The Pretty Reckless reached number one on rock radio for the seventh time in their career this week with "Only Love Can Save Me Now." But the band regrets having changed a lyric for radio play in the past.
The group's radio success only began with their second studio album. Going To Hell (2014) yielded three number one hits: “Heaven Knows”, “Follow Ne Down” and “Messed Up World”. The latter required modifications to its title and lyrics to be accepted by radio stations, removing the profanity.
Thus, "Fucked Up World," or "mundo f*dido" in Portuguese, became "Messed Up World" in the commercial version, which translates to something like "mundo ferrado," with less intensity. In an interview with the BMI , Taylor Momsen and Ben Phillips explained their regret.
“Of all the things in our career, Taylor has said this many times, this is one of the few things we did that we probably shouldn’t have done,” the guitarist commented. “We were on tour and needed to deliver a radio edit. We tried just muting [the swear word] and it sounded weird, so she sang ‘messed up’”.
“I don’t look at my life and think, ‘Oh, I wish I could change this,’ I don’t think any of us think like that, but if I could, I would go back and not make that change,” the singer commented. “Apparently it worked, it went to number one and that’s really cool.”
