We Get The Best Emails, pt.1

The Sacred and the Profane

Today, we are going to start a series where we openly mock and make fu—ah, I mean, feature a message once sent to us by an someone, an adoring fan or a harsh critic… or both.

Now, you may be thinking: “you’re lucky enough to have fans. And now you’re going to make fun of their messages to you? How arrogant and self-centered can you get? Maybe check your privilege the next time you come up with a stupid and arrogant idea like this.” If you are thinking this, please write your thoughts down and send them to us in an email, and we will include your message in this series.

NO but seriously: when you see the kind of messages we are talking about, you’ll understand.

This week, we feature a message we received a couple of years ago from a woman we will call “Janet”, because that is her name.

Hello The Dreadnoughts,

My name is Janet and I think you're a really unique and a great sounding band. Your combination of instruments, vocal, and punk attitude is such a find! 

Well, Janet is off to a good start! What a nice thing to say to a group. In particular, it’s nice to be recognized for the punk thing! Let’s hope she doesn’t immediately do some kind of bizarre 180 degree turn and say something incomprehensibly silly.

But to get to the point, you do have a lot of swearing in most of your music.

*blink*

… w…. w… what?

More in a sec, but the first thing to say about this is how sudden it is! She really does turn right around, swiveling that entire 180 degrees, and get to the point. And the point is that we swear too much.

I've searched and it seems you do not have anywhere any clean versions of your albums or songs.

That is definitely true. And there are censored versions of songs by lots of artists. For example, Lil’ Jon, whose song “Real _____ Roll Call” contains that unforgettable line:

“Y'all _____ can't ____ wit my _____ ___ (____ ____)
_____ _____ that _____! (___________ that _____!)”

Janet continues:

I know there is probably a reason for this (maybe its just not your style), but I'd like to suggest that you perhaps consider to make clean versions of your songs that have no swearing in them. I would love it if you did! Particularly with your one album, "Legends Never Die".

I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up. In 2020, a person, an adult person in the world we live in, in 2020, when characters on the world’s biggest TV show (GOT) are loudly cursing about who gets to finger whose arsehole that day, went out of their way to message a punk band about their swearing. And then they reference an album which has, to my count, three swear words total on 11 songs, and not even any of the really bad ones.

“Antarctica”:

She’s shite from back to the front
But she’ll bear us to hunt the grey and the blue

“Mary, The One-Eyed Prostitute Who Fought The Colossal Squid And Saved Us From Certain Death on the high Seas”:

And the last thing that I saw before
I screamed our last good-bye
Was the redhead whore
That we adored

“A Rambler’s Life”

Says I, to fuck with this.

Thaaaat’s it. I don’t really like the use of “whore” now and wouldn’t really do that again, but it was a long time ago and there it is. Three words that are only moderately sweary. Total. On a punk album.

If this is not something you're ever going to do yourselves, then I'd like permission to edit the swearing out myself, solely for my own personal copy of the music. The edited versions would be only for me to use and they would be made from a purchased copy of the album, which I already have. Also, I would not make any additional copies to be sold or given away to anyone else. They would just be for me. I ask this in particular for the album, "Legends Never Die".

And now, in order to get rid of these two, maybe three words, Janet is going to sit down with some editing software and (somehow) bleep those three words out. I will say that it was nice (I guess?) of her to ask permission?

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this email. Good luck with all of your travels, 

- Janet

Awww.

In all seriousness, though, no mockery intended, she is probably very sweet, very nice, very well-intentioned, very sad or upset about the state of the world, and she probably thinks most of us are going to burn in hell for saying “shite”. In a better world, we’d meet up, hash all of this out, and come to respect one another. I’d love to sit down with her, try some of her blueberry muffins, and watch the music video for “W.A.P.”