- Swedish pop star Zara Larsson does feature some on her debut album So Good (2017). The first one can be found in One Mississippi
We don't get scared when the sirens come A little fucked up 'cause we think it's fun
- This was also found in I Can’t Fall in Love Without You
Don't you think I give a fuck? (Yeah, yeah, yeah) Give a fuck 'bout who you fuck? (Yeah, yeah, yeah)
- The song This Love by Camila Cabello from her 2019 album Romance has this, despite the fact this is Camila’s first use of the f-word in her songs
So fuck this love, calling my name Get out of my veins If you need your space then just walk away You know how to fuck me up then make it okay I guess that's just your game And I'm the one who gets played Again and again and again and again
- On her most recent album "Familia"(2022) the last track "Everyone at this Party" had two f-words uttered
And I'm looking over people's shoulders And that's fucked up, I know that followed by
Scotty told me you're here And I keep having these thoughts Did we fuck it up or not?
- In Boys Don't Cry
Hate it when you shut me out Acting like it's your shit to figure out''
- Benee has this on her popular song "Supalonely" as well as others on her debut album Hey U X (2020)
I know i'm fucked up, i'm a just a loser
- Royal Blood: The only song that contains some strong language is their very first song "Out of the Black":
And I promised you Like you promised me But those vows we made Fucked it up for free
- Razorlight in their 2006 album of the same name, particularly in the last song "Los Angeles Waltz"
It's been such a fucked up year
- Ellie Goulding, in her song "Army"
Know that we don't look like much But no one fucks it up like us
- Her fourth album Brightest Blue (2020), it was uttered only by collaborators (except the first song "Start" which she utters) which can be found in the last verse
You fuck with me I'll start a war Fighting against what I'm fighting for Another walk to the liquor store Trying to break me down a little more You fuck with me I'll start a war (You fuck with me I'll start a war) (I'm moving on from him) I'm moving on from him
- Bebe Rexha has this on her debut album Expectations (2018) despite the fact she swears in her EPs and her earlier songs prior to Expectations being released. One of which was Shining Star which features this line:
But he fell in love with her fucked up ways
- Taylor Swift, on her sixth album that was supposed to show her "bad side", even had cussing in “I Did Something Bad”
If a man talks shit, then I owe him nothing
- This happens in two of her albums in 2020 (Folklore and Evermore). Songs from Folklore includes The 1 with (I'm doing good, I'm on some new shit), Mad Women features the first-ever f-word used by Swift (Does she smile? Or does she mouth fuck you forever?), Betty with (Would you tell me to go fuck myself) and Peace with (I talk shit with my friends). On Evermore, Champagne Problems has (What a shame she's fucked in the head", they said), Goldrush with (I call you out on your contrarian shit), Tolerate It with (Lay the table with the fancy shit), Happiness with (Is just shit we're dividin' up) and Cowboy Like Me with (Plotted hard to fuck this up).
- On her more recent album Midnights (2022), there are multiple usages of the f word including in her second track “Maroon”
And I wake with your memory over me That's a real fuckin' legacy, legacy (It was maroon)
- The same with her fourth track “Snow on the Beach” with Lana Del Rey
And it's like snow at the beach Weird, but fuckin' beautiful Flying in a dream
- The song “Question” has this
A color I have searched for since But one thing after another Fuckin' situations, circumstances
It was one drink after another Fuckin' politics and gender roles And you're not sure and I don't know
- British singer Dua Lipa has 2 songs, the self-explanatory "IDGAF" (short for 'I Don't Give a Fuck', which is the last line in the chorus) and "Blow Your Mind (Mwah)"
If we don't fuck this whole thing up, Guaranteed, I can blow your mind
- The Veronicas has two instances, in "This is How it Feels" ("Why and how you had the heart to fuck up my whole life") and "Take Me On the Floor" ("Time's a bitch and my heart is sinking down").
- Ava Max has this on her song "On Somebody" (which is the starting point)
Heartbreak, Heartbreak is a Motherfucker
- Perhaps the biggest surprise of 2021 was with Olivia Rodrigo. Her debut album SOUR has a barrage of swear words. In "Traitor" (I'm so sick of seventeen, where's my fucking teenage dream?), "Driver's License" has (But I still fucking love you babe), "1 step forward, 3 steps back" has this (You got me fucked up in the head, boy),"Deja Vu" only has a milder word being used (Strawberry ice cream in Malibu Don't act like we didn't do that shit, too), "Good 4 u" has this (Well good for you, I guess you're getting everything you want You bought a new car and your career's really taking off It's like we never even happened, baby What the fuck is up with that?). In "Happier" (And do you tell her she's the most beautiful girl you've ever seen? An eternal love bullshit you know you'll never mean.
- The lead single from her second album "GUTS" (2023), "vampire", contains the lyrics "Bloodsucker, famefucker".
- Gayle (the 17 year old singer) have different versions of her hit ABCDEFU (2021). The angier version has more swearing then the nicer version (despite have omitted the swearing)or the regular version.
- Alanis Morissette with her song "You Oughta Know." Although the song has a number of sex references, none are as blatant as the line "Are you thinking of me when you fuck her?"
- A Perfect Circle holds off on the cursing until near the end of "Passive" (repeating the line "passive-aggressive bullshit" over and over as the song fades out), but they only use the F-word twice in the song. The first time just sounds like an agitated "You fucking disappoint me," but the second time is a much more profound "You FUCKING disappoint me!!" First f-strike comes around 3:05
and the second will follow afterwards. - A brilliant tactical F strike from Bloc Party's "Positive Tension":
Why'd you have to get so hysterical?
Why'd you have to get so hysterical? (6x)
Why'd you have to get...so fuckin' useless?
- Avenged Sevenfold:
- Critical Acclaim has no less than THREE, one at the beginning of the first verse and two in M Shadow's rants following the first and second choruses.
- Nightmare "It's your fucking nightmare."
- Three Days Grace:
- Three Days Grace rarely swear in the music, with the exception of "fucked up" in their song "Riot". This bit is often edited to say "messed up" when played on public radio, although the swear word wasn't used in a sexual context.
- The chorus of Three Days Grace's "Over-rated" has the line "Your shit is overrated," which is repeated many times, and "gone forever" has the line "so I'll stay out all night, get drunk and fuck and fight." Adam Gontier also swears a lot during live performances. Still, Three Days Grace is usually pretty conservative with their profanity in comparison to other bands and recording artists out there.
- From "Wake Up"
I must be running out of luck,
'Cause you're just not drunk enough to fuck
- Despite their tendency to swear profusely in interviews, the brothers Gallagher have only had two songs featuring the word "fuck" in their discography: "Fuckin' in the Bushes" (where the eponymous phrase is repeated in a sample—there is no actual vocal on the song), and the Liam-written "Pass Me Down the Wine" (a B-side to the single "The Importance of Being Idle").
- Rise Against:
- The song "Rumors of My Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated" has one particularly strong F-bomb near the end:
We came in search of answers.
We left empty-handed again.
Shots fired into the sky are now returning.
Where the fuck will you hide?
- Because Rise Against rarely use any unsavory language, any song that has cursing could be considered this.
- The entire album could be considered a precision strike, as Siren Song of the Counter Culture avoided the dreaded sticker despite having a couple noticeable fucks (By comparison, the next release The Sufferer and the Witness has the sticker for swearing in a single song).
- From the Endgame album in the song Survivor Guilt
The shout out from their pedestals
with words like courage and resolve
but what they meant was fuck em all
cause freedom isn't free
- An obscure protopunk group from the 70s, the Electric Eels, released a 1991 compilation album titled "God Says Fuck You."
- Tori Amos's song "The Waitress" has one, in the loud, shrill chorus following the quiet, subdued tones in the verses
But I believe in peace
I believe in peace, BITCH
- Green Day:
- In the song "Too Much Too Soon", there is one right in the middle, during the bridge ("So god bless your fucking past and to hell with your glory"). Swearing is prevalent with Green Day, but the way it's used in this song (especially the Broadway version) is much heavier than previous swears.
- When Dookie was first released, swearing in mainstream music was not as common as it became a few years later, so when Billie Joe utters the lyrics "and I'm fucking lazy" in the leadoff single "Longview", it was a shock to a lot of people who weren't used to it.
- Bruce Springsteen:
- In the song "Long Time Comin'," on the subject of raising a child:
"I Reach 'neath your shirt, lay my hands across your belly
And feel another one kickin' inside
And I ain't gonna fuck it up this time"
- Also, in the song "Queen of the Supermarket:"
"As I lift my groceries into my cart
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fucking place apart"
- On live versions of "Lost in the Flood": (it's "messed up" on the album version)
Hey man, did you see that? Those poor cats are sure fucked up.
- The Mighty Lemon Drop's All The Way
I push the door but the key don't fit.
'Can't take no more of this fucking shit.
- OTOH, John Lennon's solo "Working Class Hero" has these two doozies:
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
...
Keep you doped up with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
- Iron Maiden:
- Their only album song with profanity (a few b-sides recorded just for laughs fit Cluster F-Bomb) is "Holy Smoke", with two ("Flies around shit, bees around honey" and the much more effective "I've lived in filth, I've lived in sin, and I still smell cleaner than the shit you're in!"). Later track "The Assassin"'s third verse ends with "You can kiss your ass goodbye".
- Less severe, but following album Fear of the Dark has "Fear is the Key", which has the line:
You don't get a say, 'til the majority gets its way
You're outnumbered by the bastards 'til the day you die
- Related to Maiden, on the forum Maidenfans, the song "Paschendale" is usually known as "Paschenfuckingdale", PFD for short, for being Awesome Music.
- Foo Fighters:
- While this band does have a few songs with swearing, "Word Forward" is the one that works best:
Years that I've wasted
These I owe you's
They're just fucking words!
- "Monkey Wrench" is also notable:
...EVERY SINGLE WORD YOU SAID
AND ALL THE SHIT
THAT SOMEHOW CAME ALONG WITH IT!
- Then there's "Something From Nothing":
"Fuck it all, I came from nothing!"
- Rick Astley normally does a downplayed version of the trope when performing "Never Gonna Give You Up" ("And if you ask me how I'm feeling\I'm feelin' bloody marvelous!"), but when playing the song with the Foos, he goes the whole way ("I just wanna tell how I'm feelin\I'm feeling FUCKING marvelous!").
- Weezer rarely ever uses the F word. One of those was by Lil Wayne, who uses curse words as punctuation, on "Can't Stop Partying" ("And the unusual is the fuckin' usual"). The "Black Album" has two, "Can't Knock the Hustle" ("I'm an ugly motherfucker but I work hella harder.") and "Byzantine" ("And fuck him if he just can't see").
- ''The Assumption Song'' narrowly avoids using swear words throughout most of the song, and has a single dirty word at the end.
- The Clash:
- "Stay Free":
When you lot get out
We're gonna hit the town
We'll burn it fuckin' down
To a cinder
- Also in "Death Or Glory"
I believe in this, and it's been tested by research
That he who fucks nuns will later join the church
- Tesla:
- A strange example with Björk's video for "Alarm Call:"
I'm no fucking Buddhist, but this is enlightenment
- The Prodigy's sophomore album, Music for the Jilted Generation, is a Protest Album against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 that criminalised rave parties across the UK. While large parts of the album show the band's anger more through their manic brand of breakbeat and techno, "Their Law" features a line that gets the album's point across very well.
FUCK 'EM AND THEIR LAW!
- Paramore's lyricist Hayley Williams has never sworn in a song (unless you count "whore" as a swear word, which in itself could be a Precision F Strike for a band like them) so there was quite a commotion when her solo song "Teenagers' was released containing the line "don't ask me where I'll go, 'cause frankly I don't know and I don't give a shit." And on her solo debut album Petals for Armor, she did finally let one loose on the opening track “Simmer.” Although It Makes Sense in Context (it’s a deeply personal song about her insecurities), her emphasis and delivery still shocked many:
If my child needed protection from a fucker like that man, I’d sooner gut him, ‘cos nothing hurts like a mother
- While Amanda Palmer likes to throw the word 'Fuck' around absolutely everywhere it can fit, Jeep Song is completely swear-free except for one, mind-blowingly powerful line;
I guess it's just my stupid luck/that all of Boston/drives the same black fucking truck
- Sufjan Stevens never released a song with profanity until 2010's "I Want to Be Well," repeating the line "I'm not fucking around" in the chorus 16 times.
- Toad The Wet Sprocket's "Hold Her Down" is their only song to include any cursing ("and they don't know her, but what the fuck, they've got nothing else they can do"). It's about outrage on behalf of a rape victim, which is probably why they considered it a justified use.
- The normally quiet and polite Cowboy Junkies drop one in the feminism-tinged "Floorboard Blues." Cue howls of approval from the audience, and a "Parental Advisory" sticker from the record company.
Don't accuse me of runnin' scared, listen to what I'm sayin'
It's a fucked up ol' world, mama, but this ol' girl, well... she ain't givin' in.
- The only song in Billy Joel's entire recorded output to contain an F-bomb is "Laura", from The Nylon Curtain.
Here I am, feeling like a fucking fool.
- Johnny Cash:
- Trivium, "Anthem (We Are the Fire)"
Turn your backs on your enemies
And let those motherfuckers rot in their jealousy!
- The Kinks:
- The lyric sheet claimed it was "the air pollution is a-foggin' up my eyes".
- At the end of their live performances of "Lola", as seen on the first video album, One for the Road, Ray Davies would often yell, "Lo-fucking-la!" Conveniently, that time they followed that one up with a performance of "Low Budget", which kind of sounds like the F strike, in an attempt to mask it to first-time viewers.
- While the band Behemoth is no stranger to using the f-word in their music, the song "Slaves Shall Serve" is a perfect invocation of this trope, at the song's climax, screaming the name of the song 8 times, ending it with "SLAVES!!! SHALL!!! FUCKING SERVE!!!"
- Mumford & Sons:
- Mumford and Sons' Little Lion Man. Yes, the chorus has the f-strike, but it still must count.
It was not your fault but mine, and it was your heart on the line, I really FUCKED it up this time, didn't I my dear?
- The fact that this is the only time that they've used the word (or any cursing, for that matter) in all the songs they've written so far gives it that much more of an impact.
- "Broken Crown" from their second album also shares the chorus f-strike.
So crawl on my belly 'til the sun goes down, I'll never wear your broken crown
I took the road and I fucked it all away. Now, in this twilight how dare you speak of grace?
- Dream Theater:
- The album Train of Thought has two f-strikes, one in two different songs. These are the only two times such word has been used in their discography.
- Also, in "The Test That Stumped Them All" from Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence Part 2, we have "The smell of stale sweat and shit streaming through the night".
- Pretenders began their career with one. "Precious", the opening track from their debut album, lands one conspicuously at the end of the bridge leading into the final chorus:
"But not me, baby, I'm too precious, fuck off!"
- The rest of the album explores the common pop-song subjects of sex, relationships, domestic violence, and gang rape in relatively clean language.
- Hamell On Trial's "John Lennon" is a spoken-word ballad about his attempt as a teenager to meet John Lennon. After a very lengthy setup, he finally does, and...
- K-On!: Houkago Tea Time has this happen every once in a while, if it's a song sung by Mio.
- The Fugees: And even after all my logic and my theory/I add a MUTHAFUCKA so you ign'ant niggas hear me
- Touch & Go's "Tango In Harlem" has one, when the narrator talks about being mugged and refusing to hand over the $50 she has on her, instead telling her attacker "Fuck you!". It's also a Funny Moment.
- On Devin Townsend's Deconstruction, the singular f-bomb is dropped pretty early on in the first track "Praise the Lowered". "Smoke that FUCKING weed, boy!", the reason this is so effective is that Devin hasn't said "Fuck" on any of his records since the last Strapping Young Lad album, plus the obvious emphasis on that one line makes it even better.
- Queen's "Death on Two Legs", an absolutely vicious hate letter to the band's former manager, featured the lyrics "But you can kiss my ass goodbye!" Live performances of the song had Freddie Mercury dedicate the song to "a real motherfucker of a gentleman".
The world expects a man to buckle down and shovel shit.
- U2: "And a fucked-up world it is, too" in "Wake Up Dead Man". The one time they've used it in a song, EVER, so it's rather jarring, especially in the last song on the album.
- Enter Shikari do this excellently in their song Enter Shikari. The first word in the first song on their first album is singer Rou Reynolds shouting 'SHIT!', backed up by people screaming. Now that's a precision strike.
- CAKE's cover of "I Will Survive" changes the lyric "stupid lock" to "fucking lock". Gloria Gaynor was not pleased.
- Panic! at the Disco had "Lying Is The Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off". They rarely said anything worse than "whore" and "goddamn".
I have more wit, a better kiss, a hotter touch, a better fuck.
- Skeletonwitch: FIIIYAAAARRR FROM THE MOOOTHEEEER FUCKING SKKKKKYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!
- fun.:
- Fun has this in "Some Nights": "Who the FUCK wants to die alone, all dried up in the desert sun?"
- Their first album "Aim and Ignite" was clean, until this moment in the 7-minute closing song "Take Your Time (Coming Home)":
If it's true, then what the fuck have I been doing the last six years?
- Emilie Autumn invokes this on her "Opheliac" record:
- Misery Loves Company: Pray for me you fuckers if you fucking dare
- I Know Where You Sleep: I (fucked) you/I can never live it down, never live it down
- Thank God I'm Pretty: Everybody thinks that I'm a fucking suicide girl
- God Help Me: Don't make me choose, I've got too much to fucking lose!
- Marry Me: So I'll fuck who I choose for I've nothing to lose ...
- Normally fairly mellow country singer Gillian Welch sneaks one into "Revelator", half-slurred enough that most people don't notice:
Leavin' the valley
Fuckin' outta sight
- Elton John:
- "The Bitch Is Back". Though with that kind of a title, should one really be surprised?
- "Dirty Little Girl" and "Your Sister Can't Twist (But She Can Rock And Roll)" would be better examples.
- Pearl Jam has a few, specially "Save You", which opens with the line "I'm gonna save you, fucker". "Jeremy" also drops one in the second verse when talking about how his bullying led to breaking him: "Clearly I remember picking on the boy / Seemed a harmless little fuck / Oh, but we unleashed a lion."
- Aerosmith:
- Aerosmith has a few ("Feedin' that fuckin' monkey on my back!", "I feel like I've been hit by a fuck", etc.). Like James Hetfield, Steven Tyler even adds some live ("I fuck with my boots on cause you fuck with my head").
- "Eat the Rich" has its fair share of profanity, but in one of the last line of the third chorus, it's done perfectly:
I believe in rags to riches,
Your inheritance won't last
So take your Grey Poupon, my friend,
AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS!
- P!nk certainly isn't afraid to swear, but it tends to be specific. For example, the chorus of "Last to Know":
You could have called me up to wish me luck
You could have called me back you stupid fuck
- Guns N' Roses, known for being Sir Swearsalot in many of their songs (including "It's So Easy", "Out ta Get Me", "One in a Million", "You're (Fucking) Crazy", "Perfect Crime", "Get in the Ring", "Buick Mackane/Big Dumb Sex", and "I Don't Care About You"), is surprisingly restrained on Chinese Democracy, which has only two F-words across 14 songs, only one of which is used by lead singer/resident egotist W. Axl Rose (in "Riad and the Bedouins"), the other F-word being spoken by Gene Hackman in a sample from Mississippi Burning featured in the song "Madagascar".
- Ian Dury's Plaistow Patricia inverts this and played so extreme with the first line being "ARSEHOLES BASTARDS FUCKING CUNTS AND PRICKS"
- Australian musician Josh Pyke's "The Lighthouse Song" is a mellow little love song with this line in the chorus:
I'll just hold you tight/And we'll not let those fuckers in
- Alex Day swears once in his entire discography. In a song about Mario Kart.
Fucking Waluigi stole my victory!
- On the UNKLE album Psyence Fiction, the track "Guns Blazing" the swears are bleeped out until about two-thirds of the way through the song:
"Bitch nigga with the audacity to blaspheme me / Got yourself caught in a motherfuckin' tragedy"
- The Kingsmen's cover of "Louie Louie" contains an unintentional example: one of the band members shouts "Fuck!" about 54 seconds into the song after making a mistake.
- The Beatles:
- More unintentional profanity: The Beatles had one example, where John Lennon is heard muttering "fuckin' hell" 2:57 into "Hey Jude."
- There's an f-bomb buried in the mix of Revolution 9.
- Another 1960s band, The Yardbirds, in their originally-unreleased track "Spanish Blood." The song is narrated by drummer Jim McCarty, who deadpans "that was the wrong fucking verse" toward the end of the song.
- The Rolling Stones:
- The Rolling Stones, despite their bad boy image, hardly swore on their earlier albums, until entering a Cluster F-Bomb with 1972's "Star Star", which is a Censored Title, as shown by the chorus "You're a starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, starfucker, star!"
- The Stones also have a previously unreleased outtake from the mid-1960s called "Andrew's Blues," where they offer an F-bomb-laden tribute to manager Andrew Loog Oldham.
- Future Perfect - St. Perfect: "You're Saint fucking Perfect in disguise". This is the sole reason for the album's Parental Advisory warning.
- Shiny Toy Guns' "Le Disko" has the line "gonna fuck up your ego".
- Gorillaz:
- "Hong Kong" from D-Sides.
Pick the shit up and leave it clean
- Hole's "I Think That I Would Die" with "FUCK! YOU!"
- Groove Coverage, in "Run Away": "No, I am not your f(bleep)ing second choice".
- "Girl on the Billboard" by Del Reeves: "Sleepy-headed painter said the girl wasn't real, better get the (bleep) on my way!" Averted, as the offending word, most likely "fuck," is replaced by an electric guitar riff.
- Ayria does this twice in the title track of Debris: "I never want to end up so fucking jaded like you", and "You still try to fight? Well FUCK YOU!"
- "Stupidity", by Front Line Assembly featuring Al Jourgensen of Ministry, does this several times, although not to the point of Cluster F-Bomb, e.g. "I just look around at all these dumb motherfuckers..." during the spoken word section, and "Go fuck yourself!" at the end.
- Pink Floyd:
- Animals is a very angry album, yet despite this, it only uses foul language once, that being on "Pigs (Three Different Ones)": "You fucked up old hag, haha, charade you are."
- The Division Bell features its sole curse on "Lost For Words" with the line "But they tell me to please go fuck myself".
- "Candy And A Currant Bun" — "Please, just fuck with me". Notable because it's the only example to come from the Syd Barrett-led lineup of the band, and because it was thrown in entirely as Writer Revolt: In the original demo of the song, the lyric was "please, just walk with me", but they slipped in some profanity when they were asked to re-record the song to eliminate drug references (it was originally titled "Let's Roll Another One").
- It helped that Syd sort of pulled a "Lady Gaga" and said "Fuck" a bit like "Fawk".
- The closing line of "Vegetable Man": "He's the kind of fucker you just got to see if you can!" Not surprisingly, when they did a rendition of the song for a BBC radio session, "fucker" was changed to "person".
- The last verse of "It's a Miracle" (actually credited solely to Roger Waters), which also serves as a sizzling roast to Andrew Lloyd Webber for plagiarising the descending and ascending riff from Echoes in The Phantom of the Opera:
We cower in our shelters
With our hands over our ears
Lloyd-Webber's awful stuff
Runs for years and years and years
An earthquake hits the theatre
But the operetta lingers
Then the piano lid comes down
And breaks his fucking fingers
It's a miracle - James Taylor:
- Elliott Smith, in "Pictures of Me":
"Jailer who sells / Personal hells / Who'd like to see me down on / My fucking knees"
- Pavement, in "Range Life":
"Out on tour with
The Smashing Pumpkins/ Nature kids, I—they don't have no function / I don't understand what they mean / And I could really give a fuck"
- And lest we forget quite possibly the best Precision F-Strike in rock history, from the intro to "Kick Out The Jams" by MC5:
- Tarby isn't known for particularly clean lyrics, but his song "Petrified" manages to contain one. The song contains no swearing, except during the second verse: "Cower there until the dawn and pray to hell they're FUCKING gone!"
- Miley Cyrus:
- Chamillionaire made an effort to clean up his language, including complete avoidance of the N-word (according to him, he made the decision after he noticed that a bunch of his white fans started singing/rapping along whenever the N-word came up during his concerts) for his sophomore effort, Ultimate Victory, but still got in a "hell yeah" in "Hip Hop Police"; Radio Disney applies Gosh Dang It to Heck! when broadcasting the song.
- From John Prine's "Please Don't Bury Me", about a man who wills that his various body parts be donated to various sources after he dies:
Send my mouth way down south, and kiss my ass goodbye!
- Maybe one of the most impressive musical examples is by Explosions in the Sky, a band whose music doesn't even have lyrics. They do occasionally incorporate spoken audio recordings into their songs, and the words "We're fucked" can be heard in "Day Three." (Justified in that the whole record is a Concept Album about the band's experience spending eight days in a stranger's attic after their van broke down. The voice recordings in that track were made by the band members as the whole thing was happening.)
- This Will Destroy You, another instrumental band, also manages to slip some profanity in. The vinyl version of their self-titled album has this quote from Deadwood etched around the center label:
"I may have fucked my life up flatter than hammered shit, but I stand before you today beholden to no human cocksucker."
- Halestorm does this to great effect near the ending of Here's To Us where Lzzy manages to shout Go fuck themselves! so enthusiastically, NO ONE can miss it.
- The Thrash Metal band Toxik combined this with a positively ear-splitting Metal Scream in their anti-war Protest Song "Door to Hell":
Haitian children consumed by the millions for whom? For
YOU!
Millions of our boys sucked in by the game
Don't ask your task, IT'S A FUCKING
SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME! - Thus far into their long career, The Flaming Lips have only released two songs with any strong language in them: Protest Song "The W.A.N.D." includes the lyric "We got the power now, motherfuckers", while "You Lust" opens with the lines "You got a lot of nerve / a lot of nerve to fuck with me".
- Miracle of Sound has this line in "Halfman's Song'':
Cut through all their shit with my brazen wit
Molding puppets from their minds of clay
- The Sara Bareilles song "Sweet and Whole" reaches almost Cluster F-Bomb levels of this, and other than "Bottle It Up" and "Come 'Round Soon" is the only time she has ever swore in her catalog.
- Fall Out Boy's music prior to "Folie a Deux" was lacking in the swear word department, so when a clip from their collaboration on Timbaland's Shock Value album, One and Only, was premiered on the radio, the DJs weren't expecting much trouble. Cue Patrick belting out "WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FUCKING FACE" and the DJs' nervous joking/initial shock. This was immediately followed up by the offending line repeating AGAIN in the same verse with the DJs yelling over Patrick singing "FUCKING" because they couldn't hit the delay in time.
- 27:
- From 27:
If home is where the heart is, then we're all just fucked.
- And in "Save Rock & Roll":
So FUCK YOU, YOU CAN GO CRY ME AN OCEAN, and leave me be
- Maroon Five:
- "Makes Me Wonder"
I still don't have a reason. And you don't have the time.
And it really makes me wonder if I ever gave a fuck about you.
- "Harder to Breathe" has the line "Not fit to fuckin' tread the ground that I am walkin' on."
- "Payphone" would have been a relatively clean song, if not for:
All those fairy tales are full of shit
One more fucking love song, I'll be sick (Edited to "full of it" and "stupid love song" for radio.)
- This isn't even getting to Wiz Khalifa's guest verse, in which his opening line is, "Man, fuck that shit!" No surprise that most non-rap stations replace his rap with an alternate bridge.
- Magazine have a certain precise restraint to their use of language. And "Permafrost" is a stunningly bleak song, especially for a late '70s composition from a band with no apparent interest in punky shock for its own sake:
As the day stops dead,
At the place where we're lost,
I will drug you and fuck you,
On the permafrost...
- The English rock band Muse has two songs with this:
- AWOLNATION:
- Soundgarden is angry and dark, but surprisingly only have two profane songs... which are also Cluster F-Bomb, "Big Dumb Sex" (the chorus is "Hey, I know what to do... I'm gonna fuck-fuck-fuck-FUCK YOU!!!") and "Ty Cobb" ("Another motherfucker goes down the drain" would be already enough, but then comes the chorus spearheaded by three utterances of "Hard headed fuck you all!").
- Mudhoney:
- Mudhoney tosses one in for "You Got It." The single version includes "FUCK YOU!" right before the final chorus. The album version replaces it with "You're fucked!"
- "Into Your Schtick" has another one: "FUCK YOU! YOU MAKE ME SICK!"
- And, of course, there's the immortal "fuck me I'm sick!" in their first single, "Touch Me I'm Sick".
- Mayday Parade has a very mild one, but considering they never swear, it could be counted as one. The song "When I Get Home, You're So Dead" contains the line "I hope he's leaving you empty baby this is just a fix for such a simple little whore."
- MarianneFaithfull on "Why D'Ya Do It":
I had my balls and my brains put into a vise
And twisted around for a whole fucking week.
- Sara Hickman, the folk-rock-pop performer known for her singles "Simply" and "I Couldn't Help Myself," normally sings very gentle tunes. Nevertheless, she drops the bomb (spoken, not sung) in her selection "Dump Truck" on the Misfits album:
"Yeah. I ain't no dump truck. You treat me like one, dumpin' all your fuckin' trash on me."
- The All-American Rejects have used the word "fuck" twice: Once in "Someday's Gone" and once in "Heartbeat Slowing Down".
- "I'm The One Who's Dead" by The Michael J. Epstein Memorial Library is the only song by the band (or any of Epstein's many other musical projects) to feature any cursing. To put it in context, the song deals with the media glamorizing murder by focusing the majority of coverage on the murderer rather than the victims or the tragic loss of life itself:
How were you lead astray?
In Rolling Stone, an eight page spread
Let's study all your methods
Fuck you, I'm the one who's dead
Fuck you
Fuck you
I'm the one who's dead
- Bruce Cockburn:
- "Call It Democracy":
North South East West
Kill the best and buy the rest
It's just spend a buck to make a buck
You don't really give a flying fuck
About the people in misery
- Also used to an emphatic effect in "If I Had a Rocket Launcher":
If I had a rocket launcher,
Some son of a bitch would die!
- KISS does this with "100,000 Years" on their self-titled debut album ("It must have been a bitch while I was gone."), "Is That You?" on Unmasked ("Went too far, been a bitch you are"), and "Killer" on Creatures of the Night ("Bitch is insane, she deals in pain").
- In 1979, the band actually kicked opening act Sammy Hagar off their tour because he was cursing onstage.
- Ray Scott's "My Kind of Music" is a song about the protagonist dealing with his girlfriend not liking/not knowing about old country songs and singers, often with biased reasons. At the very end of the song, naturally this occurs:
No, she don't like my kind of music
So I had to tell that girl to kiss my ass!
- Mr. Freeman a.k.a. Smooth Ski the Dondada raps in "L'amour toujours", his collaboration with Alex C, that the latter "will make you fucking dance".
- Ric Ocasek's "Troublizing", one of his darker records, has three instances:
- "Hang On Tight":
But somewhere in your dark side
- Also, from "Troublizing", "Asia Minor":
Give me the boom box bottle, bitch
(Give me a secret)
- And "Society Trance":
And bloody-nosed bums on puke-stained pavements
Cough-up chyme, snot and liquid shit
- Gloriana's "Trouble" has the line "If you're running around, you better run from me / Pack up your bags and get gone, get gone" in the chorus. The third time around, "pack up your bags" becomes "pack up your shit" (which was obviously reverted to "bags" on the radio edit).
- Genesis:
- The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway features the one and only curse word of the Peter Gabriel era on "Back in N.Y.C.", in which Rael asserts that "I'm not full of shit," tying in with not only the song's nature as a flashback to his days as a gang member, but also Gabriel's intent to make the album Darker and Edgier than its predecessors.
- In live performances of the song "Invisible Touch" (which normally doesn't contain any profanity), when Phil Collins gets to the line "And though she will mess up your life", he tends to replace the word "mess" with an F-strike. Most notably, he did this at the Live Earth benefit concert, which (since it was being broadcast during pre-watershed hours) required Jonathan Ross, the presenter, to apologize for the swearing.
- T.I., being a rapper, normally uses Cluster F-Bomb. However, his hit single "Live Your Life", which features Rihanna and was made for pop radio, contains no swearing apart from one use of N-Word Privileges.
Allergic to the counterfeit, impartial to the politics
Articulate, but still I'll grab a nigga by the collar quick
- One that arguably improved the tone of a song; in Harry Chapin's "A Better Place To Be", the original lyric reads, "I wish I weren't so doggone fat..." For the Greatest Stories Live performance and every other concern performance after that, the lyric got changed to "I wish I weren't so goddamn fat..." Given that Chapin's songs had very little profanity, it stands out.
- The self-titled EP by ARCHIS is completely clean lyrically other than its second track, "Black Eye", wherein the narrator vows revenge on a friend's Domestic Abuser. Particularly surprising because this section is sung in a very quiet, Perishing Alt-Rock Voice fashion:
Driving 90 'cross the bridge
Yeah, I know where this fucker lives
- Ella Eyre's "Comeback", an acerbic Break-Up Song with two F-bombs in the chorus (the original version leads to seven F-bombs overall; live it can border on Cluster F-Bomb given "let the motherfucker burn" is a great Audience Participation request):
We've all been played, we all get hurt
Just take that pain and let that motherfucker burn
And you know that in time you will find
That they always come back, yeah they always come back
They're all the same, they never learn
So dig their grave, and let that motherfucker burn
And you know that in time you will find
That they always come back, yeah they always come back
- "Ministry of Fools" by Saxon, of which Wikipedia delicately says "possibly concerns the media and authority." While Unleash the Beast also contains "All Hell Breaking Loose," "Ministry of Fools" provides the only "strong" curse word on the album, and it's just once in whole song.
You're talking on the TV, every single day
Making stupid gestures, nothing much to say
Deny responsibility, find someone to blame
When it comes right down to it, you're all the fuckin' same
- Depeche Mode, On "Fail" Martin sings:
Our souls are corrupt
Our minds are messed up
Our consciences bankrupt
Oh, we're fucked
- Fitz & The Tantrums unleash the precision f-strike on "Complicated":
We do this every night
Yeah, we fuck and then we fight
- BIGMAMA, who make a fairly frequent habit of singing in English, have a couple of songs with violent precision strikes; "Tereize no Tameiki" ends with a pointed "Go fuck yourself," and the otherwise calm and contemplative "Ai wa Harinezumi no Youni" drops an incongruous "holy shit" mid-verse.
- Nickelback used one in one of their songs "It Must be Nice" in which the main line of the chorus is "Your life's a goddamn fairy tale" except for the last line which opts it out for "Your life's a fucking fairy tale"
- In "Scenario" by A Tribe Called Quest, Busta Rhymes sneaks in the word "motherfucker" after his verse ends.
- Within Temptation songs generally contain no profanity. "And We Run" is a collab with Xzibit. In his rap portion he uses the word "motherfucker".
- Talking Heads' "Sax and Violins", which paraphrases Philip Larkin's poem "This Be The Verse": "Mom and pop, they will fuck you up, for sure". Notably one of only two songs in their entire discography with any cursing, alongside the "shit on the ground, see in the dark" line in "Animals".
- David Byrne became more open to cursing in his post-Talking Heads output, but prefers limiting its use to make it more impactful. Even Uh-Oh, his most curse-heavy album, only uses the word "shit" once or twice on three songs (out of twelve total).
- The Pogues can throw themselves quite often at this trope.
- Most famously, their Christmas song "Fairytale of New York" uses explicit terms which have been subject to on-air censorship.
"You're an old slut on junk."
"You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, happy Christmas your arse, I pray God it's our last."
- "Boys of the County Hell" drops the lines "we broke his fucking balls" and "I left without a penny or fuckall".
- "The Sick Bed of Cuchulainn" slips in "And you decked some fucking blackshirt who was cursing all the Yids" and "lousy drunken bastards singing 'Billy in the Bowl'".
- In the final verse of "The Old Main Drag", the singer laments in a drunken state how he's "been spat on, and shat on, and raped, and abused".
- "Sit Down By the Fire" ends with an F-Strike.
"So lie near the wall
And cover your head
Good night and God bless
Now fuck off to bed!"
- Type O Negative drops one now and then.
- The Eagles are not known for their swearing, but a couple examples stand out.
- David Allan Coe has a bit of a controversial background including a couple X-Rated albums in which he holds nothing back, but his normal stuff for the most part avoids the swearing. However in his song "If That Ain't Country", he demonstrates N-Word Privileges.
- The Slip by Nine Inch Nails uses exactly one F-Bomb in this style on the track "1,000,000".
Put the gun in my mouth
Close your eyes, blow my fuckin' brains out!
- Mystery Skulls has a couple:
- "Ghost":
Time for givin' up the ghost
Fuck, it's you I hate the most
- "In My Sleep":
You can't do this like I do it,
I fuckin' wrote this in my sleep,
- Swedish duo First Aid Kit contains an instance of swearing
- At the end of The Verve's "Come On" is the repeated line "This is a big fuck you!"
- The singer: Canadian folk icon Gordon Lightfoot. The song: Smooth, easy, gentle-paced ballad, "Seven Island Suite." The lyric:
Fortune will not find you in your mansion or your truck
Brothers will desert you when you're down and shit out of luck
- Jonathan Edwards had a 1971 hit with "Sunshine." A recurring line in the chorus goes, "He can't even run his own life. I'll be damned if he'll run mine." The melody places the word "damned" in a very prominent position. This was considered scandalous in 1971. Nonetheless, it was played on many radio stations at all hours.
- The fact that Tom Lehrer virtually never swears in his songs — even when singing about topics like pornography and sadomasochism — somehow makes the "oh well, what the hell" line in "She's My Girl" much funnier.
- Of Monsters and Men are not usually known to swear in their songs, as moody and introspective as they can get to be. Yet in "Under A Dome", they manage to sneak in some well-nuanced swears. For example, the chorus goes:
Under a dome
Where I met you first
Fuck the way we were
Wait
Watch the color burst
- In 1967, Richard Brautigan was among several poets and artists who attended a wild dinner party in San Francisco's Chinatown. Guest of honor was British poet Basil Bunting who was going to give a reading at the San Francisco Museum of Art. He got everyone to sing a rousing little ditty which they remembered later as "Troop Ships Are Leaving Bombay." Most people today are probably familiar with the straight-ahead patriotic version of this George Formby classic — whose proper title is "Fuck 'Em All." There is also a sarcastic Irish version talking about severe rationing.
- In 1990, Neil Young released a song called "F!#*in Up" (the symbols are his) in hopes of getting a Content Warning sticker. He didn't. (Here's the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame version, and it's also on the Ragged Glory album).
- The Spin Room: Fairly mild, but "You Got Me"'s chorus has the line "I don't give a damn." Most other songs produced by the musician don't have any profanity.
- Bad Religion's "Fuck You" is both about the release provided by doing this, and the fact that people with no arguments just end up resorting to it.
Sometimes it takes no thought at all
The easiest thing to do...
Is say "fuck you"
Pavlovian rude
A menace too
Pay homage to
Your bad attitude
- The full Title Drop to "Hooray For Me" is "So hooray for me… and fuck you!".
- It's easy to miss Stevie Wonder's f-bomb in "Living for the City", as it's mixed in with multiple singing voices in the middle of the song.
This fucking crud is shitty...
- There's a single F-bomb at the end of Coolio's otherwise profanity-free "Gangster's Paradise"
I guess they can't, I guess they won't, I guess I'm fucked
That's how I know my life is out of luck, fool
- "Beg" by Evans Blue is clean until the final chorus changes from "You better start to love her" to "You better fucking love her".
- "Goodbye" by industrial rock band Gravity Kills has the line "I'm fucking tired and I'm saying goodbye", which is notably the only swear word on the entire album.
- While a majority of songs from Jason Donovan in his PWL era were profanity-free, only one of his songs from that era, "Careless Talk and Silly Lies", includes very mild profanity in one of the lyrics, which was repeated again later in the song.
- Used to great effect in Sentenced's "Excuse Me While I Kill Myself":
"How do you do? Have yourself a pleasant afternoon!"
Well, Fuck you too! "Good night" is the one I choose for you!
- While Falling in Reverse is generally not a band to shy away from using swear words, there is a pretty significant one in their cover of Gangsta's Paradise, a song that originally has no swears whatsoever.
"Tell me why are we so fucking blind to see to that the ones we hurt and you and me?"
- While accompanying Alice in Chains and Korn, Underoath lead singer Spencer Chamberlain asked a St. Louis crowd (after mentioning that all of their other gigs in St. Louis had been held in a much smaller venue than the amphitheater they were currently playing in) to raise their hands if this was their first time seeing them. He unleashed a "Holy fuck!" when 90% of the capacity crowd raised their hands.
- Coldplay has a reputation for being a family-friendly band. This made it a big surprise when their eighth album Everyday Life featured two songs with prominent f-bombs. In "Guns," the chorus includes the line "Everybody's gone fucking crazy, maybe I'm crazy too," and the bridge of "Arabesque" includes the line "Same fucking blood!" repeated several times. This earned the band its first-ever parental advisory. Their next album, Music of the Spheres, had an even more precise one in "People of the Pride," which contains the line "there's a man running round like he owns the fucking lot."
- From the intro of the David Coverdale fronted Deep Purple song “Stormbringer” we get the following backmasked message
Motherfucker … Cocksucker … STORMBRINGER!!!
- While Kai Hansen pretty much avoids it in the lyrics of Gamma Ray and Helloween, his solo album has the chorus of "Burning Bridges":
Run, Burn the Bridges down!
Fuck the world and take your chances!
Overcome the sky-high fences!
- FKA twigs' "Two Weeks" contains a promise in the first verse that twigs "can treat you better than her". The second verse echoes this, but flips the shyly affectionate tone to an aggressive one by instead saying "I can fuck you better than her".
- Led Zeppelin's "Hots On for Nowhere" contains the line "I've got friends who will give me fuck all", which is the only Led Zeppelin song to contain a swear word — even though many of the band's songs are known for being very innuendo-laden.
- Lisa Marie Presley's "Lights Out" has the lyric "Oh, next to them there in Memphis, yeah\\In the damn back lawn" (referring to the family grave in Graceland). When Playboy asked about the choice of words, she noted it was averting this trope ("Because I couldn't say 'motherfucking back lawn.' It didn't work melodically.")
- Stereophonics: "Superman":
Superman on a aeroplane
Sitting next to Lois Lane
You gotta that woman but you want her gone
So you can fuck a teenage blonde
- Vylet Pony's Carousel (An Examination of the Shadow, Creekflow...): In "Hush!", these two lines deliver a particularly cutting one to Vylet:
Are you fucking happy?
Why are you fucking smiling?
- Riot V (then known as just Riot) has Johnny's overly excited "Aw fuckin' yeah, let's start tonight!" line in the chorus of the otherwise profanity-free "Johnny's Back."
