Posted on 05/13/2011 9:55:15 PM PDT by tlb
WASILLA — When members of Wasilla High School’s symphonic jazz choir heard Friday it wouldn’t be singing the popular Queen hit “Bohemian Rhapsody” at this year’s graduation ceremony after working on it all year, the students couldn’t get their heads around it.
WHS Principal Dwight Probasco reportedly had received complaints from at least one parent that the 1975 hit written by Freddie Mercury wasn’t appropriate for the ceremony simply because Mercury was gay.
“The whole thing was just ridiculous,” senior Rachel Clark said Monday. “They’d played the song on the school intercom and we played it at prom.”
Choir member Casey Hight, a junior, was angry enough to contact a gay and lesbian support organization in Anchorage. They told her to contact the American Civil Liberties Union.
“I felt like the school was discriminating for sexual orientation and I felt it was wrong,” Hight said Monday. “It’s so stupid because there’s nothing sexual in the song. There aren’t even any cuss words.”
Although Probasco wouldn’t comment on the issue Monday, Senior Class Advisor Deb Haynes said Probasco has now agreed to allow the choir to sing an edited version of Bohemian Rhapsody that doesn’t include lyrics in one section about killing a man.
“The kids had put a lot of time into the song, but at graduation we really try to accommodate anything that might be a sensitive issue for anybody,” Haynes said, adding she didn’t understand why the song would have been a problem in the first place. “I’ve heard it a hundred times and it’s never bothered me.”
Hight said she believes Probasco decided to put the song back on the graduation program because he didn’t want any problems with the ACLU.
“We were joking about singing Elton John’s ‘Candle in the Wind,’ instead,” Clark said.
(Excerpt) Read more at frontiersman.com ...
‘hey teacher, leave us kids alone’ ???’
lol that’ll teach them.
Or Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out.”
At least ONE parent complained? The tyranny of the minority.
hell if they really wanted to ban it, a reference to beelzebub would make it a ‘church and state’ no-no...
It’s rare for a student chorus at that level to be good enough to pick up a complex vocal piece by ear. I’m pretty sure the choral department bought sheet music for it.
I attended a graduation, in the last couple of decades, where the valedictorian invoked the name of Jesus. ‘course this was in the backwoods state of K— . Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
LOL! I suppose I was that age when up at the cabin, would walk down to the bar/store and get some penny candy every day and hang out. I don’t recall the music, but I loved hanging out with the old drunk indians!
"Wasilla! No, we will not let you go
(Let him go!) Wasilla! We will not let you go"
“Incidentally the word jazz itself was once a slang term, regarded as naughty, for “having sex.”
Same as Rock and Roll - a euphemism for having sex.
Funk is supposed to be the smell of having sex (Ewww).
Mel
Pssst. I heard that Palin, as mayor of Wasilla, wanted to ban certain books! Those Wasillanianites are all the same.
True enough, though there would need to be a choral version in print on the market for them to do it.
So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye?
So you think you can love me and leave me to die?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ
‘School’s Out’ - Alice Cooper
‘Another Brick in the Wall’ - Pink Floyd
‘Itchycoo Park’ - Small Faces
‘Jeremy’ - Pearl Jam
‘Smoking in the Boy’s Room’ - whoever
etc.
Call me a prude, but I think mixing sex into rock(-and-roll) obscures its most intriguing musical qualities. I guess that’s one virtue of being a life long bachelor, everything isn’t seen through the lens of sex, sex, sex.
Nobody can do it like Freddy could.
So, the story is that they didn’t ban the song.
bing bing bing....what other one horse town, 4,000 miles away from DC will they run local news about next?
This is just Wasilliness.
Yeah, there was a little brouhaha and they did a slightly bowdlerized version. But it’s SARAH PALIN’S TOWN, Y’ALL HEAR?!?!? THAT BACKWARDS HICK HUSSY!!! (/barf)
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