21/12/2007

It’s not just the Christmas song, ‘Fairytale of New York’, that has been subjected to recent censorship from the BBC. Scottish band, The Scottish Quest All-Stars, has had its song, ‘Santa’s a Scotsman’, banned by BBC Radio Scotland.

Though it may be just a publicity stunt by BBC Scotland’s head of radio, Jeff Zycinski.

Writing in his blog (here), he wishes he was enjoying the recent publicity being bestowed on radio stations, talk107 - which boasts presenter, Tommy Sheridan, charged the other day with perjury - and Radio 1, which got itself offended by the word, ‘faggot’, in the lyrics of ‘Fairytale’.

Claims Zycinski - perhaps with tongue firmly in cheek - ‘Santa’s a Scotsman’ is apparently guilty of containing “negative stereotypes about Scottish people”.

Like ‘Fairytale’, ‘Santa’s a Scotsman’ has been around for a while. This time last year, it knocked off Leona Lewis from the No. 1 spot in the download charts - albeit for about 25 minutes.

The Scottish Quest All-Stars is also the band behind the hit single, ‘Scotland, Scotland....Jason Scotland’, released during last year’s football World Cup,

Ironically, BBC Radio 2 DJ, Ken Bruce, has been regularly playing the song this week, saying on Monday: "I'll get that song to No. 1 if it kills me.” Indeed, the song even appears on a Radio 2 Christmas trailer.

Says the song's composer, Richard Melvin, perhaps also tongue-in-cheek: "I think it's a real shame, it's clearly just a bit of fun and everyone who has heard the song can see that. I think Jeff Zycinski is cynically trying to get himself publicity off the back of our success."

Melvin is currently penning a song about climate change: Should we care if it’s sunny in Scotland? And working on an album expected to be released at the end of next year.

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