Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Porn-panic song now 10-year-old holiday chestnut 'Tis the season... after hearing a certain melody for the 50th time this month, I had to pay a visit to the lyrics of a half-remembered parody (which I link to farther down this page, after a disclaimer). When I got to the song's webpage, I couldn't help noticing that 2005 is its 10th anniversary, according to author Kevin Hinshaw's University of Washington page. (Although it may not have made it into Web folklore until 1996.) The words of the parody stick to Mel Torme's "Christmas Song" melody faster than you can say "Chestnuts roasting..." If the radio plays the opening bars of that song, and you notice a strange smile creeping across a computer-obsessed friend's face, the reason may be a memory of the naughtier lyrics. More reverent reasons exist for smiling at this time of year, but songs about Santa, Jack Frost and that pagan Yule mistletoe don't have much to do with the true Christmas, either. Disclaimer: If you think you might be offended by a song whose first word is "sex," with the word "sheep" turning up a few lines later, then I recommend this Web karaoke copy of the Mel Torme original, and/or skipping to the orange heading below for the redeeming social value behind this post. Otherwise, here are the lyrics that have haunted the melody for, I suspect, hundreds of irreverent or perverse listeners for the past decade: The Exon Song (I dropped Kevin a note. He can't believe it's been 10 years, either.) Should any of my students wander in from their exams and find this page, be sure to read the section below... About the "Exon Song" title -- and explaining what this has to do with a journalism-focused blog: Don't think "Exxon" or oil. The song was written in response to Senator Exon's support for Communications Decency legislation... an amendment that was seen by many as a threat to freedom of speech. At the time, the Web was new to most people, and a Time magazine article (although its extreme points were quickly discredited) helped fan a 1995 wave of hysteria about online pornography. Time was caught by another, maybe bigger, danger on the Internet: Being misled by easily-published questionable research. And the speedy online analysis of Time's story back then was a precursor to more recent blogger fact-checking in cases like Dan Rather's National Guard memo problem. 11:13:59 AM    comment []

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