I have to agree with Jackie on this one, etaoin. I feel that going back and changing works of art (re: song lyrics) is censoring the artist's work and impairing, if not ruining, their sense of history and their poetry. I remember being aghast when I first encountered in my folk songshare circles, a new sing-along book which broadcast on the jacket that it had been "edited" for "lyrics which may be offensive", and was co-edited by, of all people, Mr. Freedom Fighter himself, Pete Seeger! Here they took the audacious presumption of changing "a brotherhood of man" in John Lennon's Imagine, and, ridiculously enough, "sitting around the campfire, everybody's high" in John Denver's Rocky Mountain High, with "everybody's high" being the offending phrase, evidently. C'mon, for cryin' out loud, you can be high on nature, high on life, in high spirits, and if you are high on pot in that mellow, friendly circumstance, so what?
When we start censoring John Denver, I thought, when Pete Seeger starts censoring John Denver, we are getting into serious trouble here, folks. And this sort of ludicrous butchery was rampant all throughout the songbook. This really started me on a hard rethink of what was going on with this whole PC process. I had fully embraced, and still do, the sensible changes where appropriate...firefighters for firemen, for instance. But, like many things, it started out with good intentions, and then, for some reason, people started running amok with it. There's no freedom in having to analyse every word I say or write before I write or say it because I might offend somebody when I am not, nor have I ever been, the kind of person who seeks to hurt people that way (except, of course, in some personal squabbles, with personal vindictive). And you might say, well, there's some unintended subtle nuance of offense there, which was the initial reason for all this, and that might be true...but then that perspective has grown to presuppose an ingrained and intentional, albeit subconscious, racism, sexism, or whatever the hateism, just because you're "carelessly" not-PC...and I resent this negative painting of my, or anybody else's, character just because someone now decides to deem some new term or part of language as undesirable, as in the instance of nitty gritty.
And I will always sing "a brotherhood of man" in John Lennon's Imagine because it's beautiful, and it has the most meaning for me, and it's what the man meant (a poetical and musical genius IMHO, BTW) when he wrote the song, the image the poet chose, and if there's a woman or feminist activist out there who takes umbrage at that, I'm sorry...but that's her problem...to think I intend any disrespect or offense by singing that touching and beautiful song, a song of love and peace, is just plain ridiculous.
And sitting around the campfire everybody's high...always and forever! I mean, sheesh!
When you're sitting around a campfire is your mood usually low?!
