{"id":371355,"date":"2025-08-25T03:35:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T03:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371355\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T03:35:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T03:35:13","slug":"paul-mccartney-had-song-banned-by-the-bbc-but-the-audience-love-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/371355\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul McCartney had song banned by the BBC but the audience ‘love it’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul said: “Everyone’s a bit anti-all-that-banning, all that censorship”Dan Haygarth<\/strong><\/a> Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter<\/p>\n

23:17, 24 Aug 2025<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul McCartney in Liverpool earlier this year(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

The Beatles were never afraid to push the boundaries or cause controversy. The most salient example of this was in 1966 John Lennon famously declared that The Beatles<\/a> were “more popular than Jesus”, leading to plenty of backlash from Christians in America.<\/p>\n

But their music also occasionally landed the band in hot water – with ‘I Am the Walrus’<\/a> and ‘A Day in the Life’<\/a> being among the songs banned by the BBC<\/a> for the supposed references to drugs and the sexual content of their lyrics. This did not stop when the band went their separate ways.<\/p>\n

Several tracks recorded by the former Beatles<\/a> in their later careers were banned by certain radio operators.<\/p>\n

Among them was Paul McCartney’s<\/a> 1972 hit ‘Hi, Hi, Hi’, which he wrote with wife Linda and recorded with Wings.<\/p>\n

The song includes the lyrics: “We’re gonna get hi, hi, hi with the music on. Won’t say bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye ’til the night is gone.”<\/p>\n

It continues: “I’m gonna do it to you, gonna do it sweet banana, you’ll never give up.<\/p>\n

\"PaulPaul and Linda McCartney of Wings backstage at Newcastle City Hall, July 1973(Image: Mirrorpix)<\/p>\n

“We’re gonna get hi, hi, hi, we’re going to get hi hi hi. We’re going to get hi, hi, hi in the midday sun, ooh baby.”<\/p>\n

It was banned by the BBC<\/a>, which believed its lyrics made reference to sex and drugs. The ban worked in Paul’s<\/a> favour, however, as he said it gave the song added impetus in live gigs.<\/p>\n

He explained in a later interview: “Yeah, well, the great laugh is when we go live, it makes a great announcement. You can say: ‘This one was banned!’ and everyone goes ‘Hooray!’<\/p>\n

“The audience love it, you know. ‘This next one was banned’, and then you get raving, because everyone likes to.<\/p>\n

“Everyone’s a bit anti-all-that-banning, all that censorship. Our crew, our generation, really doesn’t dig that stuff, as I’m sure you know.”<\/p>\n

‘Hi, Hi, Hi’ topped the charts in Spain, peaked at five in the UK and at ten in the USA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul said: “Everyone’s a bit anti-all-that-banning, all that censorship”Dan Haygarth Liverpool Daily Post Editor and Regeneration Reporter 23:17,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,11693,4162,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-371355","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-paul-mccartney","11":"tag-the-beatles","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115087312650938795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}