Band Protests Anti-Bush Lyric Omission

Pearl Jam protested to AT&T the omission of lyrics critical of U.S. President Bush on the company’s Blue Room webcast, an omission AT&T says was in error.

AT&T offered a webcast of Pearl Jam’s performance at Chicago’s Lollapalooza music festival. However, lyrics critical of Bush in a version of Daughter were omitted, prompting fans and the band to complain about censorship, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.

When asked about the missing performance, AT&T informed Lollapalooza that portions of the show were, in fact, missing from the webcast and that their content monitor had made a mistake in cutting them, the Pearl Jam Web site said.

An AT&T spokeswoman said the lyrics were mistakenly cut by someone working for the agency AT&T hired to handle Blue Room content.

There was no censorship intended, said AT&T’s Tiffany Nels.

Pearl Jam said the incident was beyond censorship of a rock band.

If a company that is controlling a webcast is cutting out bits of our performance — not based on laws, but on their own preferences and interpretations — fans have little choice but to watch the censored version, the band said.