Anyone know any particularly OLD songs about masturbation?

Cafe Society
1

I’m going to guest on a podcast and the episode’s topic will be songs about masturbation.

This is not a Thread looking for general suggestions for the topic, I’ve got a pretty good list together already (and there are plenty of lists sprawling across the internet). I am specifically asking if anyone has any particularly old examples because none of the examples I’ve come up with are particularly old. I’ve got plenty from the 70s up to the current day but the oldest one I’ve come up with is The Who’s “Pictures of Lily” from 1967.

Anything pre-60s? Pre-50s?

It was right here on this messageboard that I first heard about Lucille Bogan’s “Shave 'Em Dry” from 1935.
So, it’s not as if dirty lyrics were never recorded before Rock n Roll.

If you can give me any good examples from before 1950, PM me your street address and I will mail you a lollipop.

NOTE: Looking for official recordings of songs, preferably with an identifiable songwriter.
“The boys at summer camp used to sing this one when I was a kid in the 50s” doesn’t really work for my purposes. Post such examples, by all means! Just know that I can’t really use them so you might not get a lollipop out of it.

2

Big Joe Turner - Cherry Red

Its open to some interpretation, but whatever interpretation you do take, its gonna be based only on one thing
3

Very few bands did masturbation songs. Generally it was a solo act.

4

Clap.

(Applause, not the disease)

5

Hmm, what about “My Ding-a-ling” (Dave Bartholomew, 1952)?

6

I always figured “hand jiving” was more about waxing one’s carrot than some dance involving the hands.

Certainly the dance from Grease that goes with “Born to Hand Jive” seems to suggest whacking off with ensuing payoff.

It seems that song was written specifically for the musical which would date it around 1971.

It’s clearly in the style of “Willie and the Hand Jive” (Johnny Otis. 1958) which apart from the “hand” in “Hand Jive” does seem to refer more to a dance.

All this is to say, I got nothing.

7

Odd. I just went through a fairly comprehensive book of dirty barroom songs, and not a one makes more than a passing mention of masturbation. I guess mistrels, vaudevillians and rock bands would rather sing about, you know, the real thing.

8

Remember, mastubation was considered a sick form of sexual conduct (even ignoring the health warnings). Back in the 20s men would rather go to a Prostitute or another man (it wasn’t gay if you didn’t “play the woman”) than to take matters into their own hands. It would be akin to singing about pedophilia today.

9

Mark Twain once gave a satirical lecture about it, but he didn’t sing it.

10

Aint Got Nobody To Grind My Coffee sung by Clara Smith in 1928 (lyrics here) doesn’t specifically talk about masturbation, but it does have these lines:

11

People whacked off just as much then as now.

12

(Who’s Gonna Do Your) Sweet Jelly Rollin’? by Whistling Rufus (Rufus Bridey) mentions masturbation in one verse. The record was made in 1933.

13

I bet there are tons of such songs from earlier centuries, but the oldest one I know of is Pierre-Jean de Béranger’s (1780-1857) Ma grand-mère, famous from Guy de Maupassant’s short story “La maison Tellier”:

(Hear it sung here.)

Note that this song purports to be an elderly woman’s recollection of sexual licentiousness in general: only this one verse is about masturbation specifically.

14

Wasn’t My Ding a Ling Chuck Berry’s only number one hit? I heard that as a factoid somewhere anyway.

15

“She-Bop” will be old enough to run for president in a couple of years.

16

That’s true for the pop charts. He had number one records on the R&B charts for Maybellene, School Day, Sweet Little Sixteen and Johnny B. Goode. My Ding a Ling only went to 42 on the R&B charts.

17

Well, obviously there’s no data to compare the two, but in the past there was a major social stigma to masturbation, so you wouldn’t admit to doing it. Singing about it would have been too shocking, much like singing about pedophilia would be today.

18

Old thread from the SDMB. Clearly, this is a topic Enquiring Minds want to know about.

19

“My Ding-a-ling” was older than Chuck Berry’s hit, though. As I mentioned in post #5, Dave Bartholomew recorded it in 1952.

Wikipedia tells me “In his music encyclopedia Icons of Rock, Scott Schinder calls the song ‘a sophomoric, double-entendre-laden ode to masturbation.’”

20

Nothing specific, but there was a British comedian from the 30s and 40s named George Formby who did a lot of double entendre based songs- some of his probably qualify, like “With my Little Ukulele in my Hand”