Now that I have my iPod, I've been spending a lot of time going through my CD collection to put songs on it. It's like rediscovering old friends. One such old friend is the wonderful Split Enz's song "Six Months in a Leaky Boat". For those of you who aren't familiar with the early 1980s New Zealand pop scene, Split Enz is most famous for hits like "I Got You" and "One Step Ahead". The band also later spawned Crowded House, who hit it big with "Don't Dream It's Over".

Anyway, with the release of "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", Split Enz were poised to make it big internationally. Unfortunately for them, the BBC banned the song because, at a time when England was fighting the Falklands War, the title was considered "too provocative". Here are the lyrics to this scathing, anti-war song:

When I was a young boy
I wanted to sail around the world
That's the life for me, living on the sea
Spirit of a sailor, circumnavigates the globe
The lust of a pioneer, will acknowledge
No frontier
I remember you by, thunderclap in the sky
Lightning flash, tempers flare,
'round the horn if you dare
I just spent six months in a leaky boat
Lucky just to keep afloat

Aotearoa, rugged individual
Glisten like a pearl
At the bottom of the world
The tyranny of distance
Didn't stop the cavalier
So why should it stop me
I'll conquer and stay free
Ah c'mon all you lads
Let's forget and forgive
There's a world to explore
Tales to tell back on shore
I just spent six months in a leaky boat
Six months in a leaky boat

Ship-wrecked love can be cruel
Don't be fooled by her kind
There's a wind in my sails
Will protect and prevail
I just spent six months in a leaky boat
Nothing to it leaky boat.

Yep, that's it. While they were at it, I hope the BBC also banned pretty much everything by Jimmy Buffet. Not to mention "Brandy".

Hollywood liberals and singers from Linda Ronstadt to the Dixie Chicks have spent parts of the past couple of years whining about the "chilling of dissent" in "John Ashcroft's America" (I guess now it's "Alberto Gonzalez's America"). It's worth noting that those who opposed the likes of Michael Moore, Natalie Maines and Sean Penn were individual Americans exercising their own First Amendment rights. There's a huge difference between that and the restrictions on free speech made by the governments of other countries.

In America, both conservative wingnuts and liberal moonbats enjoy freedom of speech. Contrast that with the restrictions on speech in such "enlightened" countries as Canada, the Netherlands and yes, the UK.

Of course, we have to be ever-vigilant against those who would restrict our rights. We need to pay more attention to actual attempts to restrict speech and less to the whining of those whose real complaint is that too many people disagree with them.