I am not a fan of country music.

For all intents and purposes, anyway. As a genre, I dislike it. I break out in hives if I am forced to listen to twanging steel guitars and nasal lyrics about tears in beer, sleeping single in double beds and achy-breaky hearts.

I avoid clubs where dancers wearing big stupid hats line up and gyrate in unison while shuffling their boots along the floor. Garth Brooks and his various personifications make my ears bleed.

There are exceptions. I've seen the movie "Coal Miner's Daughter" about a dozen times. I love Lyle Lovett, Mary Chapin Carpenter and the Dixie Chicks. I completely understand what Julia Roberts saw in Lyle, whom I've seen in concert, and I've been known to sing along -- loudly, and not particularly well -- to the songs on the Chicks' two albums, "Wide Open Spaces" and "Fly."

Which is why I am annoyed, though not particularly surprised, with the news this week that a clutch of cowardly radio stations around the country has banned the Chicks' new single, "Goodbye Earl."

In the song, a clever satire about domestic abuse, two childhood friends, Mary Anne and Wanda, conspire to murder Wanda's abusive husband Earl after he "walked right through that restraining order and put her in intensive care." Their weapon of choice: poisoned black-eyed peas. They dispose of Earl's body in a nearby lake and go on to prosper (with a roadside stand, no less), sans abusive husband.

The Chicks performed the song at the recent Grammy Awards, accompanied by the video, which stars Jane Krakowski and Lauren Holly as the scheming women and Dennis Franz as the ill-fated Earl. It's since become the most requested video on various country-music TV channels, and is most recent ranking on Billboard's charts is No. 8.

"It's one of the things where some of the gatekeepers take it more seriously than the audience does," Lon Helton of Radio & Records, a radio trade publication, told the Los Angeles Times.

Indeed. Check out this so-called reasoning from John Pellegrini, a radio station program director in York, Pa.: "My question is, what do we do a song about next: school shootings? Just a fun one, one that might raise awareness?"

Words fail me. Suffice it to say that I doubt that John's concern extends to country songs about fightin', drinkin', pickup-drivin' cowboys who treat women like dirt.

Helton says about 20 of 149 country stations tracked by his magazine are ignoring "Earl" altogether; some of the stations that are playing the heavily requested song are also providing a domestic violence hotline number to listeners -- a move that's applauded by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which supports the song.

"Many battered women feel trapped and feel that violence is their only option to get away from the abuser," coalition executive director Rita Smith said this week. "We don't want them feeling that way. We want stations who play the record to tell their listeners that there is a hotline number they can call if they've been a victim of violence."

The bottom line: It's an enormously empowering song that, if nothing else, focuses the spotlight on a serious issue. And that's good. Period.

But certainly, this is not the first instance in which radio stations and others have become self-appointed music censors.

Eric Nuzum, a writer and producer for the National Public Radio affiliate at Kent State University, has exhaustively researched the topic of banned music in the United States. His book, "Bound and Gagged: The History of Music Censorship in the United States," will be published early next year.

Here are some of the tidbits that Nuzum has unearthed:

• In 1954, the Boston Catholic Youth Organization begins a campaign of policing dances and lobbying disc jockeys to stop playing "obscene" songs at record hops and on the radio. Also: The ABC network bans the Rosemary Clooney hit "Mambo Italiano," saying it did not meet the network's "standards for good taste." (That last one truly baffles me.)

• In 1955, former radio disc jockey Pat Boone begins a career by releasing "sanitized" versions of black R&B hits. Boone's versions of these songs often contain "toned-down" lyrics, such as substituting "drinkin' Coca Cola" for "drinkin' wine" in T-Bone Walker's "Stormy Monday" and "Pretty little Susie is the girl for me" instead of "Boys, don't you know what she do to me" in Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti."

  That same year, officials in San Diego and Florida police warn Elvis Presley that if he moves at all during his local performances, he will be arrested on obscenity charges. (Can you imagine what would have happened if those same officials had glimpsed Madonna in action? Instant cardiac arrest.)

• In 1956, the Parks Department in San Antonio, Texas, removes all rock 'n' roll records from jukeboxes located at city swimming pools, calling it "jumpy, hot stuff" that is unsuitable for teens. Also: Network officials ban the novelty hit "Transfusion" by Dot and Diamond (later remade by Nervous Norvus) from ABC, CBS, and NBC radios in June. According to one NBC executive, "There is nothing funny about a blood transfusion."

• In October 1960, several radio stations refuse to play Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her," calling it the "Death Disk." (Well, you at least have to give them credit for good musical taste, no matter their reasons for banning the song.)

• In 1965, the Barry McGuire song "Eve of Destruction" is pulled from retail stores and radio stations across the country after some groups complain that it is nihilistic and could promote suicidal feelings among teens. In June of that year, radio stations across the country ban the Rolling Stones hit "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" because they believe that the lyrics are too sexually suggestive.

  And, the same year, many radio stations ban the Who's single "Pictures of Lily" because the song contains a reference to masturbation. (Hey, Prince, too bad they weren't around to hear "Darling Nikki.")

• In 1967, against his wishes, Frank Zappa's record company removes eight bars of his song "Let's Make the Water Turn Black" after a (presumably) well-intentioned executive from Verve Records hears the lyric, "And I still remember Mama with her apron and her pad, feeding all the boys at Ed's café." The executive thinks the referred-to "pad" is a sanitary napkin. (This guy's got my vote for the most clueless music executive in history.)

• In 1968, an El Paso, Texas, radio station bans all songs performed by Bob Dylan because they cannot understand the folk singer's lyrics. The station continues to play recordings of Dylan songs performed by other artists with clearer diction.

• In 1970, MCA Records drops 18 acts from their record label because they believe that the performers promote hard drugs in their songs. Also: Claiming that he fears that the song "Ohio" will incite further violence on college campuses following the killing of four students at Kent State University, Gov. James Rhodes attempts to order Ohio radio stations to ban the song. (Perhaps the gov should have thought of the repercussions before he dispatched his thugs to the campus.)

• In 1971, several radio stations alter the John Lennon song "Working Class Hero" without the consent of Lennon or his record label. Also: In April, the Illinois Crime Commission publishes a list of popular rock songs that contain "drug references," including Peter, Paul and Mary's "Puff the Magic Dragon" and the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine."

  That same year, Chrysalis Records changes the lyrics to Jethro Tull's "Locomotive Breath" without the band's knowledge or consent. Label executives fear that radio stations will not play the original, which contains the lyric "got him by the balls."

• In 1972, radio stations across the country ban John Denver's hit song "Rocky Mountain High," fearing that the song's "high" refers to drugs.

• In 1975, radio stations across the country refuse to play Loretta Lynn's "The Pill" because of its references to birth control. And in November, the Rev. Charles Boykin of Tallahassee, Fla., blames popular music for teenage pregnancy. Boykin conducts his own survey of 1,000 unwed mothers and determines that 984 became pregnant while listening to rock music.

• In 1977, the Rev. Jesse Jackson calls for bans against disco music, insisting that the music promotes promiscuity and drug use.

• In October 1980, youth minister Art Diaz organizes a group of local teenagers and conducts a record burning at the First Assembly Church of God in Des Moines, Iowa, including albums by the Beatles, Ravi Shankar and Peter Frampton and the soundtrack to the movie "Grease." A similar burning takes place a few months later in Keokuk, Iowa, where a church group burns the work of the Carpenters, John Denver, and Perry Como. (Those Iowans must have gotten hold of some bad corn or something. Made 'em cranky.)

• In 1985, Provo, Utah, apartment complex owner and Mormon bishop Leo Weidner bans MTV from his tenant's apartments. Weidner says music videos are "pornographic" and feels that they are harmful to his tenants -- though he later admits that he has never seen a music video. That same year, during an address at the New York Television Academy, televangelist and presidential candidate Pat Robertson calls for content regulation of rock music on radio and television, and "American Bandstand" producers refuse to let Sheena Easton perform her hit song "Sugar Walls" because it has been targeted by the Parents' Music Resource Center.

• In 1986, poor old Frank Zappa takes another hit: Meyer Music Markets places an "explicit lyrics" warning sticker his album "Jazz from Hell" -- even though the album is entirely instrumental.

• In 1996, Wal-Mart refuses to carry Sheryl Crow's self-titled second album because one of the songs contains an unflattering comment about the discount retailer's gun sales policy.

• And in 1998, apparently a banner year for moronic music censorship, 18-year-old Eric Van Hoven is suspended from Zeeland High School in Holland, Mich., for wearing a T-shirt promoting the band Korn, even though the shirt contains no images or words except the band's name. At a Fort Worth, Texas, conference sponsored by the Crime Prevention Resource Center, representatives of several local police departments advocate the forced hospitalization of Marilyn Manson fans and also advocate the classification of "goth rock" fans as street gangs.

  Also, an April Indigo Girls concert scheduled for a South Carolina high school is canceled when the school's principal learns that the performers are gay. And the high school band at Fort Zumbald North High School in St. Louis is forbidden to play the Jefferson Airplane hit "White Rabbit" because of drug references in the song's lyrics, even though the band's version of the song is entirely instrumental.

I'm sure you realize that all of these situations could have been avoided if everyone had just not attempted to inflict their views and preferences on everyone else.

Problem solved. Goodbye, Earl.

• Past Culture Shocked columns

Note: Betsy's pop culture column, Culture Shocked, appears every Wednesday in our Entertainment section. She welcomes your questions and comments.

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