I’m looking for songs where there are arguments or insults going back and forth in the lyrics.
My favourite ones that come to mind are The Dirty Glass by Dropkick Murphy’s, Fairytale of New York by The Pogues, You’re The Reason Our Kids Are Ugly by Delbert McClinton and my favourite version of Seven Drunken Nights which includes audience participation in the form of the men and women yelling as part of the chorus “Hey wife, you bitch” “Whaddya want, you drunken asshole?”
So what other songs out there include arguments or insults in similar fashion?
My tastes are pretty eclectic, so whatever genre or style is fine. I’m willing to listen once to see if it’ll interest me.
[Both:] We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout,
We’ve been talkin’ ‘bout Jackson, ever since the fire went out.
[Johnny:] I’m goin’ to Jackson, I’m gonna mess around,
Yeah, I’m goin’ to Jackson,
Look out Jackson town.
[June:] Well, go on down to Jackson; go ahead and wreck your health.
Go play your hand you big-talkin’ man, make a big fool of yourself,
Yeah, go to Jackson; go comb your hair!
[Johnny:] I’m gonna snowball Jackson.
[June:] See if I care.
Oh, and from the world of bluegrass there’s “Pearl, Pearl, Pearl”, in which Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs trade insults while trying to woo the same girl:
Earl:
Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, come be my loving girl
Don’t you marry Lester Flatt, He slicks his hair with possum fat
Change your name to Mrs. Earl Scruggs
Lester:
Pearl, Pearl, Pearl, you’ll get no love from Earl
This here man is such a sap, He won’t hold you on his lap
Unless you are an old 5-string banjo
The “Whose Fault” song from Sondheim’s Into The Woods comes to mind…the few surviving characters are arguing whose fault it is that the giant has come to destroy their world. It’s very odd…funny as hell on the soundtrack, but in performance by the same persons, rather grim.
D12’s How Come is another rap featuring Eminem that’s pretty fantastic with everyone in the song arguing how come their friendship’s dying; Maynard rips into someone calling him a sell-out in Hooker With a Penis; and Henry Rollins and William Shatner argue a bit in I Can’t Get Behind That.
I don’t really see much else on a cursory glance of my library although there’s a good number of songs with omnidirectional insults, just not traded.
“Nothing Better” by the Postal Service is a guy who willing to do anything to salvage his relationship (“So, just say how to make it right / and, I swear, I’ll do my best to comply”), and the girl who isn’t having it (“You’re getting carried away feeling sorry for yourself”). A really lovely duet, in my opinion.