It's a Motherfucker - Eels
Your Fucking Sunny Day - Lambchop
How Fucking Romantic - Magnetic Fields
Bloody Motherfucking Asshole - Martha Wainwright
Fuck the Universe - Ryan Adams
The Man Don't Give a Fuck - Super Furry Animals
Fuck this Shit - Belle and Sebastian
Fuck it, I Love You - Malcolm Middleton
Cunts - Aidan John Moffat
Grudge Fuck - Pernice Brothers
It's been a relatively long time since I posted anything, the reason being simply that I've been very busy, rather than that I'm running out of ideas - though they are slowing down somewhat, I've still got a few stored up. The thing is, it's not the start bit of each post or the end bit that takes the time, or ought to take the time, it's the middle bit, the real meat, and too often lately I've found myself rushing out some incoherent nonsense, which hasn't expressed anything interesting about the subject in question.
So, I thought, this subject might offer some kind of opportunity to write something coherent about swearing, which has always interested me. Unfortunately, I'm right in the eye of a cold, which, though hardly debilitating, is befuddling and wearying.
So, this post may well end being fairly piecemeal all round. Sorry.
Still, good set of songs. I'll see what I can wring out of the subject. What's interesting about using "fuck" or another swear in a songtitle is that you are necessarily courting controversy and demanding attention even though the phrase you have used might well be one of the most natural and simple imaginable. As soon as you've put the swear in the title it will be commented on in those terms.
I like the idea of this blog because it really comes close to exemplifying the difference between the perceived "danger" of a swearword and its actual place in our language. The Eels song is as barely beautiful as anything by Nick Drake or Joni Mitchell or anyone, and the tacit meanings expressed by the central phrase "It's a Motherfucker" is what gives the song a lot of its power.
Elsewhere, to be fair, some of these songs do use "fuck" with more aggressive intent eg Martha Wainwright and Ryan Adams - the Ryan Adams isn't actually pretty, it's kind of ghastly and compelling, but i truly think it is the sound of a man at lowest ebb, but still putting it into a coherent song.
They're all "fuck" apart from the Moffat song, which isn't really a song at all, more a brief discourse on the use of the word itself.
There's a view that cunt remains the last taboo, swearwise, and while it's still perceived, i guess it's still true, while it's still the one which will get a disapproving glance for or which you'll hold back from saying in front of certain people, but its place as a no-go area, as a word of particular offence, is built on nothing really.
I've softened somewhat in my attitude to swearing, or rather my attitude to people's attitude to swearing. While in the past, I'd have argued about absurdity and hypocrisy and ignorance giving language more power than it merits and giving children easy lines to cross, I do see that not swearing in front of children/ at work etc is, like the royal family, a convention that, though basically silly, serves moderate purpose and will be around for a while to come.
I also acknowledge that when you see comedians live who you've seen on TV not swearing, and they're f-ing and blinding away, thy look silly and forced in their effort to either a) look natural or b) look adult or c) look edgy, and likewise, swearing often looks bad on the page when writers use it to capture a vernacular.
So, there we go, that's it. No poem, i don't think. I don't really know how i could exemplify the issue without looking smug or naff or both. If anything comes to me, I'll come back to it, but I'll just end with ****.
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