Feb 122007
Who’s your favorite “underdog” artist in rock?
Along the same line of thought, has there ever been a better “ugly duckling” moment before a national audience than Elliott Smith performing in that ill-fitting white suit at the Oscars?
I’ve been hearing a lot of Elton John’s “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” on oldies radio. This has always been my second-favorite Elton John song. To this day I greatly anticipate the moment when he sings “dammit” as well as the moment when he launches into that falsetto coda. Two questions emerge:
- Is there a song with a naughty word you highly anticipate hearing, no matter how many times you hear the song?
- Excluding Billy Joel’s fine homages to the particular singing style of Frankie Valli and Lou Christie (not a true falsetto, as someone like Smokey Robinson uses), is Elton John the last artist to have successfully turned this trick?
I look forward to your responses.
[Is there a song with a naughty word you highly anticipate hearing, no matter how many times you hear the song?]
Yep! When Chrissie Hynde says “F*CK OFF” in “Precious”.
Love that.
I like the one (“Tattoed Love Boys”?) in which the biker shows Chrissie what that hole is for. Man, that’s so dirty I still feel like my Mom is about to walk into the room anytime I’m listening to to it.
I knew the “fuck off” in Precious would win hands down. I have a soft spot for “Tear down the walls, motherfucker” on the Jefferson Airplane’s Volunteers. I was thinking the other day how strange it was that they could say it on the record, but they couldn’t print it on the accompanying lyric sheet (which read “fred” instead). I don’t think even the underground radio stations could have gotten away with playing that over the air, but I don’t remember whether they bleeped it or if there was a censored version for the radio.
That’s my second favorite too. Is Empty Garden your number one as well?
michael k beat me to exactly what I was going to say; the answered occurred to me immediately. Steve’s answer is a great one too.
C’mon guys
“Kick Out the Jams Motherf*&ker”
BigSteve asked:
I don’t know that song by name. “Daniel” is my fave dating back to childhood. I’m also a big fan of “Honky Cat” and “Crocodile Rock”.
Empty Garden is the one he wrote about John Lennon after he had died. “Can Johnny come out to play…?” I admit that the backstory is part of the appeal, but it’s a good song. I prefer somber Elton to upbeat Elton.
I know what song you mean now. Yeah, that’s pretty good.
I asked about underdog artists…I’m finding that every time I hear a Buzzcocks song in a commercial I’m happier than ever that they’re getting to cash a check. They’re not my favorite underdog band ever, but among bands that are in any way still together/happening, these guys may be tops. I’m all for artists at this level cashing in for their retirement.
It’s a good one, but my favorite is in the last verse of “Atta Girl” by Heavenly, which makes good use of their trademark intertwining vocal lines trick.
Favorite naughty word, Roger Daltrey singing “Who the F%#k are You?” near the end of “Who Are You”.
Liz Phair always sounded really dirty when she would cuss on Exile in Guyville. Almost like she didn’t want anybody to overhear her when she was recording.
“I’ll F*ck you til your dick is blue” is a total classic line.
That and ” I want to be your bl*wjob queen”
Sentimental favorite: “You’re just another red balloon with a lot of hot gas, why don’tcha FUCK OFF!”, “Time For Truth,” The Jam
Another fave, from the same album: “…the media as watchdog is absolute shit, the teevee tellin’ ya what ta thiiiink…”
“you are the son of a motherfucker…”
Taking it down a notch from all the F-bombs, I like the “god dammit!” in Les McCann’s (Trying To Make It Real) Compared To What.
BigSteve wrote:
I was beginning to feel like the only prude in the Halls of Rock.
The Bevis Frond tune He’d Be a Diamond:
“and though you feel like shit, he says you look beautiful”
“I’m fucking overwhelmed!” from The Big Foist by the Minutemen. I just look foward to the way D. sings it.
The Minutemen are a prime source.
“We must be schizo! To buy the BULLSHIT!”
“I must look like a fucking dork!”
Oh, and as Mr. Carr observed, my man Bobby Bare Jr. has made extensive and exquitite use of the F-bomb.
“I don’t want to be, I don’t want to be that…Motherfucker, to make you so blue you become…me.”
I know these are the classics of the genre, but “bullshit” in “Money” and “shit” in “Changes” were landmarks in my youth. It was a big deal to hear whether they would be bleeped or not. (Not always, in those halcyon days when a joint was just another setting to the left of a Tom Collins or a Boxcar.) Not that “shit” was anymore shocking to a twelve year-old than, say, the yodelling break in Hocus Pocus.
Public Enemy, “Fight the Power:”
“Who gives a f–k about a g-d–n grammy?”
I have to admit looking forward to hearing NWA say:
White folks: (distant gunfire sounds) Listen to that… I wonder who they’re killing this time?
Eazy-E: (sudden burst of automatic gunfire) YOU, motherfucker!
That’s a great one. The one I’ve always loved is the opening line from “Shit from an Old Notebook” (I think that’s what it’s called) which goes “Let the products sell themselves, FUCK advertising commercial psychology…”
Sorry for the pince nez, but it’s “I must look like a dork!” without the f-word.
My all-time favorite example of this is “Precious” (it was the first thing I thought of), but I’m surprised that no one has mentioned “Kick Out the Jams” yet. Granted, “kick out the jams, motherfuckers” opens the song so you’re not looking forward to during the actual progression of the song, but I’ve always loved it nonetheless.
I don’t know if I’ve told this story, but one time when I was 15 or so I was driving with my dad and when he heard the “fuck off” part in “Precious”, he took the tape out of our ’86 Camry’s cassette player and threw it in the backseat (I’m lucky he didn’t throw it out the window). I thought I’d turned it down low enough at that point to sneak it by him, but he heard it alright. 🙂
Oh and “Empty Garden” is easily my favorite Elton song, too. You all have good taste. Then again, I’m not much of an Elton fan, so I wonder if this song is like Elton’s Nebraska in the sense that people may like it more than his “classic” period stuff but that those people don’t tend to be big fans of the artist in question.
Matt wrote: