I was not previously familiar with these guys (until friend of PowerPop Phil Cheese sent me the link to "Woman" last week), but apparently they're from the Cincinnati area and they pretty much rule in Ohio. They have scads of songs up on YouTube, and the ones I've heard so far have the same (to me) nifty mix of skewed Americana/folk/country and wiseguy pushing-the-envelope almost bad taste subject matter.
In any event, the above song gets me on a musical level -- I swoon when that 12-string makes an appearance -- and obviously the lyrics are, uh, interesting. Your mileage may vary, to be sure.
But now to business. To wit:
...and your favorite (or least favorite) song whose lyric might strike some philistine folks (or you) as somewhat unsettling or in bad taste or actually offensive is...?
I should add that the topic occured to me when I learned that The Band's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" had recently (2020) caused some intestinal distress in certain Weepy Old Bolshie leftist circles, and fuck those people.
Anyway...discuss.
And have a great weekend, everybody!!!
Here are three that are of marginal quality, two by one of your favorites, Steve:
ReplyDeleteFrank Zappa - Catholic Girls and Jewish Princess
The Mentors - Woman From Sodom
- Paul in DK
Boobs A Lot - The Fugs
ReplyDeleteand the obligatory blues standard for every garage band...
Spoonful - by everybody
Stray Cat Blues hasn't aged too well.
ReplyDeleteGravedigger by New York Rock Ensemble
ReplyDeleteRock'n'Roll Nigger - Patti Smith Group (one of PSG's hardest rocking tunes, but sorry, Patti, you were never going to single-handedly rebrand the word "nigger')
ReplyDeleteBillboard's #1 Song for 1966-- Green Beret by Sgt. Barry Sadler - offended me as a kid, still does!
And in honor of Steve, can we put the Nairobi Trio on this list?
for primal intensity, how about the doors "the end"?
ReplyDeleteand while we're at it, the hard core version they did of "gloria"
Just listened to the song --
ReplyDeleteKind of a shame to waste such a pretty performance on such stupid lyrics.
The Handsome Family's 'Arlene' is a darkly funny update of 'Knoxville Girl.'
ReplyDelete"Oh, Arlene, in the dark your hair's just as red / and this long dark cave will always be our wedding bed."
Don't forget "Timothy" by the Buoys.
ReplyDeleteA top-40 hit from 1971 about men trapped in a coal mine killing one of their own and resorting to cannibalism to survive. Seems like it played on the radio for several weeks!
I don't know if Tonio K.'s H-A-T-R-E-D unsettled a lot of people besides, for instance, Jackson Browne, but I think it could qualify for this list.
ReplyDeleteI definitely enjoyed it! Thanks again Steve for bringing it to my attention.
Rod Stewart's Tonight's the Night (Gonna Be Alright):
ReplyDelete"Spread your wings and let me come inside"
"Don't say a word, my virgin child
Just let your inhibitions run wild
The secret is about to unfold"
Honey - Bobby Goldsboro
ReplyDeleteand all the other similar type songs of the 1970's.
Hey gang your having my baby!
Captain Al
Cattle Prod - Guadalcanal Diary. A lovely power pop tune about a farmer's extra-species bovine shenanigans.
ReplyDeleteThrow Her Away And Get A New One - Sparks, in which women are as disposable as cars, or perhaps Kleenex. Bonus points for being on the same album with the politically-impossible White Women.
Buttf*ck - Human Sexual Response. I slightly edited the title, which is self-explanatory, one would hope. HSR actually performed this live late-night on a Boston TV station. And yes, the edifying performance is on youtube.
I’m sittin’ here, mad for sure – stepped on a roach thinking of her
ReplyDeleteI did it just for fun
I threw a shovel in the back of a Cadillac – drove away from the cul-de-sac
I headed out of town
I drove for miles down a long dark road – looking for a place where nobody goes
So I can take my time
Well I got out dug a hole – six feet deep damp and cold
I did it just for fun
I wiped the sweat off my brow – said to myself I’m ready now
I did it just for fun
Well I drove away I looked in my mirror – now the plan is much more clearer
It’s just a matter of when
I knew I didn’t have to look to far – she dances in an all-night bar – yeah
I waited in the shadows
She got her money came out alone - I put my gun to her head said we’re not going home
I did it just for fun
She realized what I had planned – she said don’t do it but I tied her hands
I did it just for fun
She tried to beg I made her kneel down – beside the grave in the fresh dug ground
I did it just for fun
I pulled the trigger the deed was done – to her surprise it was an empty gun
I did it just for fun yeah I did it just for fun – heheh...
VR
John Phillips' "April Anne" - On the one hand, it's a lovely, cryptic country-rock song with a beautiful backing track by West Coast session stalwarts Hal Blaine, Larry Knechtel and Joe Osborne; I've actually played it several times in one sitting. On the other hand, it does have a derogatory word (the one that starts with "f") about a gay man couched in its lyric, although I don't think Phillips was deliberately trying to be hateful in using the word.
ReplyDelete"Money for Nothing" by Dire Straits was iffy even at the time it was released.
ReplyDeleteAs Sal pointed out, Stray Cat Blues hasn't aged well. Neither has Brown Sugar, which I think the Stones have finally stopped performing. Good Girls Don't by the Knack is, well, let's just say not subtle...
ReplyDeleteMarc
D.O.A. by Bloodrock.
ReplyDeleteI love Stray Cat Blues. I loved it even more in concert. When I saw the Stones at the Forum in 1969 it was one of the highlights of the shows, the second of which finished around 5:30 AM. In performance Jagger lowered the age of the “stray cat” from fifteen down to thirteen. Guess how old I was at the time? Thirteen. And I loved the Stones since I was nine. And I did have impure thoughts. But even at that age I realized that Stray Cat Blues was a sinister character sketch. In concert it became ferociously lecherous with the fiery guitar work of Mick Taylor and Keith. I never have, or will take offense to the tune. Fuck all this PC shit. It’s art. It transcends time and mores. Does it age well? Hell yeah. This is vintage from Beggars Banquet to LIVEr Than You’ll Ever Be to Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.
ReplyDeleteAnd don’t get me started about Brown Sugar. If the Stones quit playing it, which they haven’t, I’d think a lot less of them and what defines their work. Never give in to these precious nitwits constantly looking for something that “offends” them.
VR
P.S. The Stones retired Stray Cat Blues in 1971 and didn’t play it again till 2002 (except at the Nicaraguan Benefit and Knebworth). When they revived it for the Licks Tour the “stray cat” was 16 years old. They haven’t done it since 2003. But it sucks with Ronnie anyway. At some shows Darryl Jones took a jazzy bass solo near the end. Not a good idea. Never made the Live Licks CD for a reason.
P.S.S. The Stones tickets I had for the 1969 shows were ninth row center (late) and 16th row center (early). They cost a whopping $7.50. The most I had ever played for a show up to that point. For the Nicaraguan Benefit I got loge seats at first. But when the industry fucks didn’t buy up the top seats for the ridiculous 100-dollar price, the anxious promoter sold them for 25 bucks apiece to get rid of them. I was 14 rows back and sold my loge seats to cover the cost. More than likely it’s not the case, but I’d like to think I had something to do with them playing “Stray Cat Blues” that night. Between songs I was repeatedly shouting out “It’s no hanging matter. It’s no capital crime.”
Sandy's older brother, the neighborhood pot dealer, drove us to the 1969 shows in his red ’65 GTO. Sandy and a gay dude named Marvin also went. Need I say we nicknamed him Marvin Gaye. We got to the Forum at 6:30 PM. There were a lengthy delays for both shows. As I said before, we didn’t get out of there till 5:30AM. Some people left because the Stones’ speaker system was obstructing their view. Still, those shows with Ike & Tina, B.B. King and Terry Reid, were some of the best I attended in my lifetime. Mick Taylor really helped them with their live sound. I’d seen the Stones four times before and it was an entirely different animal with 30-minute sets. But an animal, nevertheless.
A week after the 1969 gigs, we caught Ike & Tina at a small venue in Long Beach. They were only opening for the Stones in California and New York City. Man were they on fire. But that’s another story.
Piss Up a Rope- Ween
ReplyDeleteBed Jamming- Lee Perry
cringe o rama with a smirk...
rs
Kind of a shame about "Good Girls Don't." It was offensive even then. But for that, however, it was a ripping great record.
ReplyDeleteAny of the Raspberries' greater or lesser hits, while not explicit in terms of language, are pretty creepy if you're not actually thirteen in 1973. Which fortunately I was.
Bamboozled By Love - Frank Zappa
ReplyDeleteShe can scream and she can holler
Bang her head all along the wall
If she don't give me what I want
She ain't gonna have no head at all
Now I am mad and getting meaner
I am here and she is gone
And the reason you have not seen her
She is underneath the lawn
I know she's underneath the lawn, lawn, lawn
The Police's 'Be My Girl/Sally' and Roxy Music's 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' are both odes to pneumatic romance.
ReplyDeleteAlzo-
ReplyDeleteYou forgot "Ms. Pinky" and "Artificial Rhonda," which aren't the least bit subtle.
greetings from Feck and Ellie
"In France" - Frank Zappa, with Johnny "Guitar" Watson on vocals
ReplyDeleteA lot of other Zappas, starting with "Trouble Every Day"
Almost every song on Andre Williams' great "Silky" album, especially "Pussy Stank" (Andre likes it), and "Everybody Knew", wherein Mr. Williams finds his best friend and his wife engaged in coitus, and promptly sets the bed, and them, on fire, then decides that "I'm gonna eat up all the evidence".
"Jailbait" by Ted Nugent, not Andre Williams. Another fine MAGA hero.
"Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" is pretty creepy.
ReplyDeleteI always thought "Whole Lotta Love" was ridiculous, but it rocks like crazy, so I can almost ignore the dumb lyrics. I can't see any woman who isn't roofied not laughing in some guy's face when she hears that, unless the words are coming out of Robert Plant's piehole. No way I'm getting away with that!
"He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)"... WTF??? How did that even get recorded??
As long as we're still plumbing the depths... one of the lowlights of my collection of early Punk 45s is the Pork Dukes' 'Throbbing Gristle.' No, don't look it up- just take my word for it.
ReplyDeleteA world of secret hungers
ReplyDeletePerverting the men who make your laws
Every desire is hidden away
In a drawer in a desk
By a naugahyde chair
On a rug where they walk and drool
Past the girls in the office
We see in the back of the City Hall mind
The dream of a girl about thirteen
Off with her clothes and into a bed
Where she tickles his fancy all night long
His wife's attending an orchid show
She squealed for a week to get him to go
But back in the bed, his teenage queen
Is rocking and rolling and acting obscene
And he loves it, he loves it, it curls up his toes
She bites his fat neck and it lights up his nose
But he cannot be fooled, old City Hall Fred
She's nasty, she's nasty, she digs it in bed
Do it again and do it some more
That does it by golly, it's nasty for sure
Nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty, nasty
Only thirteen and she knows how to nasty
Well, she's a dirty young mind
Corrupted, corroded
Well, she's thirteen today
And I hear she gets loaded
If she were my daughter, I'd... (what would you do, daddy?)
If she were my daughter, I'd... (what would you do, daddy?)
If she were my daughter, I'd... (what would you do, daddy?)
Smother that girl in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again, oh baby
Smother that girl in chocolate syrup
And strap her on again
She's a teenage baby, she turns me on
I'd like to make her do a nasty on the White House lawn
Smother my daughter in chocolate syrup
And boogie 'til the cows come home
Time to go home, Madge is on the phone
Gotta meet the Gurney's and a dozen grey attorneys
TV dinner by the pool
I'm so glad I finished school
Life is such a ball, I run the world from City Hall
VR