...said Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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I read Classic Rock as Christian Rock at first, which would still track.
This is a little weird
Weird is ok
How?
Momma has a squeezebox daddy don't sleep at night
Bessie Smith, 1931
Need A Little Sugar in My Bowl
The song is often remembered for its sexually suggestive lyrics, in which Smith pleads with her "hard papa", saying that she needs "a little sugar, in my bowl, doggone it". Continuing the double entendre, the song also expresses the need for "a little hot dog between my rolls" and concludes, "Stop your foolin' and drop somethin' in my bowl."[22]
Nirvana be like:
Rape Me - Not about rape at all.
Polly - About a very specific rape case.
Rape me is the follow-up song to Polly
Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind literally is about meth and falling asleep inside a chick, but we all liked it cause it went 🎶do do doo
Edit: sorry, its also about cocaine
it was also a banger, soooo
True true
Just crazy that that's one of the first songs I can remember playing on the radio and finding out much later what its about haha
In Johnny Cash's "Live from Folsom Prison" album there is a song called 'cocaine blues'. The first verse goes like this:
early one morning while making the rounds
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down
I went right home and I went to bed
I stuck that loving forty-four beneath my head.
I keep this in my back pocket when conservatives claim that Rap and Hip Hop glorify violence, guns, misogyny, and drug use. I defy you to find something from NAS or Killer Mike that can compete on the level of classic country.
It's bordering on conspiracy, but there's an argument to be made that record labels pushed gangster rap and downplayed others to keep black communities down.
I 100% agree with the idea that rap is certainly not the only genre to glorify violence, drugs, etc. But the specific song choice is not really a great example in my opinion considering the last verse is
C'mon you gotta listen unto me
lay off that whiskey, and let that cocaine be.
This song always struck me as a cautionary tale. Nothing about the song really seems to glorify the behavior.
That is true (I love Cash and listened to a lot of his music), but a lot of cons will just take it at face value, same way they do with Punisher.
Btw, Cash has this "shot my woman down" motif in other songs, like Delia's Gone, and always they end badly, like with him in jail. Too bad the cons only listen to those and skip pieces like San Quentin or Man in Black.
Using 2 of the most lyrically gifted rappers is cheating. WAP exists.
doesn't matter, because it's a disingenuous post anyways. the song is about how that shit is BAD:
Early one morning while making the rounds I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down Went right home and I went to bed I stuck that loving 44 beneath my head
Got up next morning and I grabbed that gun Took a shot of cocaine and away I run Made a good run but run too slow They overtook me down in Juarez, Mexico
Laid in the hot joints taking the pill In walked the sheriff from Jericho Hill He said Willie Lee, your name is not Jack Brown You're the dirty hop that shot your woman down
I said yes sir, my name is Willie Lee If you got a warrant, just read it to me Shot her down because she made me sorе I thought I was her daddy but she had five morе
When I was arrested I was dressed in black They put me on train and it took me back I had no friends for to go my bail They slapped my dried up carcass in that county jail
Got up next morning about a half past nine Spied a sheriff coming down the line Hopped and he coughed as he cleared his throat He said, come on you dirty hop into that district court See country shows near Lewiston Get tickets as low as $54 You might also like Folsom Prison Blues Johnny Cash Cocaine Blues Billy Strings & Don Julin loml Taylor Swift Into the courtroom, my trial began Where I was handled by twelve honest men Just before that jury started out I saw that little judge commence to look about
In about five minutes, in walked a man Holding the verdict in his right hand The verdict read in the first degree I hollered, lordy lordy, have mercy on me
The judge he smiled as he picked up his pen Ninety-nine years in the Folsom pen Ninety-nine years underneath that ground I can't forget the day I shot my woman down
Come on you hops and listen unto me Lay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be
My favourite part of that song is when he goes “You might also like Folsom Prison Blues Johnny Cash Cocaine Blues Billy Strings & Don Julin loml Taylor Swift”, truly a banger
yeah, right before he yells "shoutout yall!" and does that heart thing with his hands. true hardcore johnny cash right there
(i'm still laughing that you caught that so quickly)
Pusha T has rapped alnost exclusively about selling cocaine for like 30 years at this point. Let's not act like drug use/dealing isn't a major theme in a lot of hiphop.
I think the idea here is not to say that hiphop/rap does not talk about or even glorify drug use/violence/misoginy, but rather that most popular music styles do, in this specific case classic country.
But how much does classic rock really have if you remove all of the sexualization of children?
More than you'd expect I imagine. Lots of blues.
Aerosmith is outright gone (probably for the best. They cant make it through a single song without talking about it)
Genesis' Carpet Crawlers (lyrics) wants a word.
One of the most graphically sexual songs I've ever heard. The only other contender is literally about pet play.
Edit: the Carpet Crawlers are literally sperm. People never believe me until I start breaking it down, and then they're like, "holy fuck, how did they get away with this?"
You should check out the Liza and Louise songs by NOFX lol
Hmmm…
Gabriel is my favorite artist and Genesis is my favorite band. I looked over other people’s reasoning for this interpretation, and it doesn’t seem 100% right to me.
I think the foremost metaphor in the song is about willful subjugation to religious/spiritual ideals and aspirations, so much so that the believer constantly crawls on their hands and knees in the foolish hope that it will bring them to a higher place spiritually, but these acts only impair them in both the Earthly and Heavenly realms. The references to climbing are about aspirations for a spiritual ascension, and the references to birth are about religious rebirth that puts the foolish believer right back to where they started without any progress made. The believers must “get in” to the highest echelon of piety/aether/magnificence “to get out” of mortal rebirth/suffering/existence/banality. This would track with Gabriel’s history of personal spiritualism and religious references, as well as the self-discovery theme of the album. The descriptions of scenery are to evoke how the environment/world/universe is lush and royal yet the believers themselves are tiny and insignificant. The album also intentionally makes constant leaps between settings and themes, which would make the very direct “Counting Out Time” unlikely to precede a song that is also sexual in nature. And when Gabriel sings about sex, it usually lacks subtlety.
Ascending the staircase to the next song, “The Chamber of 32 Doors”, Rael encounters those who incorrectly believe themselves to have found enlightenment and who seek to peddle their maligned ideologies to others. However, only “Lilywhite Lilith” can find the way of truth due to her lack of arrogance (on account of her being blind and pure).
However, Gabriel is a fantastic poet and lyricist and loves a dirty joke. The sperm theory is plausible as a secondary metaphor, but in the context of the story, who or what is being fertilized/born? As this song follows Rael’s coitus, it would follow that it would be a progeny of Rael that would be birthed, yet this cannot be the case since the rest of the story follows Rael and acknowledges that the character the audience stays with is John’s brother.
I’d argue that, barring “Counting Out Time”, “Steam” is probably Gabriel’s most explicitly sexual song, mimicking “Sledgehammer” without as artful of symbolisms.
I thought the pet play song you linked to would be “I Wanna Be Your Dog” by The Stooges.
There are also other more directly sexual songs by contemporaries. “So Deep Within You” by The Moody Blues, “I’m In You” by Peter Frampton, “Pearl Necklace” by ZZ Top, and many Frank Zappa songs, for example.
considering peter gabriel's other stuff idk if that's the correct interpretation.
Considering the previous song on the album was painfully obviously about sex, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a rock opera....
i mean it may tie in, but it doesn't fit with the track after if it just continues the metaphor.
In grade school music class they had us sing "someone's in the kitchen with Dina strumming on the ol' banjo" and "jump down turn around pick a bale of cotton"
Sea shanties are all made up by some rich assholes in white gloves sitting on their red baobab chairs
Maybe modern ones…I would like a source on “old” ones though.