You might have heard, or heard about, Ravens QB Joe Flacco’s post Super Bowl f-bomb. That got me to thinking about the things you’re just not supposed to say, or to sing, on the radio. Here are ten songs on the aubject.
1. Who Are You? – The Who
2. Money – Pink Floyd
3. Bloody Mother Fscking Asshole – Martha Wainwright
4. Cotton Eyed Joe – The MOB
5. Laura – Billy Joel
6. Darling Nikki – Christina Marrs
7. Controversy – Fuckemos
8. Shave ’em Dry – Asylum Street Spankers
9. Add It Up – Violent Femmes
10. Sh*t Got Crazy – A.Dd+
I trust you’re familiar with most of the profanities contained within these songs. “Laura”, from The Nylon Curtain, has an f-bomb in it. Having cuss words in them didn’t prevent songs like “Who Are You” or “Money” from becoming radio favorites, in their original form. That doesn’t seem to be the case with more recent music – I’m thinking of songs like “Longview” by Green Day and “You Oughta Know” by Alannis Morrisette – but that may be because the naughty words in question are more obvious. “Darling Nikki” didn’t have any cuss words in it, but the line about Nikki “masturbating in a magazine” certainly caused controversy. Speaking of which, as far as I know the song “Controversy” has no bad words in it, but I figure if you name your band The Fuckemos, you’re pretty much conceding that you will not get any airplay. Finally, if you’ve never heard of “Shave ’em Dry”, it’s easily one of the filthiest songs ever written. (Interestingly, the Spankers recorded a clean version of that song for their first CD, which as far as I know they never performed live.) I’d say its main competition for that is ZZ Top’s “Pearl Necklace”, which to this day I can’t believe has ever been on a radio station’s playlist. Must be a lot of people out there who don’t know what that means. What’s your favorite example of musical foul language?
“I Bet You They Won’t Play This Song on the Radio” – Monty Python
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