Eff-You Songs
This morning I was listening to Bob Dylan, something I haven’t done for quite some time now, and came upon my favorite Dylan song, Positively Fourth Street. Dylan was one of my entry-points into popular music (jr. high) so when I first listened to this chorus-less masterpiece I had never before cared to listen to lyrics…and what wonderful lyrics they are! Before then I had only known lyrics of a positive nature, of love and little streams giving. This was a revelation.
Since then I’ve discovered others whose lyrics express the same f*** you quality to them (as opposed to just angry music), my favorite being Me Vale (I don’t give a damn) by Mana. This song is more about The Man rather than a specific man like Carly Simon’s classic You’re So Vain. Other favorites are Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac and You Oughta Know by Alanis Morrisette.
What are some other favorites and why?
Posted on October 20, 2006, in Music. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
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Pink Floyd’s “One of these Days”
It’s pretty straightforward, since there is only one lyrical line, spoken once in a rather distorted voice:
“one of these days I’m going to cut you into little pieces”
“You Can Go Your Own Way” is such a wonderful song. Are we going to post some of those to the radio.blog? Send ‘em to me Rusty.
My first thought was a very angry-sounding song by a brilliant hardcore band called Converge, “You Fail Me:”
You fail me as love’s greatest war
That was never worth
You were never worth fighting for…
You think you are tragic but I know you are lost
You have walked the fault lines
And you have crossed them all
This world doesn’t fight you, you fight yourself
Thinking we fail you, you fail yourself
Also, Magnolia Electric Company has a great song called “Such Pretty Eyes For a Snake:”
Now if I came upstairs with you I bet I’ll be just in time
To be part of something I’ll regret my whole life
It wouldn’t be the first time that I made a mistake in my life
In fact I learned how to make a living out of making mistakes
Besides you got such pretty eyes for a snake
The Waterboys have a song I love called “We Will Not Be Lovers:”
The world’s full of trouble, everybody’s scared
Landlords are frowning, cupboards are bare
People are scrambling like dogs for a share
It’s cruel and it’s hard
But it’s nothing compared to what we do to each other
We will not be lovers
More popular songs:
Queen – Liar
Jane’s Addiction – Idiots Rule or Pigs in Zen
Alison Krauss & Union Station – The Lucky One
I bet there’s a ton of country songs that fit this.
Take this Job and Shove It – Johnny Paycheck
The Last Thing I Gave Her was the Bird – Jerry Lee
Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone – Roy Clark
Ben Folds (Five) – One Angry Dwarf & 200 Solemn Faces, Song for the Dumped
I’m sure other Ben songs qualify, but those are my faves.
Elvis Costello – Tramp the Dirt Down, Alison
Billy Joel – Everybody Loves You Now
Violent Femmes – Kiss off
The Ramones – Glad to see You Go
just off the top of my head
I have always thought of Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive as a very classy flip of the bird, especially as Cake covers it.
Well, there’s RATM, Killing in the Name. The ultimate f-you song.
Correction – it was George Jones, not Jerry Lee, who gave us the immortal lines:
Oh, my woman moved out on me today
And left that old stool pigeon
Parrot trembling in his cage
I hollered from the front porch
And stopped her at the curb
And the last thing I gave her was the bird
Chorus:
Oh, the last thing I gave her was the bird
And she returned the favor with a few selected words
I don’t have to worry now what’s being overheard
‘Cause the last thing I gave her was the bird
She sat the cage beside her on the seat
And left two streaks of firestone smokin’ on the street
The neighbors ran for cover
They could see she was disturbed
‘Cause the last thing I gave her was the bird
Reminiscent of Shakespeare, no?
“These Boots Are Made For Walking” by Nancy Sinatra
You keep saying you got something for me
Something you call love but confess
You been messing where you shouldn’t have been messing
And now someone else is getting all your best
Well these boots are made for walking
And that’s just what they’ll do
One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you
“Song for the Dumped” by Ben Folds Five
So you wanted
To take a break
Slow it down some and
Have some space
Well f*** you too
Give me my money back
Give me my money back
You bi***
I want my money back
(and don’t forget to give
Me back my black t-shirt)
Wish I hadn’t bought you dinner
Right before you dumped me
On your front porch
Give me my money back
Give me my money back
You bi***
I want my money back
And don’t forget
And don’t forget.
What else?
“Goodbye to You” by Scandal
Probably my favorite is:
“This is the Last Day of Our Acquaintance” by Sinead O’Connor
General F. U. Songs:
“Kiss Off” by Violent Femmes
“Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against the Machine
“Kim” by Eminem
You know what song is awesome? “Forgiven” by Ben Harper. Just the way he sings “You shall be forgiven,” like he’s pronouncing a curse.
Also:
The Who – “A Legal Matter”
The Police – “De Doo Doo Doo”
Soundgarden – “Nothing to Say”
Husker Du – “Makes No Sense At All”
The Eagles: “Already Gone”
Led Zeppelin: “Your Time Is Gonna Come”
Already Gone – the Eagles
I’ve Done Everything For You – Rick Springfield (very underrated song)
Death on Two Legs – Queen (not about a girlfriend, but very much in the spirit of FU songs)
And a hearty agreement with Cake’s I Will Survive.
The Beatles: “Sexie Sadie”
John Lennon: “How Do You Sleep?”
Another song that seems sarcastic to me, which I know isn’t intended to be, is Natalie Merchant’s “Thank You.” She just lays it on so thick.
I just listened to “Crawl Back Under My Stone” by Richard Thompson. Unless you want to interpret it as a straightforward song of self-loathing, I think it qualifies here.
I’m not much of a country fan, but “Here’s a Quarter, Call Someone who Cares” has to be one of the classic eff-you songs. Also, Keith Urban’s one that’s all over the radio lately, You’ll think of me.
Mana’s Te Llore un Rio is not bad, but nowhere near as good as Me Vale.
Tom Petty, Don’t Come Around Here no More.
And a bunch that have already been named (Kiss Off, Already Gone, etc . . .)
Why you shouldn’t read and try to comprehend while taking care of a newborn with a cold: I skimmed and my first thought was “Figures on a Beach’s Accidentally 4th Street is a Dylan cover? That’s odd…”. And then I reread. Heh…
As an aside: Paul Weller’s cover of Sexy Sadie is the greatest…
REM—”The One I Love”
This one goes out to the one I love
This one goes out to the one I left behind
A simple prop to occupy my time
This one goes out to the one I love
Loretta Lynn—”Family Tree”
Loretta Lynn seems like such a nice old lady, then you hear this song that’s not so nice. It’s doubly insulting to the hussy that stole her man: on one level she’s trash because she’s a homewrecker, but even more damning is that the guy she stole is such a scumbag, hardly worth the trouble.
No I didn’t come to fight
If he was a better man I might
But I wouldn’t dirty my hands on trash like you, no
Bring out the babies’ daddy, that’s who they’ve come to see
Not the woman that’s burnin’ down our family tree
Bauhaus—”Crowds”
This one gets me first because of it’s directness and second because of Peter Murphy’s scornful delivery. I can just see the spit flying out of his mouth as he says “fickle sh**.”
Take what you can of me
Rip what you can off me
And this I’ll say to you
And hope that it gets through
You worthless bi***
You fickle sh**
You will spit on me
You will make me spit
And when the judas hour arives
And like the Jesus Jews you epitomize
I’ll still be here as strong as you
And I’ll walk away in spite of you
Elliott Smith—”Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands”
Kind of an “Eff you” to the world. It’s pretty sad, actually. The dude’s tearing himself apart and he doesn’t trust anyone to help him.
Everybody cares, everybody understands
yes everybody cares about you
yeah and whether or not you want them to
it’s a chemical embrace that kicks you in the head
to a pure synthetic sympathy that infuriates you totally
and a quiet lie that makes you wanna scream and shout . . .
you say you mean well,
you don’t know what you mean
f***ing ought to stay the hell away from
things you know nothing about
Anything Conor Boyak does, especially When the President Talks to God is an eff-you to the right wing america.
I think you mean Conor Oberst, from Bright Eyes, rather than Conor Boyack.