X is for X-rated

If you are offended by naughty words look away now - this is a celebration of the f-word in all its glory.

Because cursing is fun and squeaky clean music sucks, I've taken inspiration from Daft Scots Lass who posted M is for Muthafucker earlier in the game and compiled a lovely, naughty word inspired collection of songs.

I was going to do a whole post about x-rated music, with banned record sleeves and albums, but sadly I don't have the time to go into all that. What I will say though is that the original artwork for Guns n Roses 'Appetite For Destruction', which depicted a robot having just raped a woman and was based on a painting by Robert Williams, was deemed too offensive for record stores to stock. The banned artwork was replaced with the classic skulls image that has adorned the album since.

Sadly, there are many acts of similar censorship in music. Instead of having artwork that makes us think, record companies are more concerned with having sleeves that shift units. So it goes.

My top three uses of the word motherfucker in song:



Don't Say Motherfucker, Motherfucker - Turbonegro





Binge and Purge - Clutch






Die Like a Motherfucker - Therapy?


Also check out:

Heartless Bastard Motherfucker - Frank Turner

History's Stranglers - The Bronx

F is for Frank Turner

Oh Frank. How empty my life and iPod were without you, your guitar and your stories. Without that chance encounter at Leeds Festival 2008 I might never have known about the songwriter of a generation and discovered that charming blend of acoustic folk/punk that you've crafted as your own.

You had me hooked from the first song, but the most memorable moment of this set for me was that you made me cry. Telling the story of your friend Lexi, who died of cancer, through the most heartbreaking, but also heartwarming, lyrics, you transformed a rowdy crowd to a sobbing wreck.

'Long Live the Queen' is a magical moment in music that sadly took a personal tragedy to create and every time I hear it live, with so many people singing along, I  get a lump in my throat.

The following year I saw you at Leeds again, in a bigger tent, where the few hundred supporters from 2008 had morphed into several thousand and they all sang along. I cried again and I wasn't the only one.

I'm sure you've done her proud.






My top five Turner tracks to check out:


* The Ballad of Me and My Friends

* St Christopher is Coming Home

* Balthazar, Impresario

* Back in the Day

* Long Live the Queen (see above)

C is for Cover Versions

A good cover version, by definition, is a song transformed. It's what happens when a band has the vision to see past the original, to take a song in a new direction and completely run away with it. I think it's pretty lame when bands can't manage to put their own spin on a song, when they don't have enough character or heart to give it a new personality - afterall, who wants a shitty, second-rate version of the original? No, they'll be none of that here. Come with me and I'll show you five bands who have the vision to make a song their own...


Here's my top five cover versions:


'Whiskey in the Jar' - Metallica
A traditional Irish drinking song taken on by Thin Lizzy back in the early '70s, but completely remolded by Metallica into a meaty beast of a track. And, it's got awesome riffage you can't help but sing along too.


'Hurt' - Johnny Cash
A truly haunting and thought-provoking number by Nine Inch Nails, some say about heroin addiction, some say about suicide. Latterly destroyed in an appalling cover version by Leona Lewis. However, while the original makes for heavy listening, Johnny Cash's take on the track is simply beautiful and he makes it into his own story of a man at the end of his life apologising for his mistakes. If you don't like this you have no heart.


'To Have and to Have Not' - Lars Frederiksen and the Bastards
It's got attitude, it's got swagger and soundwise, it comes with a lot more balls than the original by folk/punk singer Billy Bragg. That's not to say I don't love the original - as a leftie and political song writer, Bragg's lyrics always stand way above the music and always capture the world just how it is.

Check out these prophetic lyrics:

The factories are closing and the army's full,

I don't know what I'm going to do,

But I've come to see in the Land of the Free

There's only a future for a chosen few

'The District Sleeps Alone Tonight' - Frank Turner
The one man acoustic warrior is the maestro of cover versions, effortlessly turning Black Flag's 'Fix Me' and Bad Brain's 'Pay to Cum' from bile-ridden blasts of pure fury into songs that could easily pass for his own. Here, he takes The Postal Service's electronic number, removes the fluff and strips it back down to its bare and beautiful bones. Stunning.


'Immortal' - Clutch
There's making a song you're own, then there's totally re-writing it. Once upon a time, this dirty rock gem was a '70s classic rock, Free-sounding Leslie West (of Mountain) number titled 'Baby I'm Down'. Not only was West ok with it being rewritten both lyrically and musically by Clutch, he helped them do it.


This is part of the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, find out more HERE.