Even after most US broadcasters emerged from their around-the-clock news service mode, the mood remained sombre: events were cancelled, movies were pulled from cinemas, video games from shelves.

Comedians were not joking, musicians were talking rather than singing. No one was much in the mood for anything.

Reflecting this state of emotional inertia, the management at Clear Channel, America's largest radio network, sent a note to its 1200 stations across the country listing 150 songs it had decreed inappropriate for these new troubled times.

The titles were predictable, and covered the musical spectrum. High up were songs such as Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Frank Sinatra's New York, New York, REM's It's the End of the World as We Know It, The Beastie Boys' Sabotage, Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire, Buddy Holly's That'll Be the Day, Savage Garden's Crash and Burn, Billy Joel's Only the Good Die Young and, ironically enough, Don McLean's American Pie.

Some artists had whole chunks of their repertoire deemed bad. AC/DC had seven songs scratched (including Highway To Hell and Safe In New York City) while neo-musical revolutionaries Rage Against The Machine were simply banned outright.

Further into the list, the songs earmarked for blacklisting were a bit more curious in nature. Tracks such as The Bangles' Walk Like an Egyptian, The Clash's Rock the Casbah, and The Animals' We Gotta Get Out of This Place.

Anything to do with the sky or flying was suddenly out too (Foo Fighters' Learning To Fly, Elton John's Rocketman and Benny and the Jets, Lenny Kravitz's Fly Away and Peter, Paul and Mary's Leavin' on a Jet Plane).

Finally, there were some downright stupid exclusions. Namely John Lennon's Imagine – surely considered by everyone an anthem of peace for the past three decades – and Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World.

It is one thing not wanting to bring anyone down – but it is another deciding there is no need to give people a sense of hope through song.

The Clear Channel's list has already drawn some criticism back at home, with the editor of Rolling Stone declaring that the list borders on censorship.

Obviously here in Australia, no one in the media has felt the need to go to such extremes.

Most outlets resumed normal broadcasting earlier this week with few, if any, limitations.

In fact, 2Day FM returned to its normal playlist the day after the news broke.

"On the day, we changed our music completely," said Rob Logan, 2Day FM's music programmer. "Because a lot of the music we play has got energy and is pretty up.

"And we didn't want to be coming out of the phone calls and conversations we were having and go into something like the Moulin Rouge song [Lady Marmalade] or a full-on rock track. We pulled right back and brought the energy down completely."

The only song that has not returned to 2Day's regular list is Geri Halliwell's It's Raining Men.

Similarly over at Triple M, things are pretty much back to normal. Even Midnight Oil's US Forces and REM's End of the World are back on the list.

"You've got to get back to business as usual," said Simon Mumford, Triple M's programmer.

"Music is music and the songs are there because they're people's favourites."