cThey always say \u2018Starf**ker,\u2019 and that just happened to be about someone I knew. There\u2019s really no reason to have women on tour, unless they\u2019ve got a job to do. The only other reason is to f**k. Otherwise, they get bored and moan,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Featured Image by Bettmann\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day (September 10), in 1973, the BBC banned \u201cStar Star\u201d from The Rolling Stones\u2019 album Goats…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[7514,64,63,93135,134,136,36486],"class_list":{"0":"post-134736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-1970s","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-classic-rock","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-the-rolling-stones"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}