Cussing in Lyrics: A Double Edged Sword

I was talking with one of my young guitar students. He was asking about good drum songs and I recommended "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath. The student explained that his mom is not a big fan of Ozzy, and thus, he was not familiar with the tune.

I can respect that. The kid doesn't want to offend his mom. Very noble, young lad.

He continued on that she doesn't appreciate the "swearing" within Mr. Osbourne's lyrics. He asked me what I thought about swearing.

I told him that the use of cussing in lyrics has two sides to the argument.

The first being that the English language contains tens of thousands words, and therefore if you find yourself using one of the "Seven Dirty Words..." as a lyric to your song, then you are probably just Lazy. or Ignorant.

Then I asked this student if he was familiar with the Bill of Rights. Yes! he exclaimed. Are you familiar with the Freedom of Speech? Yes! he again exclaimed. Do you remember which amendment that was? Yes! he exclaimed for the final time - the First Amendment.

Damn right it's the First Amendment. because it's the most important. Censorship is weak and Un-American. Only religious fanatics, politicians and communists go around trying to censor other humans.

I didn't hammer this point home. The kid is only 11 and he shouldn't be cussing, he should be learning new words instead.

but the Truth of the matter is that if years from now this guy finds himself being censored by The Man, I hope he does what the Doors and Stones did on Ed Sullivan...

That is, rehearse the "clean" version and they play it Totally Uncensored during the live show. That's what my dad taught me to do.