Forget you is better than nothing



Cee Lo Green wants to either FU, or Forget You

The other day I was driving home and listening to the radio when a certain profanity flinging song came on. You've probably heard the song at some point in one of it's many incarnations. I knew better than to expect the original version of the song, that has only found air time on YouTube and I'm sure plenty of other websites, but "Fuck You" isn't a song that's going to hit many mainstream venues. I'm sure the Cee Lo Green wasn't too worried about that point when he put the song together. He had a message he wanted to get out to the world, and it's a lot easier to get that message out to the public.

I'm not here to rant about the song, or the word choices, or any of that, I'm here to complain about the radio versions of the song. More accurately, the FU version. You see, there's two versions of the original song that are acceptable for the radio and other monitored public airwaves. The first version is called "Forget You" and replaces the F-bomb with forget. It's a pretty easy fix that works well with the song. The other version is called "FU" and simply blanks out the inappropriate words leaving dead air in their place.

Now back to the story. I was driving down the street when the song comes on the air. I've only heard "Forget You" on the radio so I'm expecting that to be what I'll be hearing, but instead the DJ opted to go with the "FU" version instead. It's his job to make those kinds of decisions, but personally, I'd rather have something than nothing. "Forget you" works well as a song. When I listen to it, I only think about the original lyrics less than half of the song. It feels like a natural fit and it is enjoyable to listen to, but the "FU" version always makes me think about the other versions. Every time there is that moment of silent air, I think about one of the other two options.

A similar thing happens with movies on cable television. You can have two options with swear words. You either blank them out or fill them in with something else. It's hard to decide which one is better. I think it depends on the skills of the dubber. As a general rule, I prefer to have something over nothing, but there's a fine line between something and something that makes no sense at all. Fudge may make sense as a replacement word in "A Christmas Story," but not in "The Godfather." (And that's a nice example.)

An example of a good replacement choice is "Frack" from the new run of "Battlestar Galactica." Everyone knows what Frack really means, but as long as the actual word doesn't slip out, everyone looks the other way. Or on "Firefly" when the characters swear in Chinese, you know they're saying something bad, but you let it slide because you can't understand what they're saying.

I guess I should get back to my original topic and talk about my preference on the Cee Lo song. In my previous example, I would much rather have a perfectly acceptable and enjoyable complete song in "Forget You," than suffer through the continual interruptions in the flow of the song. You may want to disagree with me on that, and that is fine. Just leave a comment below and let me know how you feel about the matter.