By Paul Iorio
It's official: my music videos have been formally banned by the government of Pakistan!
To be more specific, videos for two of my original songs -- "Fanatics" and "Draw Me a Picture" -- have been blocked in Pakistan on YouTube at the request of the Pakistani government.
Admittedly, it was a bit unsettling to wake up the other morning to an email titled "YouTube Video Blocked: Government Request," noting that "we have received a legal complaint from a government entity regarding your content."
The email went on to say the Pakistani government made the request to remove my videos. And then came another email with the same headline about another one of my songs.
(For the record, Google/YouTube's official website states that its compliance with a government's request often involves a court order, which implies the ban of my work comes with a court order from Islamabad.)
Should I be sort of flattered that the top brass in a nation of 220 million people watches my videos? I mean, as any musician would tell you, there is so much stuff out there, a streaming overload, that to break out of the pack in such a fashion is a bit of an boost. To think that some mullah in the high echelons of power in Islamabad was possibly groovin', maybe even chooglin', if that's allowed in Pakistan, to my modest tunes!
I mean, some legal big shot in the government of Pakistan took time out of his or her busy schedule to listen to me, an obscure singer-songwriter from Berkeley, California, and had such a passionate response to my crooning (or my visuals) that he (or she) took even more time out of a busy schedule to lodge a formal complaint with YouTube.
Evidently, the comments section would not suffice. Pressing the "unlike" tab was insufficient. A full-on legal ban of those two songs in Pakistan had to be put in place immediately, lest millions of the devout in Karachi start rockin' to my tunes.
After all, this isn't some vlogger in Lahore weighing in on my music. It's the government, which has a lot more power than I do.
Let's put it on the table: I'm not exactly Neil Young. I'm not even Buzzy Linhart or Delbert McClinton. My main claim to fame (in terms of music) is that at least one hundred of my original songs have had radio airplay in the U.S. and in Europe over the past fifteen years. And several leading alternative stations, including WFMU, KCRW and KALX, have played my songs over the years, for which I'm very grateful. But I've never had a hit record, or a single that's landed on any Billboard chart.
And the closest I've been to Pakistan is Turkey and I know no one there. True, I have reported on religious terrorism for HuffPost and the Daily Mail, but that was years ago. And I'm not related to anyone famous.
Hence, it's hard to imagine how anyone in Pakistan would even be aware of my stuff. To be sure, one of the songs in question, "Fanatics," was aired on March 13, 2013, on KALX radio -- thanks, Marshall! -- which streams live worldwide, but I've not promoted the track since then. I've posted it on several sites -- it peaked at #153 on one of Soundclick's alternative charts, where I've had #1 songs -- and has had only dozens of views on YouTube.
And it's hard to imagine how the lyrics of "Fanatics," which criticizes religious absolutists of all kinds who want to impose their beliefs on others, could be objectionable to a reasonable person. The chorus goes: "Well, I don’t like fanatics/Telling me what to do/Well, I don’t like fanatics/Setting down the rules" -- and it doesn't get too much more controversial than that. Perhaps their objection is to the visual that goes with the song: an original photo of the holy books of all the major religions placed neatly inside a toilet.
The other song at issue is "Draw Me a Picture," which I wrote in 2010 -- and it's easier to see their objection, given the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.
The song condemns those who want to restrict the freedom of people to draw pictures of historical figures, secular or religious, and includes a drawing of the "prophet" himself. From my point of view, I see people such as Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad as historical or mythical figures, though the devout see them as sacred. I tolerate the fact that they do not want to draw pictures of "deities"; they should tolerate my right to draw a picture of anyone I want. That is the gist of the song.
When I wrote "Draw Me a Picture," I was thinking along the lines of Tom Lehrer's classic "The Vatican Rag," which poked fun at Catholicism in a way that has been considered blasphemous by some Catholics. But almost everyone else has gotten a major kick out of that song for decades. I was trying for a sort of "Vatican Rag" for the ummah, as it were (though it's clearly not anywhere near as great or funny as Lehrer's track).
In any event, I immediately wrote to YouTube asking that they restore my videos in Pakistan, but I don't think they will. After all, people and companies do have to obey the rules of the nation in which they're living or operating -- and blasphemy laws, as backward and irrational as they are to me, are strictly enforced in Pakistan.
In the end, whatever happens, their government has given me yet another credential and bragging right: my music videos have been banned in Pakistan. Wow! A badge of honor, given how reactionary some of their laws are.
