Serge Gainsbourg sang a song called “Lemon Incest” with his daughter. Lyrics include:
“The love that we will never make together,
Is the most sweet, the most violent.”
Doesn’t get much more f*cked-up than that. That’s a geographic rather than temporal distance tho. I guess you can get away with a bit more in France.
Number 1 in eleven countries is a ‘small hit’? 
No way! The girl looks older than she is and when he realizes it he tells her to go away. He’s trying to do the right thing.
“I’m On Fire” has a creepy stalker rapist vibe to it.
I doubt that the cover art on Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy would be allowed today. In fact, it would probably trigger an investigation.
That’s Toadies, “Possum Kingdom.” Alternately explained as a serial killer, a vampire, or a guy who doesn’t want his girl to leave him so he’s gonna kill her, from the interpretations I’ve read.
There’s Sugar’s “A Good Idea”, which starts out with a couple going to the water to have fun, but ends up with lyrics like:
I’m not even gonna link to the cover art of Blind Faith’s album: if you google it, be aware that it’s, uh, NSFW.
And that song got played on prime time TV last year on Rock Star Supernova.
The only topics that are more taboo now than they were then are overtly racist songs against certain identifiable groups.
And that’s not even in the top 10 of his most disturbing songs. Have a listen to “Superman” for some misogyny, “Kim” for a very detailed description of Eminem slitting his own wife’s throat while his daughter watches, “Drips”, which is incredibly graphic sexually, and much more.
I like Eminem quite a lot, but he’s the poster boy for refutation of the OP.
Scissorjack
Yes I was going to mention the Blind Faith album cover. (Definitely not safe for work).
Well since the thread is getting slightly hijacked into album covers, here is one from 1969 by the Carolyn Hester Coalition (safe for work unless you work at the Praise The Lord 700 Club)
I was eighteen in 1969 and (as far as I know) it didn’t cause any controversy. (Certainly not from me. 
)
Maybe album sales were so poor, no one was even aware that the album existed.
Just to add to the creepy odes to underage girls there is Motley Crue’s “All In The Name Of…” with lines such as:
She’s only fifteen,
She’s the reason,
The reason that I can’t sleep
…
You say “illegal”,
I say “Legal’s never been my scene”
…
Brings me a dirty dirty magazine,
There she was for all the world to see
Heard this one on the radio a few years back. Great tune. From the “Girls Girls Girls” album which came out in 1987 when the boys were in their mid 20s.
My middle school’s 1983 talent show included 3 boys in cowboy hats lip-syncing this song. One of them even turned around and displayed a suction-cup arrow on his (clothed) rear end. :eek:
Funny how you can hear songs all your life without being able to figure out what he’s saying and yet never look it up.
“Rollerskating Child” by The Beach Boys:
“And we’ll make sweet love when the sun goes down
We’ll even do more when your momma’s not around”
Making sweet love to a “child”? And what the hell is “more” after they’ve made love?
Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Claire raised eyebrows when it was released.
I had heard that was about Tracy Lords. I can’t really give you much more detail than that.
I have a winner from 1906.
Ragtime Jazz Duo Collins & Harlan had a hit song with: Nigger loves his possum.
I don’t think you’d be able to get that one played on the radio these days. Especially since the singers were a couple of white guys.
“Pardon me “BOY”, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo?”
They wouldn’t get arrested, but it would certainly be beyond the current bounds of taste.
In his Book of Bad Songs, Dave Barry wrote about a sing with the line or title “He Hit Me , and it Felt Like a Kiss”. I suspect the group would feel like it was being kissed a lot, these days.
I also can’t believe the song “Timothy”, which I still have never heard (but which I’ve read about since). Nothing like a serious song about cannibalism, I always say.
Benny Mardones’ “Into The Night” begins with the following lines:
She’s just sixteen years old
Leave her alone, they say
Separated by fools
Who don’t know what love is yet
But I want you to know
*
Such a song probably wouldn’t go over so well today.
While it doesn’t say how old the girl/woman in question is, **Conway Twitty **'s *You’ve Never Been This Far Before * is pretty creepy. I saw a clip of the pompadoured 40 year old Twitty in extreme close up singing:
I can almost hear the stillness
As it yields to the sound of your heart beating
And I can almost hear the echo
Of the thoughts that I know you must be thinking
And I can feel your body tremble
As you wonder what this moment holds in store
And as I put my arms around you
I can tell you’ve never been this far before
FWIW, it’s not what I’d call “in your face,” just very, very strong implications that Timothy became a bit of a snack. Compared to some of the songs described here, it’s nowhere near as disturbing to me. (shrug) “Lifeboat ethics” often do lead to such situations, after all. (It’s amazing what having read all the Edward Rowe Snow one could find can do to warp a young man’s mind.)
The songs about what modern Americans would consider date rape, or other abuse of women bother me far more.
