What’s the filthiest song lyric you can think of?
It’s no surprise if your mind drifted towards the rappers, pop stars, and RnB divas of the last decade or so. After all, in the less than 50 years between The Beatles singing ‘I wanna hold your hand‘ to Lady Gaga cooing ‘I wanna ride your disco stick‘ it’s no secret that popular music has become more sexually explicit.
But there’s historic examples of yesteryear that are crude enough to make even the most foul-mouthed of modern musicians blush. Try this one on for size: “My back is made of whalebone/And my cock is made of brass/And my fuckin’ is made for workin’ men’s two dollars/ Great God, round to kiss my ass.”
No, that’s not a few lines from dirty ‘Whisper Song‘ rappers Ying Yang Twins, nor is it from the lothario mind of Prince. Those lyrics are in fact taken from a song by Lucille Bogan, a blues singer who became one of America’s first recording artists in the 1930s, who also used the pseudonym Bessie Jackson.
The song entitled ‘Shave ‘Em Dry’, was the last Bogan ever recorded – in New York in 1935 – and its openly promiscuous subject matter is rather bracing, chiefly because the rare, scratchy recording has all the characteristics of a twee vintage recording – but it’s language very much isn’t.
Yes, you’re hearing that correctly, “I got somethin’ between my legs’ll make a dead man come/ Oh daddy, baby won’t you shave ’em dry?” Another of Bogan’s songs may also be the world’s first lesbian anthem, in ‘B.D. Woman’s Blues’ sung from the titular B.D. slang terminology of the era for ‘bull dyke’ as the blue singer coos “they ain’t gonna need no men.”
While Bogan might be the rudest example, she’s actually one of a raft of similarly sexually themed songs from the decade – though they were usually performed in secret at adult entertainment clubs around America during the 1920s and 30s rather than captured in recording booths, especially when many of the performers were female.
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Male performers in the sub-genre of ‘dirty blues’ also got in on the act, with a number of recordings from 1930s artists singing in rather unsubtle double entendres – such as Blind Boy Fuller’s ‘Sweet Honey Hole’ and Bo Carter’s phallic infatuation in ‘Warm My Weiner‘ and ‘My Pencil Don’t Write No More’.
Meanwhile across the pond British bandleader Harry Roy sang about an obsession with the female genitalia in the clarinetist’s 1931 song ‘My Girl’s Pussy’, featuring a series of cheeky couplets that may not actually be about his female suitor’s feline: “There’s one pet I like to pet, and every evening we get set/I stroke it every chance I get” The song may also be familiar to Australian audiences for its use in the TV show Laid (the ABC mini-series created by writer Marieke Hardy).
Then there’s ‘Stuff’ Smith, whose 1936 tune ‘You’se A Viper’ avoids any icky snake metaphors and instead sees him singing about his passion for cannabis, with the opening couplet, “dreamed about a reefer five feet long” (maybe he’s Snoop Dogg’s great, great grandfather?). Ditto the 1936 tune ‘The Weed Smoker’s Dream‘, performed by a number of artists including the Harlem Hamfats; the Chicago jazz group made a career out of recording racy tunes, including ‘Let’s Get Drunk And Truck’ – a ‘ditty’ also recorded by the likes of blues guitarist Tampa Red and the probably-not-mistakenly named Lil’ Johnson.
There’s plenty more examples floating around the internet showing that the 1930s may well be the dirtiest decade in music, with YouTube playlists and an entire subreddit dedicated to Lucille Bogan’s ‘Shave Em Dry‘ being a good place to start (highlight: “Every generation thinks they’re the first to fuck… And every generation is horrified to learn that they aren’t).
So next time the old folks complain about how raunchy and vulgar modern music is, maybe remind them that the music of their day wasn’t so clean cut either.
