Curious subject matter in songs

[Satchmo Distel]

Songs mentioning Nazi camps:

Sex Pistols - Holidays In The Sun and Belsen Was A Gas
Dead Kennedys - Let's Lynch The Landlord (Dachau)

[Amor de Cosmos]

And this one:

[Satchmo Distel]

Countries that experienced genocide:

Charles Aznavour - Armenia. Armenian genocide.

Dead Kennedys and Kim Wilde both had songs about Cambodia (although the Wilde one seems to be a US pilot who went missing there in the early 70s under Tricky Dicky).

George Harrison - Bangla Desh (the post-genocide famine; doesn't help George's reputation as a lyricist).

[duncanmckenziedoughnuts]

Wasn't Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos about female circumcision?

Aye Aye Aye Aye Moosey - a song written for a bet with a taxi driver about said taxi driver 'Moosey'.
Sex Farm - we've all worked on one, but did we write a song about it? I think not.
Single Ladies - Hoopla
Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - all humans die, except Morrissey, because they are all cunts, except Morrissey and all poor animals live, except Morrissey who is human, and wants to be loved, just like nobody else does because they are dead and in any case nobody is worthy of anything except cows, hot football hooligans and Morrissey, so there. TIROON.

[Satchmo Distel]

How about medical conditions and disabilities?

Cardiac Arrest - Madness
Heart Attack - Thin Lizzy
Spasticus Autisticus - Ian Dury and The Blockheads

[longeared]

Water On Glass by Kim Wilde is about tinnitus.

[3 Colours Red]

Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - all humans die, except Morrissey, because they are all cunts, except Morrissey and all poor animals live, except Morrissey who is human, and wants to be loved, just like nobody else does because they are dead and in any case nobody is worthy of anything except cows, hot football hooligans and Morrissey, so there. TIROON.

[Satchmo Distel]

Relationships with inflatable dolls:

In Every Dream Home A Heartache - Roxy Muic
Lorraine - Bad Manners

[Wouter D]

Aerosmith - "Janie's Got a Gun". Girl shoots abusive father.

See also De La Soul - Millie Pulled a Pistol on Santa.

[Wouter D]

How about medical conditions and disabilities?

Cardiac Arrest - Madness
Heart Attack - Thin Lizzy
Spasticus Autisticus - Ian Dury and The Blockheads

They Might Be Giants - Apophenia
They Might Be Giants - Let Me Tell You About My Operation
They Might Be Giants - You're On Fire

Did I tell you that there is this one band I really really like?

[matt j]

Courtney Barnett has at a minimum a song about house hunting and a song about swimming laps in a pool. (IMO, both great.)

You could admittedly randomly point to almost any song in TMBGs back catalog and find a fit for this thread.

[Haddock]

The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘In The Night’ doesn’t have the run-of-the-mill subject matter of much 80s synth-pop. It’s about subcultures in Occupation Paris. In the words of Neil Tennant
“It’s about these people called les Zazous who were like prototype beatniks. They were apolitical and used to grow long hair and listen to American jazz music, which of course was illegal under the Nazis. They were very existentialist and sat round talking about love and the meaning of life." The two clubs mentioned in the lyrics, Select, and Le Colisée were frequented by les Zazous. "The song looks at the moral implications, because the Nazis hated them and the Resistance hated them, because they were fatalistic and didn't participate in the resistance, and the song asks whether that's collaboration”
It was also the theme tune to The Clothes Show.
PSB have a song about Napoleon II as well.

[Crusoe]

There have been many, including:

Hit the Plane Down - Pavement
Lucky - Radiohead
Light Aircraft on Fire - The Auteurs
Five Miles Out - Mike Oldfield
Fire and Rain - James Taylor

...among others.

(Meanwhile, Slade's Wheels Ain't Coming Down and 747 (Strangers in the Night) by Saxon were both tales of 'near'- aviation disasters.)

10cc, I'm Mandy Fly Me

[Duncan Gardner]

Add Through the Barricades to the list of Dreary Steeple Drivel.

I went to a Stan Ridgway gig in north London just after Camouflage charted. He did a song called 'Elvis's Brain' during which a plastic skull was dangled from the ceiling for SR to headbutt

[Jah Womble]

Relationships with inflatable dolls:

In Every Dream Home A Heartache - Roxy Muic
Lorraine - Bad Manners

Also: Be My Girl Sally - The Police

So, 'Lorraine' was an inflatable doll? I did not know that...but then again, I never paid much attention to Buster's lyrics.

I certainly wasn't aware that Water On Glass (Kim W's best moment, IMO) was about tinnitus, either. Or of duncan's Cornflake Girl theory: I assumed that it was just an updated take on Janis Ian's At Seventeen. But obviously nowhere near as good.

Cannot believe that I omitted I'm Mandy, Fly Me.

[duncanmckenziedoughnuts]

Fair play for having a Top 5 hit with it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornflake_Girl

[Jah Womble]

The hype was all around her at the time, I guess.

Just thinking about Lorraine again (God knows why) - wasn't the lyric 'when I find her, I'm gonna kill her!'

How does one 'kill' an inflatable doll?

[Gangster Octopus]

Not too many songs about being caught in a plane crash, except Glow Girl by The Who

The Who also had hits with an ode to masterbation (Pictures Of Lily) and enforced transvestitism (I'm A Boy)...

[wittoner]

There have been many, including:

Hit the Plane Down - Pavement
Lucky - Radiohead
Light Aircraft on Fire - The Auteurs
Five Miles Out - Mike Oldfield
Fire and Rain - James Taylor

...among others.

(Meanwhile, Slade's Wheels Ain't Coming Down and 747 (Strangers in the Night) by Saxon were both tales of 'near'- aviation disasters.)

The "Flying Machine" that ended up in "pieces on the ground" in "Fire and Rain" was a reference to James Taylor's old band The Flying Machine, not an actual plane crash.

Another Plane Crash song that comes to mind is "Flight 505" by The Rolling Stones

[Satchmo Distel]

New York Mining Disaster 1941 - Bee Gees

Masturbation: She Bop - Cyndi Lauper

I recall the NME pointing out the double standard of Radio 1 banning Relax but then playing this ode to female masturbation: https://genius.com/Cyndi-lauper-she-bop-lyrics

[Crusoe]

Masturbation's been done loads, no? Divinyls, Turning Japanese, etc.

[Pérou Flaquettes]

The Pet Shop Boys’ ‘In The Night’ doesn’t have the run-of-the-mill subject matter of much 80s synth-pop. It’s about subcultures in Occupation Paris. In the words of Neil Tennant
“It’s about these people called les Zazous who were like prototype beatniks. They were apolitical and used to grow long hair and listen to American jazz music, which of course was illegal under the Nazis. They were very existentialist and sat round talking about love and the meaning of life." The two clubs mentioned in the lyrics, Select, and Le Colisée were frequented by les Zazous. "The song looks at the moral implications, because the Nazis hated them and the Resistance hated them, because they were fatalistic and didn't participate in the resistance, and the song asks whether that's collaboration”
It was also the theme tune to The Clothes Show.
PSB have a song about Napoleon II as well.

There’s a famous old French song about the Zazous sung by Andrex, no, not the Lab puppies-obsessed loo paper brand but the French actor & singer Andrex (a nom de scène) who was reasonably popular in the 1930s-1960s: Y'a des zazous (1943), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of9aa5j5u_0

(see https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone...ng=fr&id=39782).


The very eccentric and experimental Brigitte Fontaine (who has personally known Andrex, I wouldn’t be surprised if she knew the Pet Shop Boys too, she did stuff in England in the 1970s I think) paid tribute to Andrex and his Zazous song in the album Kékéland (130,000 copies sold) via a very offbeat cover of Y’a des zazous:

[Pérou Flaquettes]

Wckr Spgt’s Francis Mitterrand, with that big existentialist interrogation about the state of François Mitterrand’s heater: "There's one thing I just gotta know: Francis Mitterrand, do you have the heater on?"

[Jah Womble]

The "Flying Machine" that ended up in "pieces on the ground" in "Fire and Rain" was a reference to James Taylor's old band The Flying Machine, not an actual plane crash.

Fair dos.

[elguapo4]

More medical problems from :
Cancer-Yoshimi battles the pink robots by the Flaming lips
Short sight-what's with Terry by the Undertones and
Hangover-Lovestruck by Madness