Such as the lyrics to “Every Hungry Woman” by the Allman Brothers, probably the all-time greatest Southern rocker band. “Every Hungry Woman” has an incredibly catchy melody and classic Duane Allman slide guitar work. But Jeebus, the lyrics suck, not just in the sense of being bad, but in the sense of making you mad at the author. Really, Allman needs his ass kicked for this one. Basically, he’s mocking a woman with 13 kids and no husband (“You’ve got 13 lovely children/No proud father knocking at your door”) for being in such a fix and that it’s all her fault. He clearly implies it’s the woman’s fault for enjoying sex:
"Yeah, you backed him in the corner
Woo-o, you’re doing what you wanna
Now I’ll admit that the woman is irresponsible, but with 13 kids what I’m seeing is something more like mildly retarded. There’s no sense that the guys who’ve been fucking her have any responsibility for her situation whatsoever. They’re just random sperm donors, totally free of moral responsibility for this woman’s situation.
It kinda smells like the narrator is one of the guys who’s been fucking her, delivering some tough love along with the regular stuff.
This song is evidence that Greg Allman sucks as a human being. He deserves to be spit on for these lyrics.
Damn, I used to like that song before I started listening to the lyrics. The wrong Allman died in that motorcycle accident.
I liked Sting’s “Every Breath You Take” until I listened to the lyrics more carefully. This is not a love song. This is a song about obsessive stalking.
Lou Christie’s “I’m Gonna Make You Mine” is nice sans lyrics. I mean, they’re sweet on the surface but when you think about it, the song is really “I’m gonna convince you to date me–I’m awesome, really!” I suppose ditto for his “Lightnin’ Strikes”–except this one is more, “I’m gonna screw around but you have to stay a virgin till I maybe marry you.”
This isn’t a song I liked, but a song I heard a lot of females swoon over as romantic until I explained the words to them was Extreme’s “More Than Words,” which basically has the message of: have sex with me or I’ll break up with you."
I always took Brown Sugar’s lyrics as mocking racists for hypocrisy. Brown Sugar is a slave, and therefore subhuman, but good enough for nookie. I think WTF was exactly what the band was going for there.
American Woman. The lyric “I don’t need your war machines, I don’t need your ghetto scenes” made me realize they were talking about the US, not some adult female.
Though I will admit I don’t know if I would have felt that way if I didn’t know that The Guess Who were Canadians.
I think transgressive art is the best kind, and that song is transgressive on all levels. Racists would find it offensive, and PC-type people would as well. That’s why I love it. I’m a fan of R. Crumb for the same reason.
Supposedly that song is about one particular, bad ex of his. A few of his other early efforts are supposed to be about the same woman; I think Black Hearted Woman is another one of those songs. In that light, I think what he’s imagining an over-the-top version of the future for this unfaithful woman: she’ll keep shacking up with one guy after another until she’s got 15 kids and counting. (He adds one more child in each chorus.)
It’s not a liberated feminist vision, I agree. The sexism in EHW has always bugged me, and I used to skip the song. The current band plays it so well that I’ve gotten over it.
Ruby You’ve painted up your lips an rolled and curled your tinted hair.
Ruby are you contemplating going out somewhere?
The Shadow on the wall tells me the sun is going down -
Oh Ruby
Don’t take your love to town
She cheating on her veteran paraplegic husband and he wants to shoot her. Lovely.
Coward of the County Promise me, son, not to do the things Ive done.
Walk away from trouble if you can.
Now it dont mean youre weak if you turn the other cheek.
I hope youre old enough to understand:
Son, you dont have to fight to be a man.
The guy’s girl gets gang raped by the 3 Gatlin brothers, the Coward of the County indeed!
Wait, you liked it LESS after you found out the lyrics? It’s actually intelligent if you listen to it. I mean, way more so than if it’s just Bruce warbling on about how great the U.S. is. The lyrics are actually meaningful.
I didn’t want to paste in the whole song for possible copyright reasons. The gist is that Tommy’s dad got locked up in the joint for getting into a fight. He made Tommy promise to never get into a fight, Tommy lived up to this promise and was label as a coward because of it. Then, knowing he was a coward, the Gatlin boys decided to rape his sweetheart and laughed in his face afterwards. The last verse has Tommy breaking his promise to his father and killing them all.
You really need to hear it to appreciate the ridiculousness of the song. The funniest part is that Kenny sang this song while on tour with a band called The Gatlin Brothers!
Thanks to Adam Carolla for shedding light on these gems.
