RadioActive wrote:

I recently came across a tune I hadn’t heard since 1966 and it frankly surprised me. This thing made it all the way to #2 on the CHUM Chart way back then, by two separate artists, no less. I remember liking the song as a kid, but it’s only when I reheard it for the first time in decades that I realized what it was really about.
 
The recording in question was called “Off To Dublin In The Green,” and it was credited to the Abbey Tavern Singers, with another version by the Carlton Show Band. Both are very traditional Irish concoctions, something you’d expect to hear on a Pig & Whistle-type show that used to run on CTV, not on a rock station.
 
But it’s the lyrics that I missed as a boy. The song is unabashedly pro-IRA, openly backing the Irish Republican Army. Back then, they were considered terrorists by many as they fought the British in Northern Ireland, using violence, assassinations and bombs in many cases.
 
I’m not taking sides here, but in the 60s, Toronto had a population base that had a decidedly British-heritage and I can only wonder what they must have thought of that tune running on CHUM – and reaching #2 no less.
 
“The Troubles,” have fortunately have long since died down, but can you imagine the fuss that would be made if a station here played, say, a pro-Hamas tune, a group that Canada officially recognizes as a terrorist organization?
 
How this ever got onto the chart in the first place or was deemed OK for airplay given its extreme controversial nature is stunning to me. And I doubt it would happen today.
 
It was never banned, but if memory serves, there were a number of songs that caused trouble for CHUM or other rock stations.

“Eve of Destruction” by Barry McGuire was controversial to some.
 
Janis Ian’s “Society’s Child," about a white girl dating a black teen, was another.
 
Even the Beatles weren’t immune. Some stations refused to play “The Ballad of John & Yoko” because Lennon repeatedly used the word “Christ” in the lyrics. 
 
And of course the classic novelty tune, “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha Ha!” by Napoleon XIV (aka Jerry Samuels) was pulled off the air everywhere despite being a huge hit, because someone finally realized it made fun of the mentally ill. I can’t even imagine that song (although it wasn’t really a song) getting played anyplace if it were to be released today.
 
But my personal favourite has to be “Timothy” by the Buoys, a song about cannibalism that’s as bouncy and upbeat a ditty as you’ll ever find. It was deliberately written by Rupert Holmes to be controversial, but adults never bothered listening to the lyrics, so it got by everyone. The kids, though, knew exactly what it was about – three men trapped in a collapsed mine for days. When they finally broke through to pull them free, only two remained. But where was Timothy? Turns out, he was done - like dinner. 
 
Ah, they don’t write ’em like that, anymore.

I saw Jerry Samuels at a pub in Simcoe, Ontario. He sang - or spoke - "They're Coming To Take Me Away." Couldn't believe what I was seeing.
 

Ms. C. wrote:

1050 CHUM was soon abandoned in favor of 104.5 CHUM FM.    Coincidence?

The migration to FM began in the late '60s, slowly at first, picking up steam in the '70s, then roaring past AM in the '80s.

In 1968, CHUM-FM was 10th in the ratings with 75,000 listeners. By 1985 it was #1 with over a million listeners as long-time champ CFRB fell to second spot.

http://billdulmage.com/misc/bbm%20toronto1.html">http://web.archive.org/web/20040623092609/http://billdulmage.com/misc/bbm%20toronto1.html
 

How about the CHUM chart of today?  

Dale Patterson wrote:

To be sure, that rule carried AM for a long time. I think it disappeared about 10 years ago.

The 49% non hit rule was eliminated around the time 92.5 CISS FM first switched from Country music to all hit music.