Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking in Music.
As you're sinking
You get to thinking
What is the worst thing that is happening:
Asphyxiation, mutilation, and an ankle sprain?
— Rainbowdragoneyes, "Thrashbaath"
- Used in the voiceover at beginning of the Aerosmith's "Legendary Child" music video:"They've overcome ... divorce, drug addiction, stalkers, the music industry, rabid liars, I mean lawyers, hung juries, bad sushi ..."
- From Allan Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah":All the counselors hate the waiters
And the lake has alligators
And our head coach wants no sissies
So he reads to us from something called Ulysses - Alice Cooper's 2011 album Welcome 2 My Nightmare has a song called "The Congregation".
- In the Arrogant Worms' song "I Ran Away," some guys start hurling insults at the narrator's girlfriend. The first insult is, "She's a fat ugly tramp!" and the last is, "She's a mediocre soccer player!"And here in the fiery pit of boiling death, the lawyers, pimps, and mimes.
- In the song "Lasse Redn", the German Punkrock band Die Ärzte describes the tabloid Bild in this way:Die meisten Leute haben ihre Bildung aus der Bild
Und die besteht nun mal, wer wüsste das nicht
Aus Angst, Hass, Titten und dem Wetterbericht
(Most people get their education from Bild
and that consists, as everyone knows,
of fear, hate, tits and the weather forecast) - The Barenaked Ladies song "Grade 9" features this, whilst reminiscing about high school nicknames:They called me chicken legs!
They called me four-eyes!
They called me fatso!
They called me Buckwheat!
They called me Eddy...- Although a possible interpretation is that Eddy's grade 9 experience wasn't as awful as the rest of the Ladies'.
- When English band The Beautiful South released their debut album, Woolworths refused to stock it because of the album's cover depicting a woman with a gun in her mouth next to a man smoking. The band replied in typical sarcastic fashion by saying that the store wanted to "prevent the hoards of impressionable young fans from blowing their heads off in a gun-gobbling frenzy, or taking up smoking"
- Billy Joel ends "We Didn't Start the Fire" with a pair of these, back to back:Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law, rock and roller cola wars... - Bo Burnham uses this frequently:
- From "Oh Bo": "I feel like hip-hop used to be a voice for the voiceless, you know? And now it's become, at least in the mainstream, a symbol of misogyny, gay panic, fiscal irresponsibility."
- From "Rant": "Sadness where there should be joy; hate, and rape, and Soulja Boy."
- From "Sad": "I saw a little boy drop his ice cream cone directly on his mother's corpse! I saw a kitten stuck in a tree, then the kitten jumped off, and he hung itself. I saw a boy who had red hair."
- The title of the Butthole Surfers' 1987 album Locust Abortion Technician is basically this.
- The Creature Feature song "Such Horrible Things" almost takes this trope literally. The narrator of the song has been doing such horrible things ever since he was born, doing worse and worse acts every two years until he had to be placed in a mental ward, just in time for his eighteenth birthday. When he's six years old, he murders his neighbor friend while playing hide and seek in the forest. When he's eight, he commits arson by burning down his house because he hated its color. When he's ten, the next incredibly evil thing he does is...pretend to drown and laugh about it.
- "Smolik" by Diorama has these lines:Elderly people
Nuclear warning
Critical values
Fatal drops
Use at your own risk
Don't drink the water
Don't feed the bears
Don't cuddle the puppies - Eminem:
- In "Cum on Everybody":
I thought I was ill, now I'm even moreso,shit, I got full blown AIDS and a sore throat"- In "Bad Guys Always Die", he describes a Wild West villain he and Dre are planning to fight:
He ain't got no legs, they cut them off at the stomach
He's got mechanical legs, he spins webs
Plus he's well-respected by the hip-hop heads- In "Just Don't Give a Fuck", we learn about Shady's crimes:
Extortin', snortin', supportin' abortion - The Powerman 5000 song "Supervillain" has:"...[You would rather] abuse/ Condemn or slightly confuse..."
- The "Weird Al" Yankovic song "One of Those Days" includes a fair handful of such examples. One set of lines that matches the trope quite closely:The bank called me up and told me I'm overdrawn
Some freaks are burnin' crosses out on my front lawn
And I can't believe it, all the Cheetos are gone!- Also, the side effects of the computer virus in "Virus Alert" alternate between threatening and ridiculous:(Look out!) It's gonna melt your face right off your skull
(Look out!) And make your iPod only play Jethro Tull
(Look out!) And tell you knock-knock jokes while you're trying to sleep
(Look out!) And make you physically attracted to sheep
(Look out!) Steal your identity and your credit cards
(Look out!) Buy you a warehouse full of pink leotards
(Look out!) Then cause a major rift in time and space
And leave a bunch of Twinkie wrappers all over the place! - He manages to shove this and Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick into "Hardware Store" at the end of a Long List. To save you the boredom of reading the whole bridge, here's the last few lines insteadTrailer hitch demagnetizers, automatic circumcisers
Tennis rackets, angle brackets, Duracells and Energizers
Soffit panels, circuit breakers, vacuum cleaners, coffee makers
Calculators, generators, matching salt and pepper shakers - The video for "Living with a Hernia" has Al sitting with three other patients in a waiting room at the doctor's office: A woman with her head in a vice, a woman covered head-to-toe in bandages, and a man holding his decapitated head in his left arm. Despite having the least obvious infirmity, Al is the next one chosen to see the doctor.
- "CNR" extols the Memetic Badassitude of the late actor and frequent Match Game panellist Charles Nelson Reilly. The man's incredible feats could even give Chuck Norris a run for his money. He can also eat a lot of frozen waffles...
- Inverted at one point of the song "Albuquerque":You know, I'd never been on a real airplane before, and I gotta tell ya, it was really great. Except that I had to sit between two large Albanian women with excruciatingly severe body odor. And the little kid in back of me kept throwin' up the whole time. The flight attendants ran out of Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts. And the in-flight movie was Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore. And, oh yeah, three of the airplane engines burned out and we went into a tailspin and crashed into a hillside and the plane exploded in a giant fireball and everybody died!
- Also, the side effects of the computer virus in "Virus Alert" alternate between threatening and ridiculous:
- "The Chemical Worker's Song", or "Process Man" (most famous cover probably by Newfoundland band Great Big Sea), describes the horrific conditions faced in the chemical industry. It follows that the first verse uses this very dryly:Well, a process man am I, and I'm tellin' you no lie
I work and breathe among the fumes that trail across the sky
There's thunder all around me and there's poison in the air
There's a lousy smell that smacks of Hell, and dust all in me hair!- It's justified given that the dust in such a factory is probably just as toxic and life-shortening as anything else there, and he's covered in it.
- Psychostick's song We Ran Out of CD Space includes this, as well as Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick in the subsequent verse.''What if your mouth was filled with broken glass/and fire ants/and creamy jambalaya.
- Tsurupettan has the line "Curses, disappearances, sacrifices, torture, demoning away, and sneak-eating?" at some point.
- Which is actually a reference to Higurashi: When They Cry, as evident by the mention of "Oyashiro-sama" right before it.
- Billy Connolly's "Talkin' Blues" includes the linesThen like Napoleon and Ghengis did in days of yoreThey rode home on horseback and evened up the scoreWith rifles, bayonettes, screw-tops and swear words
- Tom Lehrer:
- "The Irish Ballad" is about a girl who murders her entire family, member by member (including a baby brother that she cuts in two and serves up as an Irish stew), for no particular reason. Then, when the police come by, she readily admits to the murders, for "lying, she knew, was a sin."
- In "The Hunting Song", the narrator claims that he shot, "Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow."
- Shoeless Joe Jackson in Jonathan Coulton's "Kenesaw Mountain Landis":Weren't the nicest fella,
Cuz he drank a lot, and he beat his wife, and he always acted rude;
Killed and ate some babies, and he copped an attitude - "Jesus Walks" by Kanye West: "They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus! That means guns, sex, lies, videotapes..." (Probably just a Shout-Out to Steven Soderbergh's Sex, Lies, and Videotape.)
- In the same song: "To the hustlers, killers, murderers, drug dealers, even the strippers, Jesus walks with them".
- "Oh Jonny" by German singer Jan Delay is about a pretty bad guy who does as diverse bad things as a) selling crack, b) calling his (the singer's) mother a dirty slut and c) doesn't use energy saving lamps.
- The Worm Quartet song "What Your Parents Think All Your Music Sounds Like" mocks the Moral Guardians who protest against music by creating "the most evil song ever recorded". The lyrics tell the listener to do things like "Kill your neighbor, kill your brother, kill your sister... rape your mother, get her pregnant, kill the baby, set the church on fire and use the flames to light your crack pipe," and then finally, "put your homework off until the very day it's due."
- And carve pentagrams into poodles, sacrifice their cat to Satan, kill their parents, and "Girls will fuck you if you drink straight from the milk jug."
- Lines from the song (no, not the trope) "Science Marches On" recite names of numerous technological innovations, all of which are very new, very silly, and/or very commercialized. Well, all except one:Prozac Automat, phaser in a pen, light-emitting overcoat, sensitive men.
- The song is a male/female duet, and needless to say, it's the woman who sings those last two words.
- Ray Stevens' "Moonlight Special", a parody song involving a "Wolfman Jack"-like character doing a radio program, has a song by "Agnes Stupor" that begins: "Girl, flash an old lady now. Wreck the family car. Paint the living room carpet. Chop down a cherry tree and say you didn't do it."
- The musical "The last hero on Earth" has a song where different mad scientists detail their plans for defeating the superheroes, culminating in "some exposition that will bore them all to death".
- The song "My Love is Killing Me" by The Red Elvises, as heard in the movie Six String Samurai:
- In Sanagi Love Song by musical duo Sanagi, the singer describes all the ways she would like to torture a lover with whom she is furious, including smashing his face in with a hammer, pushing him from a mountain, pulling off his fingernails, and... forcing him to listen to the Spice Girls.
- In Elvira's Full Moon, during the spoken bridge: "Rape, murder, arson and disorderly conduct (is there any other kind?) practically double during a full moon."
- From the chorus of God's Away on Business by Tom Waits from Bone Machine:Who are the ones that we kept in charge?Killers, thieves and lawyers!
- Mew's "Sometimes Life Isn't Easy":
- Hold my arms back when they beat me,
Leave me in the ditch when they kick me,
Sever my limbs and deceive me...
- I can handle being beat up and dismembered, but then they have to go and lie to me?
- In A Chainsaw For Christmas by Zombina and the Skeletones, a few other things on her list are;
- On the Group W bench in "Alice's Restaurant", the ex-cons assembled there are guilty of mother-raping, father-stabbing, father-raping, and littering. (And causing a disturbance.)
- The monologue "The Want Ad", written by Jim Steinman for the "Pandora's Box" album, performed by Ellen Foley, is about a woman retracting her personal ad because of the long, long list of varieties of Abhorrent Admirer she's encountered since taking it out. The monologue starts with complaints about things like "the under-eighteens and the over-sixties, the numerous ones who dialed my number and hung up as soon as I said hello, the thirty-five or forty of you who made dates with me and never showed up", and ends with her screaming about "the drunks, junkies, crack- and coke-heads, the multitude of liars, AND ESPECIALLY THE NICE ONES WHO NEVER CALLED BACK!"
- Emilie Autumn's "I Know Where You Sleep" is one long Take That! to an ex-lover. It ends with "And by the way, your poetry sucks".
- The fan-written song "Why, Wheatley, Why?" has this:I never called you a moronI never said that you looked fatI never claimed you were adopted
- From Weezer's song Trainwrecks:You don't keep house and I'm a slobYou're freakin' out cause I can't keep a jobWe don't update our blogs
- Tom Petty’s Christmas list at the end of "Christmas All Over Again": "Now let’s see, I want a new Rickenbacker guitar, two fender bassmans, a Chuck Berry songbook, a xylophone..."
- Probably what Shudder To Think were going for with the album title Curses, Spells, Voodoo, Mooses.
- The revised version of Kraftwerk's "Radioactivity" begins with a short statment about the proposed Sellafield 2 nuclear plant, which states that one of the radioactive elements, Krypton-85, causes death and.... skin cancer.
- This and Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick are seemingly The Lonely Island's bread and butter.
- "Like a Boss" features increasingly messed-up things the titular character does:
Suck a dude's dick (Like a boss)
Score some coke (Like a boss)
Crash my car (Like a boss)
Suck my own dick (Like a boss)
Eat some chicken strips (Like a boss)- "Jizz in my Pants" starts with the two jizzing in their pants when women say provocative things to them. It ends with them jizzing in response to wind blowing in through the window, the twist ending of The Sixth Sense, and eating grapes.
- "I'm on a Boat":
FUCK LAND, I'M ON A BOAT, MUTHAFUCKA!
FUCK TREES, I CLIMB BUOYS, MUTHAFUCKA!
I'M ON THE DECK WITH MY BOYS, MUTHAFUCKA!
THE BOAT ENGINE MAKES NOISE, MUTHAFUCKA!!- "We're Back" covers, in this order: erectile dysfunction, genital odour, shitting the bed, getting hepatitis c from horses, Rule 34 of Garfield and Marmaduke, and bringing lunch to homeless people.
- "Spring Break Anthem" juxtaposes spring break debauchery with a very wholesome depiction of gay marriage - it could be read as a satire of how one of these things tends to be celebrated in American popular culture, while the other is seen as taboo:
Trashing hotel rooms, clogging up toiletsBeer goggles if she's a hagPlanning the menu, picking out flowersNailing sluts and writing our vows! - The NOFX short song "Instant Crassic":I'm swimming in a sea of pee,
I'm hiking up a big mountain of poo.
I feel like rolling in glass when I'm without you.
I'm diving in a pool of puke,
I'm fly fishing a stream of pus,
that's how I feel when something separates us.
I'm living in Bakersfield,
I'm at a month long hip-hop festival— - Political hardcore band Propaghandi uses this beautifully in the song "The Only Good Fascist is A Very Dead Fascist" from the Less Talk, More Rock album:What exactly are the great accomplishments of your race that make you proud to be white? Capitalism? Slavery? Genocide? Sitcoms?
- "Tribute To Kent Hovind" spends the song dropping f-bombs to call Kent Hovind names but ends with the far milder "Kent, you're a dick."
- This line from the chorus of Burn Witch Burn:"You've connived and deceived and you've learned how to read."
- Nanci Griffith's has this Irish lament: "I am guilty, I am war, I am the root of all evil; Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road!"
- This article on Country Music singer Jessica Andrews discusses her only big hit, "Who I Am", in which the first line of the chorus is "I am Rosemary's granddaughter." After spending most of a paragraph discussing what he thinks is wrong with its lyrics, production, and Jessica's singing style, the author finishes up with "Also, she's even admitted that Rosemary isn't her grandmother's name."
- From the same writer: "It's not like [Keith Urban]'s venturing into death metal, electronica, or CCM…"
- From the same writer: "It's not like
- Unknown Hinson was sent to prison for 3 counts of murder, grave-robbing, vampirism...and 19 paternity suits.
- Y&T's video for "Summertime Girls" is set at a beach. At the start, there is a sign on the bulletin board reading "No Smoking No Drinking No Loitering No Accordion Solos."
- The bridge of They Might Be Giants’ “They'll Need a Crane”:Don’t call me at work again, no, no, the boss still hates meI’m just tired and I don't love you anymoreAnd there’s a restaurant we should check out
- And “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair”, which bugs him more than all the other stuff they put him through:
Would you mind if we balance this glass of milk
Where your visiting friend accidentally was killed?
Would it be okay with you if we wrote a reminder
Of things we'll forget to do today otherwise,
Using a green magic marker, if it's all right,
On the back of your head? - "Politics, Religion, and Her" by Sammy Kershaw. According to the song, those are the only things he won't talk about to a friend ("her" being a lost lover).
- "I Might Even Quit Lovin' You" by Mark Chesnutt:Gonna reach way down inside and find a brand new will to live
Got plans to forget about the way you made me feel
Gonna walk outside one night and turn your memory loose
And when I do, I might even quit lovin' you
And when I do, I might even quit lovin' you - The 1983 Estonian patriotic song "Ärkamise aeg" ("Time of Awakening"), popular in the Singing Revolution which lead to the restoration of Estonian independence after half a century of Soviet rule, lists the crimes of foreign invaders in Estonia as follows:Tulega, mõõgaga tuli võõras mees, | With fire, with a sword, came a strange man,
Häda tõi, valu tõi, võõrast leiba sõi. | He brought distress, he brougth pain, he ate strange bread.
Langes taat, memmeke, lapseeas vennake,| Old men fell, old women, baby brother
Pisaraist märjaks sai kogu maa. | The land was drenched in tears. - The chorus for Raymond & Maria's "No One Notices Your Brand New T-shirt":No one will miss you when you dieNo one will think of you and cryNo one notices your brand new t-shirt
- From "People II: The Reckoning" by Andrew Jackson Jihad:But there's a bad man in everyone, no matter who we areThere's a rapist and a Nazi living in our tiny heartsChild pornographers and cannibals and politicians too
- Miracle of Sound indulges in this occasionally; a prime example is the Content Warning at the beginning of the "Hell to Pay" video:WARNING: This music video contains images of extreme violence, gore, metal, awesomeness, chainsaws, and a severe lack of diplomatic solutions to interpersonal conflicts. Viewer discretion is advised.
- Steel Panther has a song called "Ten Strikes You're Out", where the narrator puts up with his girlfriend cheating, mistrusting him, and giving his dog VD, but when he finds out she drank his last beer, that's when he dumps her.
- The chorus to "All Your Favorite Bands" by Dawes:I hope that life without a chaperone is what you thought it'd be
I hope your brother's El Camino runs forever
I hope the world sees the same person that you always were to me
And may all your favorite bands stay together. - The title song for Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego lists many of Carmen's crimes, which include looting, running scams, armed robbery, pick-pocketing ... and stealing legumes.She put the Miss in misdemeanor when she stole the beans from Lima.
- Horrorcore artist Sutter Kain's song, "August Underground":I'm so twisted, I leave your chest leakin'
Shit on the ground, make your mother eat the feces
Hacksaw and chop all you niggas up to pieces
And burn any pic that depicts a white Jesus. - In "Space Oddity" by David Bowie, after the astronaut character Major Tom has lifted off into space:This is Ground Control to Major Tom, you've really made the grade, and the papers want to know whose shirts you wear.
- The Beverley Sisters song "It's Illegal, It's Immoral Or It Makes You Fat"
- "Bad Day to Let You Go" by Bryan White:Got a hole in my shoe
And a bad case of the blues
On top of that, it's raining too... - Kids Praise: This was likely done just for rhyming, but Risky Rat's Villain Song in the tenth album has him describing himself as, and we quote: clever, conniving, a spiritual gangster, a trickster, a charmer, a conman, a prankster!
- "We Care A Lot" by Faith No More:We care a lot about disasters, fires, floods, and killer bees
- The Vocaloid track "Ever∞Lasting∞Night" has a subverted example. For context, the Night ∞ series is about the servants of a manor suffering what appears to be a Stable Time Loop centered around a guest that arrives in the dead of night. Thus, the "jaywalking" in question is much more sinister than it appears. (lyrics below are translated without regard for melody)Meiko: In the glow of an eerie red full moon, a storm brews this night...Luka: On such a night, on such a night...Gumi: An incident is sure to occur!Kaito: A vampire out for blood?Rin: A werewolf baring his fangs?Len: A Frankenstein's monster?Gakupo: An uninvited guest?
- The song "Bad Decisions" by Grottomatic is written from the perspective of a man who is trying to ditch a friend whose idea of fun mostly involves extremely dangerous and foolish activities. One of the things involves a hookup between the singer and his friend's sister.You even set me up with your Trekkie sister when you know that I like Doctor Who!
- The chorus of the popular Swedish drinking song Härjarvisan (Reaver's Song) translates to: "Now we're going out to reave, drink and fight and swear, burn red houses, hit small kids and say bad words!"
- On Rihanna's episode of the Fuse TV series Loaded, the host is talking about the different personae she portrayed in her videos, including a soldiernote , a rock starnote , a murderernote "and a car mechanic, just to name a few."note Justified, since it was setting up the video for "Stay," where she is herself.
- A German oldie, probably already from the 50s, laments for a little DKW car which had a breakdown: motor defect, gasoline tank lost...and a dirty exhaust.
- Musician Magazine's review of MC Hammer's Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em lists the album's messages as "Drugs Are Bad. Save The Children. I Can Dance."
- The rapper Canibus, in Lost @ C has the following line: "My bloodstream's been, contaminated for eons. I got cast out of Heaven for treason. Got cast out of the Garden of Eden for letting the reptilian beast in. Got locked up for a DUI and speedin"
- EMI Music Canada's 1993 "Eat the Music" sampler consists of several songs such as Garth Brooks' "Ain't Going Down (Til The Sun Comes Up)", Pet Shop Boys' "Go West", Stompin' Tom Connors' "Blue Berets", Radiohead's "3:53", The Beatles' "Hello Goodbye", Kate Bush's "Rubber Band Girl"... and Barney the Dinosaur's "I Love You"
- The Niko B song "Who's That What's That" sees him meeting a girl and lists her transgressions, with an actual case of arson, as being:She stole like half my jumpers (thief)Took her to meet my family and she squared up to my cousin (bow)Yeah she's mad (she's mad)She'll try to fight my dadGot her a taxi from the airport and she tried to bump the cab (bump)And she stole, my cat (my cat)She burnt down my flat (no way)She went to the club and put her drinks on my tab
- Jimmy Buffett does this three times in the chorus of "Vampires, Mummies, and the Holy Ghost":Vampires, mummies and the Holy GhostThese are the things that terrify me the mostNo alien, psychopath or MTV hostScares me like vampires, mummies and the Holy Ghost
- In Flight of the Conchords' song "Think About It":There's children on the street using guns and knivesThey're taking drugs and each other's livesKilling each other with knives and forksAnd calling each other names like 'dork'
- Seen in the music video for The Chalkeaters' "Breathtaking", after the flying puppies convert various game companies, causing their leaders to retract their previous controversial stances. The head of EA denounces their "surprise mechanics" lootbox system, the head of Blizzard holds up a sign that says "Free Hong Kong", and Gabe Newell decides to make Half-Life 3.
- Qbomb: In "A Minor Apocalypse", the singer's breakdown involves him describing two aggressive actions and then an incredibly mundane one.I am the human anathema
The lack of logic
Sometimes I put recyclables
Into the wrong garbage - Pet Shop Boys: The verses of "You Know Where You Went Wrong" are glimpses into three tales of people whose lives took undesired turns - the first concerns two homeless men, the second is about an old man who provided "security, bombs, and colour TV" now being shunned for the fatal consequences of his accomplishments... and the last verse is about a girl regretting her decision to not date a boy.
