Music was dirtier before 1956

If you think there were no raunchy songs before 1980’s artists 2 Live Crew, Sir Mix-a-Lot and Digital Underground rapped about big butts - and what they’d like to do to them – then you’re missing out on some of the most hilariously smutty songs of all time.

Before 1956 much of black American music was downright filthy. No one seemed to care about this until rock’n’roll music exploded in 1955-56. With teenagers suddenly gobbling up rock’n’roll records, parents freaked out and insisted that songs with raunchy lyrics not be played on the radio.

An example of the sterilization of rock music concerns the song Shake, Rattle and Roll – you may have heard Rock’n’Roll Elmo sing it. The original version of this song was a number one hit on black radio stations in 1954, performed by Big Joe Turner. When the white singer Bill Haley covered the song to be marketed to white teens, he rewrote the line “You wear tight dresses, the sun comes shining through”. Haley, and radio censors, failed to grasp the innuendo of another line in the song: “I’m like a one-eyed cat peepin’ in a seafood store.” This oversight led to mainstream radio’s smuttiest hit of the 1950’s.

But the true dirt lies in the underground songs of the late 1940’s and early 1950’s, waiting for rediscovery. The Clovers, an R&B group, recorded an a capella song in 1954 called Rotten Cocksuckers’ Ball. The song begins: “weelll – cocksuckin’ Sammy git your mutherfuckin’ Annie we’re goin’ downtown to cockersuckers’ ball” - and the song gets worse from there.

There were filthy songs recorded even earlier - well before my parents were born. Blues singer Lucille Bogan sang in her 1930’s song Shave ‘em Dry: “I got nipples on my titties as big as your thumb. I got something between my legs make a dead man come.”

Several artists made a career out of double entendre songs. Blues shouter Wynonie Harris performed the songs I Like My Baby’s Puddin’, Sittin’ on It All the Time, and Keep on Churnin’ – which goes “Keep on churnin’ ‘til the butter comes......wipe off the palette and churn some more”. The song concludes with the lyrics “I’ll milk you cow ‘til my pail is full, look out heifer, here comes your bull.”

Country blues singer Bo Carter’s risqué business included numbers like (Let Me Put My) Banana in Your Fruit Basket, Mashin’ That Thing, and My Pencil Won’t Write No More.

The most free-spirited female artist of the late 1940’s was from our neck of the woods. Julia Lee was born in Boonville Missouri on Halloween of 1902. Her songs included King Size Papa, My Man Stands Out, The Spinach Song (I Didn’t Like It the First Time), It Comes In Like a Lion, All This Beef and Big Ripe Tomatoes and Snatch and Grab It. In the song Tonight’s The Night, Julia laments “My doorbell ain’t been workin’, my hallway’s full of dust, my vestibule is musty, my keyhole’s full of rust....but tonight’s the night.”

Tune in to SHAKE ‘EM DOWN to win KEEP ON CHURNIN’ – DELIGHTFULLY DIRTY OLD-SCHOOL BLUES, COUNTRY AND R&B. This is a CD compiled by yours truly that includes 27 really old, really dirty, and really funny songs. In 2003, look for KEEP ON CHURNIN’ VOL 2 – MORE SONGS ABOUT POODLES AND POON-TANG.

- Jason K-fer