The original blues age was responsible for some of the dirtiest songs ever recorded, some of which would still struggle to get past the censor now – the fist title of this list certainly would anyway. Our ancestors obviously loved to groove to a filthy record as much as we do nowadays. A more innocent age? Obviously not as it turns out. For your… erm… pleasure… I have assembled a list of ten of the most disgusting blues classics I could find. I’m not an expert on this genre by any means, so if anybody can alert me to any more of these nasty ditties I would be really grateful (please add them in the comments below). In the meantime, happy listening!
1) Lucille Bogan – Shave ‘Em Dry (1935)
2) Laughing Charlie Lincoln – Doodle Hole Blues (1930). This blues singer was the brother of the more well-known Barbecue Bob and occasionally recorded with him.
3) Harry Roy – My Girl’s Pussy (1931). Not a blues song but absolutely hilarious.
4) Bo Carter – ‘Please Warm My Weiner’ (1934)
5) Blind Boy Fuller – ‘Sweet Honey Hole’ (1937)
6) Clara Smith – It’s Tight Like That (1929)
7) Ruth Brown – If I can’t sell it, I’ll sit on it
8) Victoria Spivey – Black Snake Blues (1926). This version was recorded at The Folk Blues Festival of 1963.
9) The Clovers – Rotten Cocksuckers’ Ball (1954). Although this might seem like a hoax, it is not. Doo-wop groups often recorded ‘dirty’ versions of their songs and some of these have since been collected on compilations.
There are some people who make great records and are actually really amazing people in real life too; Vic Godard, as is Pete Wylie, Edwyn Collins and the whole line-up of Dodgy (more about them in later blogs). There are others, however, who come across at least as really unpleasant people, even if their music is really inspiring. I have to admit that I haven’t met any of the following people but nor would I want to particularly:
Okay, most of The Smiths’ line-up seemed nice enough, but Morrissey? It’s bad enough hearing the stories about his cavalier behaviour but can you imagine being in a band with him? That sounds like absolute torture. Morrissey is a genuine one-off; his lyrics were unbelievably clever, sometimes downright hilarious and he is a truly original performer, but – hand on heart – who but the most ardent fan would want to hang out with him? I think he would try the patience of Job. I want to carry on enjoying his music and to do that I think it’s best to keep this one at a wide berth (not that I’m likely to run into at the supermarket or anything).
2) ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’ – Jerry Lee Lewis (Single – 1957)
It’s even more unlikely that I would ever encounter Jerry Lee Lewis, but let’s add him to the list anyway. He may be pretty advanced in years now but this is a man who once shot his bass-player for looking at him the wrong way. Not to mention the time he famously married his own 13 year old cousin. I try not to think too much about Jerry Lee’s lifestyle when I listen to his records. He was brilliant though.
3) ‘Bournemouth Runner’ – The Fall (from ‘Bend Sinister’ – 1986)
I’ve admired Mark E Smith’s work with The Fall for many years but I hope I never meet him, mainly because I want to continue to be a fan. The seemingly endless tales of abusive behaviour with band members doesn’t exactly paint the nicest of picture of him as a person. It may all be exaggerated but let’s stay on the safe side.
4) ‘Licking Stick’ – James Brown (Single – 1968)
James Brown was one of the most important musicians of all time. I do realise that he’s been dead for a few years now but he’s certainly another musician I would not like to have met. I’m sure he had numerous good points but the violence against the numerous women in his life would seem to offset all of that. Not to mention the fact that he used to fine musicians every time they made the slightest musical error. What a tyrant. His music was wonderful of course.
5) ‘Cold To The Touch’ – The Brian Jonestown Massacre (Single – 1995)
The leader of the Brian Jonestown Massacre is the hugely talented Anton Newcombe. Despite having battled drug addiction throughout his career he is one of the most prolific musicians of his generation. He is the kind of man who could release an album even if was stranded on a uninhabited desert island with no musical equipment whatsoever let alone a post office. Easy going he is not, though. Apparently he makes Mark E Smith seem like the most reasonable man in the business. He’s prone to violent outbursts (some directed at fans in the audience) and is totally self-destructive. I like his records but I think I’ll admire from afar.
6) ‘Public Image’ – PIL (Single – 1978)
I’ve enjoyed John Lydon’s work over the years and sometimes found him entertaining in interviews but I still wouldn’t want to meet the man. Something tells me that he’d find me annoying and the feeling would be mutual. I might be wrong but I wouldn’t want to take the risk. Better to keep enjoying the music I think.
7) ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit (from ‘Bringing It All Back Home’ – 1965)
I’ve admired Bob Dylan’s music for such a long time and am so in awe of his talent that I would hate to meet him. He is famously so difficult. I realise that a lot of years have passed since ‘Don’t Look Back’ but…
8) ‘Waiting For The Man’ – The Velvet Underground (from ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico)
So there’s no chance of me ever meeting Lou Reed now, is there? But I don’t think I’d ever want to bump into him in the afterlife either. I love his records as much as anybody (well with the exception of Metal Machine Music, of course) but Lou was famously a hard man to get along with and meeting the man even put Lester Bangs off his music. Hope you’re having a good time wherever you are, Lou, anyway.
While writing the John Lennon piece yesterday I was reminded of his song ‘Working Class Hero’, which in turn made me think of songs with a political slant. Working Class Hero is an often misunderstood song, I think. Most people assume that it celebrates the idea of being a ‘working class hero’, but closer examination of the lyrics reveals that it was actually a critique of the entire concept. This is often the case with ‘protest songs’ since they are often taken at face-value rather than studied properly.
So does politics actually belong in popular music? Can music really change anything? It could be argued that everything is political and so the very act of making music is a political act. Elvis Presley was famously apolitical; he never recorded an overtly political song, but his very existence changed American society for ever. The fact that Elvis performed rhythm and blues songs ensured that young American teenagers would become aware of Afro-American culture, which in turn helped lead to desegregation. Anything cultural becomes political eventually.
What about political songs though? Do they have a function in themselves or are they really just about egocentric singer-songwriters thinking that their opinions are more important than other people’s? I think there may be some truth in either of these views. We’ve all become a bit tired of rock stars like Bono making grandiose pseudo-political pronouncements but a good protest song can be a strong rallying cry and can help give voice to real life concerns. There are many examples of this; the songs of Woody Guthrie; Gospel songs being adapted for protest marches (We Shall Not Be Moved, for example); early Bob Dylan songs; Billy Bragg songs during the Miner’s Strike; The Special AKA’s ‘Free Nelson Mandela’; the list goes on.
I have made a list here of ten of the political songs I like. They’re not in any particular order and I’ve tried to pick the less obvious ones. If you are reading this and think I’ve left out your favourite, please feel free to add it in the comments section below.
1) ‘All You Fascists Bound To Lose’ – Woody Guthrie
Wow,, this is a really hard to find Woody Guthrie song. Well certainly I’ve never been able to find it on any collection and we have a lot of his records in our house. I dread to think of what Guthrie would have thought of the world nowadays, with its neoliberal fundamentalism, but then again he might be heartened by the internet and how much free information can be shared on it. Who knows? This is a fine example of Guthrie’s talent for writing simple, optimistic sing-alongs that can serve to unite people to a common purpose. And he was right, there’s still time left to defeat the fascists and we will in the end!
2) ‘Love Me I’m A Liberal’ – Phil Ochs (from ‘In Concert’ – 1966)
Much more than his contemporary Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs followed in the tradition laid down by Woody Guthrie. The occasionally mean-spirited Dylan famously told Ochs that he considered him to a ‘journalist’ rather than a songwriter – he was palpably wrong, of course, but there was a journalistic quality to many of Och’s songs. There was much more than that though and on occasion Ochs could be just as poetic as Dylan, if not quite as blessed in terms of popularity and sixties mystique. Ochs could be extremely witty too and his humour took absolutely no prisoners. On this song he even satirised people who would have made up most of his fan-base in very savage style. Not even his own middle-class, liberal audience were safe from Ochs, he seemingly had no time for weekend activists who took on fashionable causes. Ochs knew the revolution demanded full-time commitment and he lived that way all the way through his tragically short life.
3) ‘Universal Soldier’ – Buffy Sainte Maria (from ‘It’s My Way’ – 1964)
Although Donovan is associated with this song it was Buffy Sainte Maria who wrote and recorded her original version in 1964 for her debut album. The album became a favourite on the British folk music scene and that’s how Donovan heard it. Buffy Sainte Maria’s version is still the best though; there is much more commitment in her performance and her voice gives the lyrics a chilling resonance lacking in Donovan’s. Perhaps it’s because she had some direct experience of the legacy of war, having grown up on the Piapot Cree First Nations Reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley – whatever the case, her version of the song is the most powerful.
4) ‘Fortunate Son’ – Creedence Clearwater Revival (from ‘Willy And The Poor Boys’ – 1969)
Staying on the subject of anti-war songs, this is one of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s best songs. This is different from most of the anti-war songs of the period in that it brings class into the equation; asking the question why a disproportionate number of those being drafted for the Vietnam War were from blue-colour backgrounds. John Fogerty’s vocal performance on this track was particularly passionate and the band were equally hot.
5) ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler) – Marvin Gaye (from ‘What’s Going On’ – 1971)
Marvin Gaye had to fight to get ‘What’s Going On’ released and it was testament to his strength of character that it was it came out at all. Tamla Motown had no faith in the album and were put off by the political nature of the songs, but Gaye was right, the album resonated with the public and became the label’s biggest selling album until his next release (the sexed up ‘Let’s Get It On’). The early seventies were a period of political consciousness in soul music and ‘What’s Going On’ is one of the era’s key albums. In fact it is still one of most important records ever recorded. Inner City Blues is the climactic track of ‘What’s Going On’ and the single version made number nine in the Billboard charts. The song has a low-key funk groove and is very dark, listing a litany of the social troubles familiar to Afro-American in the inner-cities of the time (and probably even today). Marvin Gaye’s singing adds huge weight to the lyrics; it is an incredibly moving performance – heartbreaking, in fact.
6) ‘(Don’t Worry) If There’s A Hell Below, We’re All Going To Go’ – Curtis Mayfield (from ‘Curtis’ – 1970)
Perhaps Gaye was inspired to record ‘What’s Going On’ by hearing the work of Curtis Mayfield, particularly the album this song was from. Mayfield had previously been the main man in The Impressions and his writing had always had an element of social consciousness in it, even the group’s biggest his ‘People Get Ready’ was as political as it was gospel. ‘Curtis’, the album, was released and it was brimming with songs about race relations, Watergate, social unrest, drug addiction, teenage pregnancy and much more. This particular track is almost apocalyptic and Mayfield’s keening falsetto in this context is practically chilling.
7) ‘The Bottle’ – Gil Scott Heron (Single – 1974)
Gil Scott Heron was one of the finest lyricists of any genre and this is one of his best and most well-known songs. It may not be political per se but its vivid descriptions of the social deprivation that alcohol addiction can cause are magnificent. This song also highlights some of the causes of such addiction, how people living in difficult circumstances attempt to use alcohol (or other substances) as an attempt to escape. Heron was a man who battled many demons during his life and so he knew all about what he was describing – or at least, came to know.
8) ‘Have You Ever Been Away’ – The Beautiful South (‘Welcome To The Beautiful South’ – 1989)
This is another anti-war song but it’s a rather more nasty than the previous ones I’ve included. In many ways it shares some of sentiments of the Creedence Clearwater Revival song, in that it focuses on class and the fact that the poor are usually sent to fight wars for the wealthy and privileged, but this song uses irony to get its point across. Paul Heaton’s lyrics often have this feature and most of The Beautiful South’s songs tend to have a bitter-sweet flavour as a consequence. Even the band’s name is a put-on, since they were famously based in the North of England. ‘Have You Ever Been Away’ targets jingoism, nationalism, classism, Remembrance Day and a whole lot more – nothing is safe. Lyrics like; ‘/ Any last requests / Before you join the dead? / I’ll crap into your Union Jack / And wrap it ’round your head /’ are not exactly subtle.
The Clash were well-known for being a highly political band, even if they were signed to one of the most established labels in the world; CBS/Columbia. This song is from their first album and the lyrics are focussed on not wanting to be tied down to a traditional job – particularly not one in the military or civil service – and wanting to do something more individual instead. Joe Strummer’s vocal performance goes off like a Molotov cocktail and even though the whole track sounds defiant and aggressive there is something amiss. Strummer was a very clever lyric writer; this occasionally gets overlooked partly because of The Clash’s noisy swagger but also owing to Strummer’s hard-to-read voice (apparently this had a lot to do the pitiful state of his teeth, which was not helped by his prodigious intake of cheap speed). Strummer’s lyrics often acknowledged that were most ordinary people were concerned personal rebellion was often doomed to failure and so he wrote this for the final verse; ‘ / They’re gonna have to introduce conscription / They’re gonna have to take away my prescription / If they wanna get me making toys/ If they wanna get me, well I got no choice / ‘ Despite the fact that Strummer was very comfortably middle-class, he had a lot of insight into the reality of working people’s lives.
10) ‘Sound Of Da Police’ – KRS One (from ‘Return Of The Boom Bap’ – 1993)
Being a very politically conscious rapper, KRS One has written a lot of protest songs but this is probably his most famous, since it was practically the law that it was played at every club gathering of the 1990s. The lyrics are extraordinarily clever and KRS One’s flow is magnificently literate, associating the word ‘officer’ (as in police) with ‘over-seer’ (as in overseeing slaves) to point out the similarity of the two occupations in respect to Afro-Americans from the cotton-fields to the ghetto. This is a landmark rap record.
John Lennon was as well-known for his caustic wit as his campaigning for peace, so in his honour I have composed a list of some of the finest insult songs ever written. John’s ‘How Do You Sleep’ comes in at Number One of the first ten insult songs I can think of. If any of you can think of any other great songs that would fit into this category, please feel free to add them in the comments section.
1) How Do you Sleep – John Lennon (on Imagine – 1971)
This is famously John’s riposte to some of the digs Paul made at his expense on a couple of the tracks on Ram. In fairness to Paul, however, they were comparatively mild in comparison to this song, which comes across like a blowtorch of vindictiveness. It culminates in this memorable couplet ‘The sound you make is muzak to my ears / You must have learnt something in all those years…/’ In many respects some of the tracks on Imagine might have quite easily have been included on John’s previous album Plastic Ono Band, and this, along with Gimme Some Truth, is one of them. Plastic Ono Band was a very personal album and most of John’s songs often turn out turn out to be primarily about John (he later claimed that as How Do You Sleep was much about himself as it was about Paul). Indeed, this song could just as easily be an expression of how raw John was feeling after the break-up of The Beatles. Paul has gone on the record about how inconsolable he felt after the band split, indeed he was drugged up and bed-ridden for months and it took him a good few years to get over it. Although John was publicly very aggressive about drawing a line under The Beatles it is not inconceivable to consider that he had some mixed feeling about it. The Beatles had after all been his band and for a long time been the focal point of his life. Bear that in mind and the lyrics to this song take on a very different hue:
2) Positively Fourth Street – Bob Dylan (Single, 1965)
Bob Dylan was always really good at writing vicious put-downs and so there are a number of songs in his canon that could just as easily have been chosen in place of this one – Idiot Wind, for example – but this is still my favourite. As is the case of innumerable Dylan songs there are arguments about who this song was targeted at. However for the purposes of this blog, I personally think that it was probably the folk purists who had turned on him for ‘going electric’. Dylan had only reluctantly been accepted into the Greenwich Village folk community and had often felt patronised by them. When he had initially been signed to Columbia they had been openly sniffy about it and complained that others on the folk circuit would have been more deserving of the record contract. To me the lines that are particularly telling are ‘You say you’ve lost your faith / But that’s not where it’s at / You had no faith to lose / And you know it /.’
3) Say Man – Bo Diddley with Jerome Green (Single – 1959)
Bo Diddley and his legendary maraca player Jerome Green conceived this work of genius while ‘goofing around’ in the Chess Studios (or so Bo claimed about many of his Chess recordings). Whatever the truth is this is regarded as one of the first ever rap records and it was hilariously funny, being a ‘dozens’ style exchange of insults between Bo and Jerome over that famous beat. Apparently the more rude, dirty insults were taken edited out of the recording but it was so professionally done that it wasn’t noticeable and the record became a hit:
4) I Hate You – The Monks (from Black Monk Time – 1966)
The Monks, on the off-chance that you’ve haven’t heard of them, were formed by five American GIs stationed in Germany during the 1960s. They played an extraordinary kind of avant-rock, which was sometimes not well-received by audiences (one member was nearly strangled by a punter at one gig for ‘perceived blasphemy’). They were possibly one of the most original bands in popular music history; their music had nothing to do with the charts at the time and arguably would never have fitted the musical trends of any era. However, The Monks have an irrepressible charm on it own terms and they have been much imitated by alternative bands. I Hate You has to be heard to be believed; it has minimalist lyrics in which the singer exclaims things like, ‘I hate you, oh I hate with a passion, baby, but call me,’ over a stomping militaristic perverted blues beat. The most alarming element and downright bizarre element of The Monks’ sound is the ever present electric banjo which constantly pounds away on the offbeat. I can’t enthuse about this band enough really.
5) Your Feets Too Big – Fats Waller (Single – 1939)
Going even deeper into the midsts of time, I bring you this nugget. Fats was very fond of insult songs and recorded a number of them, but this was the finest of all. Any song that begins with the lines; ‘/ Up in Harlem, table for two / There was four of us, me, your big feet, and you…/’ has my vote anyway. Even The Beatles, who hated jazz, must have loved Fats because they included this song in their early set-lists. This early example of a video is genius too:
6) Short People – Randy Newman (from Little Criminals – 1977)
Like a lot of Randy Newman’s songs, this record was taken far too literally and people took offence. Even now some radio-stations refuse to play it. Not that Newman is perturbed by that, of course, throughout his career he seems to have relished playing some extremely obnoxious characters in his songs. To him this is the most effective way of unmasking the genuine bigots out there in the world and he has always done that most effectively. Short People should have been seen for what it was; an extremely witty song that employs a cartoon-character narrator spouting some nakedly ludicrous ideas about vertically challenged people. It is so much of a caricature how anyone could do anything other than laugh at it is beyond me. The fact that it was taken seriously tells us everything we need to know about real prejudice.
7) You’re The Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly – Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty (Single – 1978)
My reason for picking this is mainly for the title, which has to be one the best lines of all time. Written by L. E. Dean and Lola Jean Dillon this song became more well-known when Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty recorded their version. In fact the whole song has some screamingly funny lines in it, such as ‘/ You’re the reason that my figure is gone / That’s the reason I’ve no hair left to comb /’ Country music isn’t just about misery, there’s lots of laughs along the way too.
8) That’s A Lie – LL Cool J (from Radio – 1985)
This isn’t the most well-known of LL Cool J tracks but it’s a very entertaining one. LL Cool J is generally associated with more slick recordings now but back in the day he was as raw a rapper as anybody out there and his flow was superb. His lyrics were sharp as a knife too. This is just one example of some of the powerful wit that the great MCs can deliver in hip hop.
9) Shit List – L7 (from Bricks Are Heavy – 1992)
L7 were an all-female grunge band that rocked hard and Shit List is a good example of how nasty they could be when crossed. Dorita Sparks absolutely snarls out some extremely venomous venomous lyrics; ‘/When I get mad and I get pissed / I grab my pen and I write out a list / Of all the people that won’t be missed / You’ve made my shitlist /’, while the band thrash out white-hot heavy rock. L7 wrote some impeccably spiteful songs and this is just one excellent example of what they were capable of achieving when somebody had made the mistake of pissing them off.
10) One Way Or Another – Blondie (from Parallel Lines – 1978)
This is one of the those songs that seems so upbeat and catchy as hell that the meaning almost becomes obscured. Almost, but not quite. Debbie Harry actually wrote the lyrics about an ex-boyfriend who was stalking her at the time and a quick look at the lyrics reveals that they are very dark. There are lines that refer to being parked outside somebody’s house in cover of darkness, breaking and entering, and others about ‘rat food’. It’s all pretty nasty and spiteful stuff indeed. Certainly not the innocent pop song we imagined it was.
THE PLAY-OUT GROOVE 
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