Socking It to 'Em

MANNERS & MORALS

Perhaps because Gordon McLendon, 45, is a father (four children) and grandfather (two), he found it difficult to believe "that our American young people are preoccupied with thoughts of 'making out,' marijuana and birth-control pills." But when he listened carefully to the music that was played on his own 13 AM and FM radio stations, he believed--plenty. "There were songs," he said, "that glorify dope addiction, homosexuality, immorality in general. Some absolutely make permissible, if not encourage, fornication and all varieties of things that would have been called immoral 20 years ago."

He heard songs like I Can't Get No Satisfaction ("I can't get no girl with action/. . . I'm trying to make some girl"), Sock It to Me Baby ("Ready or not/I want what you got"), Let's Spend the Night Together ("I'll satisfy your every need, and I know you'll satisfy me"). In Rhapsody in the Rain ("I can't stop--together; together"), a parked couple is making love to the rhythm of the windshield wipers. In Day Tripper, the girl friend is suspected of being a prostitute ("She only played one-night stands"). And, according to hippy interpretations, there is freaking out for every taste--LSD (Running Around the World), pot (Get Off Of My Cloud), and heroin (Straight Shooter).

Grass-Roots Crusade. Having heard enough, McLendon directed all his radio stations (from Philadelphia to San Francisco) to quit playing songs that "offend public morals, dignity or taste." And just to make sure that certain kinds of recorded numbers would not get past his disk jockeys, McLendon announced that henceforth his stations would refuse any new record release "unless it is accompanied by a valid lyric sheet."

Simultaneously, he took his crusade to the people. Addressing the American Mothers' Committee convention in Manhattan, he implored: "When you go back to your own communities, let your radio stations know that you are behind this campaign. Your support at the grass-roots level will go a very long way toward arresting the cancerous growth of that irresponsible minority in the record and music industry which unconscionably countenances subtle or downright salacious lyrics." McLendon carefully limited his attack to that "irresponsible minority," mainly British rock singers such as the Rolling Stones. "I must take a stand," he said, "in favor of a rather updated version of the Boston Tea Party. Two centuries later, I suppose we might call it The Wax Party'--one in which we purge all the distasteful English records that deal with sex, sin and drugs."

Jaded Jury. McLendon's manifesto won an immediate endorsement from the American Mothers' Committee, as well as support or similar action from 125 other of the U.S.'s 4,200 AM radio stations, including the Susquehanna broadcasting group, and several stations owned by the American Broadcasting Co. But McLendon won't stop there. Aware that "teenage slang changes by the week," and that the hippies love to slip innuendoes past the censors, McLendon is appointing an "informal jury" of consultants. It will have to include, he thinks, an ex-prostitute and an ex-addict to catch all the nuances.

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