8 Radio Edits That Completely Changed The Song's Meaning

Get the [beep] out of here, standards and practices!

In order for a song to get a lot of airtime on the radio, it has to be mostly inoffensive and free of obscene language. That's why the radio edit was invented: to make pop hits out of songs that otherwise had no chance of making it onto the airwaves. But what do you do when you have a track that you just know will burn up the charts, but has a little too much of an edge to get played on the radio?

Many musicians have allowed their lyrics to be bleeped into oblivion or drowned out with sound effects. Others have gone a more creative route, completely altering the offending lyrics. And while that can also be a successful method, sometimes it completely changes the meaning of the song. Sometimes it can be quite shocking to hear the artists' original intentions after only listening to the "clean version" for such a long time.

So go ahead and read on. But do so with caution, because you may never hear these songs in the same way again.

Contributor

Jacob is a part-time contributor for WhatCulture, specializing in music, movies, and really, really dumb humor.