Dammit, all you people keep making me look bad in my thread. Go get your own thread to pick on me.
I hate it when I’m wrong and I get caught…
How about “Frankie and Johnny” (first recorded by Lomax around 1910-1912)? Among the many, MANY off-color verses are these gems:
Or how about “Shave 'Em Dry,” by Lucille Bogan (1934 or so)? Widely hailed as the dirtiest song ever recorded.
and
Cornelius Brothers and Sister Rose had a hit with “Treat Her Like a Lady” featuring the line:
“You know a woman is sentimental
And so easy to upset…”
Damn, Ogre! Them was a couple of sweet little numbers.
I’ve gotta’ agree with Jackelpoe about the Elvis’s “Baby Let’s Play House” lyrics. My CD and lyrics at this site both are “Rather see you dead than to be with another man”.
If Elvis had been a doper, he’d have known how to phrase properly.
"Throw another log on the fire
Boil me up some bacon and some beans
Go out to the car and change the tire
Wash my sox and sew my old blue jeans
Fill my pipe and then go fetch my slippers
Boil me up another pot of tea
Then throw another log on the fire, Babe
And come sit and tell me why you’re leavin’ me
Ain’t I gonna’ let you wash the car next Sunday?
Don’t I warn you when you’re gettin’ fat?
Ain’t I gonna’ take you fishin’ with me someday?
A man can’t love a woman more than that
Ain’t I always nice to your kid sister?
Don’t I take her ridin’ every night?
So come sit here at my feet 'cause I like you when you’re sweet
And you know that it ain’t feminine to fight"
By David Allen Coe and others.
Good Lord…
I think Ogre wins.
Johnny Cash’s “Delia”, in which he sets up a bar with one more round after killing Delia.
“I went up to Memphis
And I met Delia there
Found her in her parlor
And I tied to her chair
Delia’s gone, one more round
Delia’s gone”
Of course, she was “low down and trifling”, so she had it coming.
Given Rick James’ well known…err…encounters with the legal system, I doubt that his song 17 would be released today.
“She was young, and fine, and oh so tender…”
This song would probably go over real well with rednecks now but would really enrage black people.
Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood on the roots.
Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees…
[nitpick]The songs Ogre and dorkusmalorkusmafia never got any popular airplay - you’d only hear them now (or ever) in the context of historical interest.
And I think Strange Fruit* has only been recorded by black artists. It’s a sickening condemnation of lynching.
[/nitpick]
The songs Ogre and dorkusmalorkusmafia mentioned never…
…Strange Fruit…
I will preview x 100
Dean: Let’s hear it, Nat
Nat: You know what, you know what, though
Dean: What?
Nat: There’s just one way to handle a woman, Dean, we just got to treat 'em rough
Dean: Got to slap 'em
Nat: That’s right!
Dean: We got to show 'em who wears the pants. Cut out that sissy, sissy stuff
Nat: Now it ain’t no use to take abuse whenever they are cranky or cross
Both: Let’s put the women in their place and we’ll show them who’s the boss!
Do you remember that Prodigy song out a few years ago? The chorus went Smack my bitch up/ Start my pitch up.
Big hit, caused a lot of controversy (over nothing in my opinion - like a lot of Prodigy songs its just meaningless words put over the beats), but it stll most certainly flew.
Hmm… how about this one released in 1971*, by Machine Gun Fellatio, titled Let Me Be Your Dirty Fucking Whore
http://www.letssingit.com/machine-gun-fellatio-leo-me-be-your-dirty-f-cking-whore-pgb83zc.html]lyrics here
*OK, I got the date wrong. It was actually released in 2002. The band gets regular play on Australian radio. I think that pretty much anything can fly if this does.
LifeOnWry: The lyrics to “You Better Run For Your Life” are especially ironic considering that the song appears on Rubber Soul right alongside “Norweigan Wood,” where Our Hero is basically telling us he had a one-night stand. The rumor is, John had a one-nighter while he was still married to Cynthia and this was his way of “telling” her.
Gee, double-standard much, John?
And, dwmacg, the Stones have never been PC. They have consciously styled themselves as the standard-bearers of the War Between The Sexes. (Now, that said, “Brown Sugar,” as much as I love that song, makes my Inner Guilt-Ridden White Man cringe a bit).
bup, it would make sense that it was only recorded by black artists since it is an old jazz standard. I was asked to accompany some jazz friends playing it several years ago. I don’t remember what record the people originally heard it from but I remember a woman singing it and it was simply haunting.
dorkus - The earliest version of Strange Fruit I know of is Billie Holiday - it’s a song that’s kind of famous for never doing well.
So I guess it’s a standard, but it’s never been a hit for anybody.
Correct: “Strange Fruit” is on Billie Holiday’s Lady Sings the Blues album, and I believe that’s the first recorded version. I’m no music historian though, so I’m usually wrong.
It sure seems like a hit for Billie Holiday since it was one of her signature songs. SOURCE Also, it was in The Ultimate Fake Book which tends to only have popular songs or songs that tend to get covered by a lot of people. I played it (as a white man with a non-european looking female singer…she had a lot of different ethnicities and was rather exotic looking) in a little combo.
Also, in its day, “Frankie and Johnny” was enormously popular and was covered as a folk/blues standard. There are numerous versions of it out there, including one entitled “Frankie” as done by Mississippi John Hurt, popularized on the “American Anthology of Folk Music”…the Harry smith collection that launched the Folk Revival in the late 50’s.
As for "Shave “Em Dry,” you might be familiar with some of the lyrics from a tried and true hit rock and roll song…“Start Me Up,” by the Rolling Stones. Bogan’s raunchy blues song was the inspiration for the Stones’ song, and if you listen to the fade-out where Jagger is singing “You make a grown man cry,” you can hear near the end where he lifts a line straight from “Shave 'Em Dry” and sings “You make a dead man come.” I hear it on the radio quite often and it cracks me up every time.
Pfffft…historical interest only. Ha. As Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
At least one white artist has recently recorded Billie Holiday’s signature song, as Sting released a jazz album in 1997 called Strange Fruit, containing his cover of the eponymous song.
Fine, I’m outvoted. Look, I like all those songs - don’t try to trump me on blues appreciation - but you’re not going to hear them on the radio, nor would you ever have.
Except certain NPR stations Saturday midnight to Sunday 6 am. And I think that fits my ‘historical interest’ qualifier.