Personally, I’ve always thought the Dead Kennedys’ song “Too Drunk to F*ck” was a bit too subtle… 
Oh yeah, and then there was the Beatles’ “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”
Well, one of those companies that reissues old 78s on cassette and CD has several “Blue” collections (not “Blues”) from the 1920s and '30s. Some of the titles:
NEW RUBBIN’ ON THAT DARNED OLD THING
PRESS MY BUTTON
YOU STOLE MY CHERRY
GET OFF WITH ME
KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF MY MOJO
I’LL KEEP SITTIN’ ON IT
TAKE OUT THAT THING FOR ME
SOMEBODY’S BEEN RIDIN’ MY BLACK GAL
IT’S TOO BIG PAPPA
IT’S TIGHT LIKE THAT
A GUY WHAT TAKES HIS TIME
NELLIE THE NUDIST QUEEN
EVERYONE’S GOT SEX APPEAL FOR SOMEONE
LET’S ALL BE FAIRIES
I’M GOING TO GIVE IT TO MARY WITH LOVE
Some see themselves in telescopes.
Do you see yourself in me?
We’re such crazy babies, little monkey,
God, we’re so fucked up, you and me.
-
Recovering the Satellites
Counting Crows
I really don’t think John burned the woman’s house down in “Norwegian Wood.”
I always took “So I lit a fire” to mean that he shrugged, said “The hell with it,” and lit a joint.
An interesting trivia note about one of the songs Eve mentioned, “Sittin’ On It.” It’s about a woman who elects to preserve her virginity, and the singer details her life at various ages, for example: “When you was eighteen, you was a natchural queen…When you was forty-one, you coulda had your fun…BUT YOU KEPT ON SITTIN’ ON IT ALL THE TIME!” The joke is, she gets older and older, and finally the singer goes “Now you’re sixty-three, you’re too old for me…SO KEEP ON SITTIN’ ON IT ALL THE TIME!”
In some of the older versions of the song, the lady in question is being, um, approached by men at a rather tender age. I’ve heard one recording that begins “When you was ten, you used to run from men…”
“Hold Her Down”, Toad The Wet Sprocket, P.S. (A Toad Retrospective)
Take her arms and hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down,
'Till she stops moving
Take her arms and hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down,
'Till she stops kicking
And they don’t know her, but what the fuck
They’ve got nothing else they can do
And they’ve no reason, but still they come
And I
Would have a hard time facing you
This crime, I’ve seen what a man can do
Take her arms and hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down,
'Till she stops screaming
Take her arms and hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down
And hold her down,
'Till she stops breathing
And they don’t know her, but what the fuck
They’ve got nothing else they can do
And they’ve no reason, but still they come
And I
Would have a hard time facing you
This crime, the shame of what a man can do
I would have died, from all the hell that you’ve been through…
…
Take the night back, all they stole and all they took from you…
Take the night back, all they stole and all we took from you
You youngsters are missing a lot.
What about Cole Porter? “Let’s Do It,” for instance, as well as “Let’s Misbehave.”
There’s Harry Warren’s “Young and Healthy,” “Petting in the Park,” “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” and “Honeymoon Hotel.”
And, of course, “Chestnut Mare” by the Byrds.
And John did burn down the apartment. “I lit a fire/Isn’t it good/Norwegian wood” implies he’s burning the Norwegian wood; i.e., the apartment.
I just asked a buncha boomers in the office what THEY thought was implied in those lines in “Norwegian Wood”…frankly, I think this one’s good enough for a separate thread. See you there!
Surprised nobody’s mentioned Frank Zappa yet. Although he had plenty of songs that could be considered risque, nothing is more so than “Dyna-Moe-Hum,” IMHO. What a wager…
And what about Alice Cooper? IIRC, “Only Women Bleed” wasn’t exactly porno, but it also wasn’t about, say, paper cuts.
And any student who admitted liking his “School’s Out” nowadays would probably be suspended under zero tolerance rules and sent for counselling.
So, is the world safe for Axel Rose yet? Whether Guns’Roses will come back in eighties style… That’s another thing to consider. It could be so Austin Powers.
This is not really relevant (it’s just funny) but it has a word in it that has only been alluded to previously by generations of rock lyricists. It’s Robbie Williams:
I’m an honorary Sean Connery, born '74
There’s only one of me
Single-handedly raising the economy
Ain’t no chance of the record company dropping me
Press be asking do I care for sodomy
I don’t know, yeah, probably
I’ve been looking for serial monogamy
Not some bird that looks like Billy Connolly
But for now I’m down for ornithology
Grab your binoculars, come follow me
Not porn, but implied mayhem:
Elvis Costello - Alison
It sounds like a nice song about an old love, but the lyrics sure seem to indicate that the protagonist is about to shoot that old love…
Is it possible that rock artists deliberately subvert their lyrics to prevent their songs falling into the hands of cabaret performers? They may do this by sexual references (as in the examples above) or, as RadioHead seems to have done in the examples below, by using weird words or concepts. These lyrics (from Thinking about You and Green Plastic Trees) are set to the loveliest melodies but are they Las Vegas friendly?
been thinking about you, your record’s a hit
your eyes are on my wall, your teeth are over there
but I’m still no-one, and you’re not a star
what do you care
she lives with a broken man
a cracked polystyrene man
who just crumbles and burns
he used to do surgery
on girls in the eighties
but gravity always wins
Maybe I’ve ruined my Natalie Umbruglia argument. Oh well.
We had a song in the '40’s called “Bottoms Up”, and “The Shady Lady of Shady Lane”. They were quite suggestive, then “redeemed” themselves with an unlikely explanation in the last line.
Hm… My vote would be for Posion, by AC there. Much more sexual than Only Women Bleed. House on Fire, Bed of Nails, Spark in the Dark and Feed my Frankenstein all have their moments.
But Poison rules. Even has S&M to boot. Can’t beat that!