Check out this article in Slate about the various weird reactions businesses are having to last week's disaster: The MixTape of the Apocalypse (my title, not theirs). Clear Channel Communications, which owns several radio stations, came up with a list of songs it recommends not be played. Some of them make a sort of sense (Rock the Casbah, It's the End of the World As We Know It, Blow Up the Outside World, Crash and Burn, etc.) Others are suspect (all rage Against the Machine songs? Hmmm....), and still others make no sense whatsoever. Examples:

What the....

• The Bangles -- Walk Like An Egyptian Shall we assume it's in bad taste to mention that people from Egypt? Or is it the walking part?


• Bobby Darin-- Mack The Knife The mind reels


• Elton John --Bennie & The Jets I'm guessing that any mention of anything that may be construed as an airplane is deemed too touchy.


• Red Hot Chili Peppers -- Under the Bridge It talks about a city.....


• Alien Ant Farm -- Smooth Criminal Why not the Michael Jackson version?

Reading a little too much into it...

• Queen -- Killer Queen The LaRouchies have struck!


• Pat Benetar -- Love is a Battlefield Wayyyyyy too sensitive with this one.


• Steam -- Na NA NA NA Hey Hey Goodbye?


• Mitch Ryder and Detroit Wheels -- Devil with the Blue Dress Because of the face in the cloud?


• The Beatles -- Obla Di, Obla Da Is the problem that the chorus says "Life goes on"?


• Paper Lace -- The Night Chicago Died I was here. Chicago was fine.

These piss me off

• Edwin Starr/Bruce Springsteen -- War "Good God, y'all, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing" Are we trying to be "patriotic? Not second-guess foreign policy? Let's face it, that's a message we need to hear.


• John Lennon -- Imagine "Imagine there's no countries, It isn't hard to do, Nothing to kill or die for, No religion too, Imagine all the people living life in peace..." Again, maybe this is something we need to hear now.


• Cat Stevens -- Peace Train, Morning Has Broken OK, so he's a Muslim now. That doesn't mean that the songs -- and the message behind them -- should be swept under the carpet.


• Neil Diamond-- America They play this song every year at the finale of the fireworks in Rocked Park in Wilmington, DE. "They're coming to America -- Today!" is about immigrants, and let's face it, it's a great, if cheesy, song.


• Simon And Garfunkel -- Bridge Over Troubled Waters
  Maybe I'm missing something. It's a moving song, it may make you cry, but who's to say we don't need that right now?