Well, first of all let me introduce myself. I'm an ex JW from Mexico, and I've read your posts for some time now, but this "music" topic really caught my attention, and I couldn't help but add a comment to it. I hope you have as much fun as I have for years already.
In Mexico in the mid 80's all English spoken music was frowned upon because there was no way to be certain of the meaning of the lyrics. In that time not many people spoke English, and the ones that spoke it, weren't much into the slang or United States culture. My sister and I used to listen to a couple of AM radio stations in Mexico City: "Radio Capital" and "La Pantera", which played pop and soft rock music. I remember my mother freacking out when she listened to songs like "Come on feel the noise" from Quiet Riot because of the high pitched voice. Anything that had any screech or squeak from an electric guitar was yelled at and call "satanic". I couldn't really blame them about that. My father used to listen to Chuck Mangione and my mother to Camilo Sesto. My father was a manager for Polygram records in Mexico (learnt the "truth" after getting his degree, lucky him) and he usually got all the new releases from the brand. If you know something about that European brand (Polygram, Deusche Grammophon, Phillips, Mercury, etc), you might remember it featured many European and United States' hard rock bands. All of it usually went to the garbage without a glimpse. But specifically in the congregation it was well known about Michael Jackson being an ex JW, Abracadabra (the title means exactly the same in Spanish), the Ghostbusters, including the movie of course, but noone fuzzed about the Beatles, though...
I almost never had problems related to the music I hear. My sister did, but for other reasons. In Spanish there were a lot of duos about that time, couples singing "immoral" songs (sometimes they were indeed immoral), and my father was always judging (an elder after all) and hunting our music. It was amusing how a phrase in a song stood in his mind for literally decades! The song went "que me perdone tu señora" (may your wife forgive me), and whenever he wanted to point at how the music was immoral in this time, always quoted this phrase (he even used the phrase in some of his speeches!) My grandma always said that KISS meant "Caballeros al Servicio de Satanas" "Knights in Satan's Service".
I apologize for my bad English, I hope you understand my post. Ah, and by the way, I'd love to find some ex JW in Montreal area since I'm living here, either in spanish, English or French.
Greetings!
