Censorship and mass market video games

It's payday, so at lunch today I bought Rock Band 2 because it came out yesterday and I wanted it (see previous post about delayed-gratification Zac being dead).

I've obviously yet to play it at all, as I am sitting at my desk in my office, but aside from "Livin on a Prayer," "Go Your Own Way," songs by Dylan and Pearl Jam, I'm most looking forward to "You Oughta Know" by the young angry Canadian Alanis Morissette.

At one point, as you most likely know, Alanis asks in the song if her former lover is thinking of her during a specific activity he does with his new girlfriend. One thing I have to wonder is, what will Alanis, and those who are singing along with her in the game, wonder about her former lover in the video game that censors song lyrics? When will we, the singers, wonder if he thinks about her?

It's one of the absolute best lines in the song and really nails (heh) the source of the anger and hurt. In the digital, XBOX 360-version of Alanis, does she wonder if he's thinking of her while he "loves" his new girl? "Kiss her"?

"Hug" actually fits pretty well, but only in meter and rhyme and not so much in tone, meaning or fury. Cause really, would she care if Joey from "Full House" is hugging some chick and wonder if he's thinking of his little under-aged bitter songwriter ex-girlfriend?

For that matter, when the Chili Peppers release the entire "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" album next month, most "whats" will not give a damn? And most "whats" have a cold-what stare? I don't even want to think what happened to Kedis after his eyes popped out and before he dropped his jaw in "Apache Rose Peacock."

Like "Creep," these songs are "so very special" if you know the actual words that the artists used while crafting their, you know... art; and not the words that soccer moms are ok with their children singing along to.