‘Kodachrome’: Why was Paul Simon’s big 1973 hit was immediately banned by the BBC?
Paul Simon has never been afraid to push the envelope with his songwriting, experimenting with a wealth of disparate sounds and songwriting styles, but he perhaps is not the kind of artist you would expect to be hit with an outright ban from the BBC.
For a broadcaster whose remit explicitly includes impartiality, the BBC has a rather extensive history of banning songs. In fact, the broadcaster has been banning popular songs since before Paul Simon was born, with the first track to be restricted Cole Porter’s ‘Love for Sale’ back in 1930, due to its prostitution themes. As the years progressed, though, the Beeb became notably more ruthless in the swathes of songs it banned, for a wealth of different reasons.
Typically, bans have been faced by songs viewed by the BBC as promoting drug use, explicit sexual content, or, particularly during the early days, bad language. However, during the 1940s, the BBC’s musical director called for a ban on any song which was “slushy in sentiment”, which describes an unimaginable number of pop hits recorded over the last century. The BBC’s rules on bans, then, have never really been set in stone.
Even still, it is difficult to imagine Paul Simon infringing upon those fluctuating rules. Admittedly, the songwriter has certainly explored themes of sex and drugs over the decades, but rarely – if ever – in a way overt enough for the censors to step in. Yet, back in 1973, the lead single from There Goes Rhymin’ Simon faced an immediate and automatic ban from the BBC.
‘Kodachrome’ had already been a major hit in its native US, peaking at number two in the Billboard pop charts, but, on this side of the Atlantic, its blanket ban meant it was resigned to being the B-side of the vastly inferior ‘Take Me to the Mardi Gras’.
As anybody familiar with BBC guidelines can likely guess, ‘Kodachrome’ was banned as a result of its title, which is a brand name owned by Kodak, for their pioneering colour film. The BBC, as a result of its public service broadcasting remit and license-fee-funding are prohibited from advertising or being seen as advertising specific brand names of products, hence why you will often hear “other [products] are available” whenever a brand name is mentioned on a broadcast.
It is entirely possible, if not certain, that Simon and his team at Columbia Records were unaware of that rule, else they might have considered naming the song something else. After all, the importance of the BBC in dictating the chart standings of the early 1970s is impossible to overstate.
Invariably, week after week, artists would rely almost solely on the broadcaster’s radio network, not to mention the insurmountable attention given to Top of the Pops, to boost singles sales, and Simon lost out on all of that when his track was banned.
To be fair to Simon, the result of that ban wasn’t all that heartbreaking. ‘Take Me to the Mardi Gras’ still managed to reach number seven in the UK singles charts, with ‘Kodachrome’ as its B-side, but the vast majority of listeners paid more attention to that B-side than the flip, and it remains one of the most iconic tracks of Simon’s early 1970s period on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the BBC’s best efforts.
