7 Songs From Your Grandpa's Day That Would Make Eminem Blush
Your grandparents are full of crap.
As they grumble about how rap music is destroying civilization, what they don't mention is that the blues they were listening to in the 30s and 40s could be every bit as violent, sexually explicit and sometimes just downright insane as the worst gansta rap has to offer. Compared to some of these vintage lyrics the members of N.W.A are levelheaded concerned citizens, and Eminem's a regular damned feminist.
#7.
Skip James Cuts a Woman in Half ("22-20 Blues" - 1931)
"22-20 Blues" tells the tale of a woman who just won't get her act straight. See, Skip James sent for her, on several occasions, and yet she didn't show up! The brazen audacity! Of course, in the world of blues, there's only one way to deal with minor punctuality issues: brutal, brutal murder.
Big on punctuality.
A Few Choice Quotes
Sometimes she gets unruly;
An she act like she just don't wanna do;
But I get my 22-20;
I cut that woman half in two;
Your .38 Special;
Buddy, it's most too light;
But my 22-20;
Will make ev'rything, alright;
Shooting your woman with a mere .38 pistol? That's for pussies. Ironically James soon found himself humbled when Robert Johnson recorded a far more popular version of his song. The only real change Johnson made? He upped the caliber and named it the "32-20 Blues." It was all about the gun size with those boys.
#6.
Lucille Bogan Fucks Corpses ("Shave 'Em Dry" - 1935)
Looking at a picture of Lucille Bogan, it's easy to imagine her as the motherly type, making breakfast and scolding you for your dirty mouth; but in reality beneath the modest exterior was the queen of the "dirty blues," and the writer of such classics as "Sloppy Drunk Blues," "Tricks Ain't Walkin' No More" and the "Bull Dyke Women's Blues."
Her most infamous song was "Shave 'Em Dry," a three-minute ode to her own humping prowess so filthy it would Lil' Kim blush.
A Few Choice Quotes
I got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb;
I got somethin' between my legs'll make a dead man come.
You know it's a good song when the first two lines reference necrophilia and giant freak nipples.
Say I fucked all night, and all the night before baby;
And I feel just like I wanna fuck some more.
You know how people ask which dead celebrity you'd like to meet if you could? We submit Lucille Bogan for your consideration.
Move over Gandhi! You shithead!
Now your nuts hang down like a damn bell sapper;
And your dick stands up like a steeple;
Your goddamn asshole stands open like a church door;
And the crabs walks in like people.
Er, actually we take that back.
#5.
King Solomon Hill Sentences a Woman to Devil Rape ("Whoopee Blues" - 1932)
"Whoopee Blues" is another song about a poor blues man having to deal with a mean mistreating woman. King Solomon Hill isn't one to settle for mere murder though, he wants his woman sent to hell to do it with the Devil--which strikes us as just a tad judgmental. We're no theologians, but we're pretty sure slashing your girlfriend to death with a razor is pretty much a one-way ticket to becoming Satan's bitch.
Don't worry, he's in Hell now.
A Few Choice Quotes
Tell me you been gone all day, that you may make whoopee all night;
I'm gonna take my razor and cut your late hours;
You wouldn't think I'd be servin' you right.
I said, Undertaker been here and gone, I gave him your height and size;
You be makin' whoopee with the Devil in Hell tomorrow night.
Apparently undertakers didn't ask a whole lot of questions back then.
"Height and size, check, and you're paying cash? No problem."
Baby, you done made me love you, now I got me for your slave;
From now you'll be makin' whoopee, deep in your lonesome grave.
Ahhh, now we see. He did it because he cared too much!
#4.
Josie Miles Terrorizes a City ("Mad Mama Blues" - 1924)
Obviously violence against women was a bit of an unfortunate theme of early blues; but, as Josie Miles shows, female blues singers didn't shrink from a bit of insane violence either. Josie doesn't even need a reason. In "Mad Mama Blues" she's out to wreck the city like Godzilla in a cocktail dress and there's nothing you can do to stop it.
A Few Choice Quotes
Now I could see blood runnin';
Through the streets;
Could be everyone;
Layin' dead right right at my feet.
"Hello?! 9-11? Quick! You have to... oh God, she's coming!"
Give me gunpowder;
Give me dynamite;
Yes I'd wreck the city;
Wanna blow it up tonight.
"It's Josie Miles!"
I took my big Winchester;
Down off the shelf;
When I get through shootin';
There won't be nobody left.
"Send the police! The national guard! Before it's too... arrrraaghaghh!"
Actual photograph.
damn...how old do you think our grandparents are?
ReplyA to Z Blues sounds more like a HooDoo spell to jinx a women who did you wrong.
ReplyThis wasn't mainstream. Most people would have been listening to a bit of old "Bing Crosby", "Cole Porter." Show tunes. This would have been underground stuff. Esoteric.
ReplyThis makes me really curious as to what the grandparents of *these* people said about their music...especially thinking about what their grandparents grew up listnening to in comparison.
ReplyButcher Pete is in Fallout 3! I love listening to that one while shooting things.XD
ReplyAnd I lost it at "Peppermint candy? Munchies in the pre-Doritos era sucked."
Crank it up Three Dog!
Guess what I'm presenting for black history month.
ReplyMy god...you just killed me lol. You win the internet.
Make Eminem blush? Someone never listened to the Slim Shady LP or anything from D12. I get the point, "gosh it sure is shocking this music was song by people in the 30's", but cmon we've been around as a species for roughly 10,000 years, do you really think the modern era has produced the most offensive content?
ReplyNo one else besides me caught the mention of 911 in a song from 1924? 911 didn't even come about in the US until the 1940s!
ReplyMy bad, I mistook the comments as lyrics, oops. Any who, you can hear 'shave 'em dry' on youtube. It seems inappropriate to hear lyrics like that from that time period, but if you've seen 'The Color Purple', I guess you shouldn't be all that surprised.
What's the common denominator with all of these examples?
ReplyBacon
just added every last one of them to my playlist, then called and asked my grandmother about them.
Replyamazing how she develops alzhiemer's at just the right time.
"Apparently undertakers didn't ask a whole lot of questions back then."
ReplyI just lost it!
Seriously ... does no one here know what "cutting heads" means?
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesExactly what I thought. Clearly not written by a bluesman.
I know only because I googled it after reading your comment
Oh. Well that's a lot less terrifying. Also a lot less interesting.
I always knew my kin could make GOOD music.
Reply(I'm 90% blind. JAWS is my friend)
Lol.. blues and jazz artists singing songs about death or sex? No wonder my grandparents' parents called rock the "devil's music". It's roots are in sex and murdering. :P
ReplyLucille Bogan must be what our grandparents had instead of Cannibal Corpse.
ReplyActually, looking at these, they all kinda have a creepy Gore Metal vibe to them.
My bad, I was thinking of the one below that.
Hahaha, was thinking the same thing. The article's title shoulda changed to "songs from your grandpa's day that would make 'brutal death metal' bands proud" for #1 (Blind Willie)
Oh my God! Was Ms. Bogan the origin of the Australian slang term? [a "bogan" being a redneck, white trash, CHAV etc.]
ReplyWhy should a black American's name give rise to Aussie slang about poor whites? More plausible is that there was a Bogan in Australia whose name became synonymous with being white trash.
Whoa whoa whoa, I was in NO way trying to be racist, mate. I'm just saying that's not the kind of song you'd play in polite company, and seeing the name associated with it made me jump. I'm sincerely sorry to have offended anyone. :(
Meanwhile, the Australian Oxford Dictionary sites the origin of the term "bogan" as "unknown". The mystery continues.
Great article.
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThough it must be said:
I'm not white, but most folks on this site probably are. I don't think their grandpas were listening to blues. And for that matter, most blues fans don't even listen to this kind of blues (apart from Robert Johnson's cover of that first song, of course).
It kinda goes without saying that there has always been 'extreme' music in one way or another. It's just that it took until the late 80s for it to rise above the underground, and even then, the most extreme stuff still got left behind. N.W.A.'s a household name, but Mayhem isn't. Now Mayhem would REALLY make Eminem blush. But then again, Mayhem was a band of violence-loving (the real kind, not the movie/game kind) assholes, so I'm glad they're not mainstream.
I was thinking the same thing... In my grandfathers case, the language was different, but he had one record that used to make me laugh. I believe the record was called "I'll go chasin' women". I have not seen that record in 25 years but I remember that it the person singing the song was talking about not doing anything but that and describing which one he wanted in particular. What made this record memorable is that the guy became a preacher and all the copies were recalled.
You might be surprised when finding out what white people were really listening to and doing in the twenties. Popular media has given the world a white washed (no pun intended)image off that time which has little to do with the reality off that time.
In all fairness, white people invented the first (photographed) porn, so it wasn't exactly like we can't be dirty.
Considering that he's blind, he would have to stab the braille alphabet into her. And, using the metaphor established by Stabbin Pete and the necrophilia in Shave Em Dry and the murderousness in 22-20 Blues, this is getting pretty gruesome.
Reply"Her most infamous song was "Shave 'Em Dry," a three-minute ode to her own humping prowess so filthy it would Lil' Kim blush."
ReplyYou forgot "make" :) Great article!
So all of these songs are from a very specific genre of blues music that the author actually mentions called "dirty blues". Not surprisingly the dirty blues is all about sex, drugs, and murder. It represented the dark world that black people of the age were forced to inhabit, was a big "fuck you" to the establishment, and something that could be owned and related to by a people who inhabited the blues world. Which was often a terrible impoverished, drug and alcohol filled life. Kind of exactly the spot rap used to be in. Maybe a more appropriate title for this article would have been 7 of the dirtiest blues songs. Also the average American in the 1920-30 era didn't listen to music anywhere but on a live stage. So no, I don't think my first generation German born great-grandparents were hanging out in blues clubs.
ReplyMaybe in some places. But my grandparents were active in church, had a business and home and a strong community and family base at that time. They weren't inhabiting an impoverished, drug and alcohol surrounded world.
Swrrws: First off, way to take all the fun out of this article, what with your hair splitting about why all these "dirty blues" songs were, in fact, about things like murder, alcohol, sex, and any combination of those things. Second, who suggested that your German great-grandparents were hanging out in blues clubs and listening to these songs? The title of the article is "7 Songs from Your Grandpa's Day That Would Make Eminem Blush", not "7 Songs from Swrrws' Great-Grandparents' Day That They Rocked Out To In German Blues Clubs".