FOUR decades after being censored by The Ed Sullivan Show, the Rolling Stones — average age 62 — once again were told that their lyrics were too sexually explicit, when they performed three songs at the Super Bowl in Detroit.

During a 12-minute set in front of 72,000 football fans and about 1 billion television viewers on Sunday, editors at the National Football League turned down Mick Jagger’s microphone as he sang a sexually explicit line during Start Me Up (“You make a dead man come”). The frontman also went mute during a farmyard reference to “cocks”, which was sung with an obvious double meaning.

Reports initially suggested that ABC Television had used a five-second delay to edit out the offending lines. But it later emerged that the NFL’s production company had been responsible for turning down the microphone, a move that had been agreed with the Stones. “We agreed upon it earlier this week. They were fine with it,” an NFL spokesman said. “If we had missed it, then ABC had five seconds to hit the button.”

Before the show, Jagger said: “I think the Stones have moved closer to American mainstream culture and I think America has changed since we first came here. Hopefully, both of us still have our core values intact.”

The five-second delay was introduced after ABC found itself at the centre of a national controversy over Janet Jackson’s infamous 2004 “wardrobe malfunction”, which left one of her breasts bare during a duet with the singer Justin Timberlake.

“At least the Stones are consistent,” wrote Jim Derogatis, the pop music critic of the Chicago Sun-Times. “They were willing to bend for Sullivan in ’67, and they happily censored themselves in 2006, lest they offend anyone watching Super Bowl XL — several hours of men violently hurling themselves at each other in the name of good, wholesome family entertainment.”

The only Stones song to escape the censors was Satisfaction, which is as old as the sporting event itself. “Here’s one we could have done at Super Bowl I,” quipped Jagger from his 540sq m (5,800 square foot), tongue-shaped stage.

Ironically, the song was perhaps the most subversive of all for the Super Bowl, which is the subject of the largest advertising frenzy in the media year.

“When I’m watchin’ my TV,” sneered Jagger, “And that man comes on to tell/How white my shirts can be . . . I can’t get no satisfaction.”

About 2,000 volunteers surrounded the stage to give the performance the feel of a “real” concert, even thought it was largely designed for television viewers.

The NFL had originally tried to ban anyone over the age of 45 from dancing near or on the stage, but it backed off after it was pointed out that the average age of the Stones was 62.

The band is used to censorship. On The Ed Sullivan Show, which introduced Elvis Presley and The Beatles to mainstream America, Jagger changed the chorus of Let’s Spend the Night Together to a mumble that sounded more like “let’s spend some time together”.

Their appearance at the Super Bowl was controversial from the beginning. Critics asked why a British rock group had been chosen to perform at the Ford Field stadium rather than a local band from Detroit, the home of Motown. In response, Aretha Franklin was quickly drafted in to sing the national anthem with Aaron Neville and Dr John, who gave a tribute to New Orleans.

TOO HOT

• In 2003 China banned the band from playing Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Women, Beast of Burden and Let’s Spend the Night Together in their first concert in the country. The Culture Minister had already cut these songs from the album 40 Licks
  
  
• In 1968 Chicago radio stations refused to play Street Fightin’ Man, fearing violence at the Democratic Convention
  
  
• In 1965 US radio stations ban (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction for being sexually suggestive in its lyrics

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