# Is this "Mighty Wind" song as crude as I think it is? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 5, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950 "2003-06-05T22:59:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/21 "2003-06-06T16:50:41Z")
Just occurred to me - train wreck songs are common, mining songs are common. Anybody else know any folk songs about a train wreck _in a mine_? ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/22 "2003-06-06T16:55:04Z")
Two more things: The entire lyrics are on the [website](http://amightywindonline.warnerbros.com/index.php). You decide, but I think it’s a stretch (pardon the pun). I forgot the other thing I was going to say. Oh yeah, it’s not as crude as the Folkmen’s rendition of “Start Me Up”, even though that was written by Mick Jagger et. al. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/23 "2003-06-06T16:59:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skammer \* > \*\*The more I think about it, the more I think it’s unintentional. There’s too much in the song that doesn’t support that interpretation. The stuff about being in the warm Kentucky sun, the Irishman named Murphy, etc. If the FM were going to write a song about anal sex, I think they’d be more clever in other parts of the song. > > I think it’s just a parody of train/mine/disaster songs. \*\* Dude, give it up. OF COURSE there’s other shit in the song; that’s what makes it a parody rather than a straight ahead song about anal sex. There’s a long tradition of dirty blues songs that trod the line between, well, dirty and _really_ dirty. “I got a dentist…his name is Dr. Long John…he took out his trusty drill, told me to open wide…” The point of putting the other stuff–the Irishman named Murphy, etc.–is that the idiot characters who “wrote” the song aren’t in on the joke: It’s unintentional on the part of the characters, but VERY intentional on the part of Guest, et al.; it is, as has been pointed out, their “shtick.” Nobody in the movie got the double entendre of the song “Stool Boom” in _Waiting for Guffman_–but everyone in the audience did. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/24 "2003-06-06T17:09:42Z")
Maybe. _Maybe_. Dude, I’m not above revelling in sexual innuendo in songs, and I get the part that the band isn’t in on the humor. I just think you’re taking a couple of isolated phrases from the song and constuing meaning that the writers (Guest & McKean, I think) didn’t intend (not that they wouldn’t be flattered). Its like preteens snickering when someone points out a titmouse (heh heh. He said “tit”). My point is, you could take almost any song (real or parody) and pick out phrases and say “hey – that’s a sexual innuendo!” In this case I think it’s a coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/25 "2003-06-06T17:14:41Z")
From [http://celebritywonder.com/movie/2003\_A\_Mighty\_Wind\_about\_the\_production.html](http://celebritywonder.com/movie/2003_A_Mighty_Wind_about_the_production.html) > [@](#): > > “We tried to hit a number of the more irritating bases in commercial folk music,” says Shearer. “For instance, we wanted to get as many traditional folk-type disasters into one song as we could, so the Folksmen have a song called ‘Blood on the Coal,’ about a train wreck in a coal mine.” I think my other problem was that I just can’t see Guest & co. making a really explicit joke about bloody anal sex. Just doesn’t strike me as their thing. ---
**Author:** ![rmbnxs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9e5f3/32.png) [@rmbnxs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rmbnxs)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/26 "2003-06-06T17:32:07Z")
Sometimes a song about a trainwreck in a coalmine is just a song about a trainwreck in a coalmine. Other times it’s about aggressive, degrading, and hygienically questionable anal sex in the garage, on the air-compressor, surrounded by various power-tools and covered in sawdust and grease, while her parents are asleep upstairs, and Air Supply plays softly on a cheap radio sitting on a stack of _Sunset_ magazines. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/27 "2003-06-06T18:15:43Z")
_Dude,_ if you think Christopher Guest can write a line like “went in the wrong hole” and _not get it_, you are seriously delusional. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/28 "2003-06-06T18:25:51Z")
There is a lot of double entendre in the Folksmen songs, including there riotous cover of the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up.” ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/29 "2003-06-06T19:36:59Z")
I’m of the opinion that they didn’t intend it. Or, perhaps, that wasn’t their main intention. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/30 "2003-06-06T21:58:41Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Marley23 \* > \*\*Sounds like a bit of a stretch to me. \*\* \ ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/31 "2003-06-08T05:53:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BobT \* > \*\*There is a lot of double entendre in the Folksmen songs, including there riotous cover of the Rolling Stones “Start Me Up.” \*\* The bass vocals sound suspiciously familiar to Principal Skinner. Is this man one of the voices on the Simpsons? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/32 "2003-06-08T06:34:23Z")
Yes. Several of the stars of A Mighty Wind (and, of course This is Spinal Tap) are in The Simpsons. Harry Shearer plays Skinner (among others) on The Simpsons and Mark Shubb in A Mighty Wind (and Derek Smalls in Spinal Tap) I’m voting for ‘intentional’ as there’s no way that Guest and McKean could write a double entendre like that accidentally. ---
**Author:** ![Nate\_the\_Great](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ea924/32.png) [@Nate\_the\_Great](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nate_the_Great)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/33 "2003-06-08T06:34:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joe K \* > \*\*The bass vocals sound suspiciously familiar to Principal Skinner. Is this man one of the voices on the Simpsons? \*\* [yes](http://us.imdb.com/Name?Shearer,+Harry) ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/34 "2003-06-08T06:45:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Joe K \* > \*\*The bass vocals sound suspiciously familiar to Principal Skinner. Is this man one of the voices on the Simpsons? \*\* Yes. Harry Shearer (the character in the movie that shaves his head, has a chin strap beard, plays the bass (?) and starts cross dressing at the end) also does several voices on The Simpsons. Principal Skinner is one of the voices he does. ---
**Author:** ![Dignan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f07891/32.png) [@Dignan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dignan)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2003, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950/35 "2003-06-08T06:47:02Z")
OK, I swear I that those posts ahead of me were not there when I opened the thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-mighty-wind-song-as-crude-as-i-think-it-is/179950.md?page=1)