Said I'd plonk this up, so I am. I've found that I have virtually no problem with other people swearing. You could swear at me using the dirtiest and foulest language you've got until you're blue in the face, and I wouldn't really care that much. I'm not going to restrict your "freedom of speech" that is so valued by people.
But I tend to regulate my own speech a fair bit. Generally, I've found, according to the expectations of the people around me. Meaning that most of the time, I won't swear very much at all. But when I'm with someone who swears a lot, I'll do so a bit more. When I'm by myself, I'll swear actually fairly frequently. There's some words that I just don't use, but I've surprised myself at how frequently I'll swear when I'm alone at home.
When I'm singing, I'll very much pay attention to what I'm saying/singing. I don't write swear words or sexual references into any of my songs - to the degree, in fact, that I recently wrote out the worst word I have used (groin) in one of mine. And if I play a cover (which I've only done twice; but take it as a hypothetical), I either wouldn't use a song if it had swear words, or would change it. I know, that sounds bad, changing a song that's not yours - but I think that the impression you present is very important, and I don't want people after my gig thinking that I swear a bit, whether they think it's good or bad. I don't want people getting a wrong impression of me, basically. Plus, there's often kids at the gigs I've played at. :P
Oh, I agree. I used to swear a lot more than I do currently. But I became conscious and changed it. If I swear it's usually just to emphasis the point, or in humor, or regulated according to who I'm with. I also don't like swearing in songs–none of the songs I've written have swear words (from memory), or if they did have been written out because I just didn't feel comfortable with presenting that kind of thing. And yeah, when you're wanting to or expected to present your music to a wide audience, making it as language-friendly as possible is good. :-)
ReplyDeleteI'd tend not to do it even in humour, because I think it's good to be able to make people laugh without it, similarly to use of sex jokes. Look up "brad stine christians don't have curse words" on YouTube, classic guy who I mainly get this point from.
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