Danielle Dax “Bad Miss M” we’re gonna have a party when you are gone-desecrate your grave and sing this song (about Thatcher)
Voice Farm “Walk Away” I don’t like your new friends and I hate your stupid haircut
Dead Kennedys: Most of the catalog notably “Holiday In Cambodia”, Jock-o-Rama, Well Paid Scientist, etc. etc.
Bob Dylan: “Masters of War”
Peter Tosh: “Downpresser Man” I would like to be a flea under your collar man
Ween: "Piss up a Rope"Now you’re up shit creek with a turd for a paddle
Jason and the Scorchers: “Change the Tune” You think it’s morning when it’s late afternoon
DustMagnate, you beat me to nominating the Dead Kennedys. Pure, unadulterated vitriol.
From Man with the Dogs
A stare is worth a thousand biting phrases,
See how stupid you are?
From Holiday in Cambodia
So you’ve been to school for a year or two
And you know you’ve seen it all.
In daddy’s car, thinkin’ you’ll go far,
Back east your type don’t crawl.
Play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul
It’s time to taste what you most fear
Right Guard will not help you here
Brace yourself, my dear…It’s a holiday in Cambodia
It’s tough, kid, but it’s life
It’s a holiday in Cambodia
Don’t forget to pack a wife
You’re a star-belly sneech
You suck like a leach
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you
Well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
For a bowl of rice a day
Slave for soldiers till you starve
Then your head is skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son…
Is a holiday in Cambodia
Where people dress in black
A holiday in Cambodia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack
Pol Pot Pol Pot Pol Pot Pol Pot etc…
Where you’ll do what you’re told
A holiday in Cambodia
Where the slums got so much soul
Let me have a go at this:
Skinny Puppy- Testure, Tin Omen, Vx Gas Attack, but then again it’s really hard to tell wether or not these songs are of the vitriolic fashion, for they are sung in and written in stream of conscience form.
Front Line Assembly- Iceolate, MegaSlave…
Front242- Religion
NIN-happiness in slavery
Mesh-People like Me(with this gun)
The Germans had some pretty sulfuric war songs even before Hitler. The most famous of these, I think, was Ernst Lissauer’s anti-English “Hymn of Hate”:
What do we care for the Russians or French?
Shot against shot, and thrust for thrust!
We fight the foe with bronze and sheath,
And some day or other we make our peace.
You we shall hate with enduring hate;
We shall not forbear from our hate;
Hate on water and hate on land,
Hate of the head and hate of the hand,
Hate of the hammer and hate of the crown,
Hate of seventy millions pressing down.
We love as one; we hate as one;
We have one foe, and one alone, England.
[nitpick]
Thea, “Sanz Kant Dance”, is actually “Zanz Kant Dance” for Saul Zaentz, president of Fantasy Records. He screwed CCR royally, and he did sue to have the song title changed.
[/nitpick]
(Emphasis mine)
Biggirl, if you were in my family I would have found it necessary to kill you. All of Jim Steinman’s songs are like that. No, it doesn’t qualify as vitriol, but if I hear one his songs again, I will DRINK vitriol. Thank god the 80s are over.
“I Hope You’re Happy Now” and “No Action” by Elvis Costello. Alos, the Housemartins had some vitriolic lyrics, though they’re hard to notice with the sweet, poopy music.
[quote]
I’ve come to wish you an unhappy birthday,
'Cause you’re evil and you lie,
And if you should die,
I may feel slightly sad but I won’t cry!**
And I guess you could read Pretty in Pink by the Psychedelic Furs as a vitriolic song. At least the way I understand it the song is vitriolic.
The lyrics of the song are murky enough to be fodder for a debate on their own, but I always understood it to be about a girl who is a bit, er, “loose,” and spends a lot of time out of her clothes. The boys joke that she is “pretty in pink,” i.e. she looks good naked. The singer is none too happy with her. Am I the only one who reads it this way?
I can’t believe no one has mentioned “Like A Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan. I mean, he must have really hated some girl to triumph over the fact that, although she was once wealthy, now she’s a dirt poor, homeless hooker. Although I love that classic, it still grates on me sometimes.