As my friends and I prepared the dinner table last night, the sweet sounds of 1930s blues filled the room. The scratchy, canned recordings of that bygone era masked the lewd lyrics, so it wasn’t until the second verse of Lucille Bogan‘s “Till the Cows Come Home” that we knew for sure she was singing about fucking with a capital “F”.
A sample verse:
If you suck my pussy, baby, I’ll suck your dick
I’ll do it to you honey, till I make you shit
Listen to the song in all its glory:
Lucille Bogan Till the Cows Come Home
Uploaded by sergheirugasky. – See the latest featured music videos.
We stared at each other in total disbelief as she sang of giving her lovers the clap, her floor sweeping pubic hair with “funk from those hairs that will shut the door” and how her two lovers had dicks like baseball bats. There is an extra layer of shock when you discover our predecessors could be just as smarmy as any modern day porno.
We have a preoccupation with sanitizing the past in order to present its occupants in a more noble light, similar to the way we eulogize the dead and forgive them their earthly indiscretions. Hindsight is not only 20/2o; it is also easily manipulated for our own comfort.
Champions of family values often shriek about impending moral doom, holding up copies of Penthouse and rattling off porn sites as evidence for cultural entropy. But the moment you dig below the bleached façade of official history, you’ll find the same old dirty jokes, songs and images. Drawing cocks on the walls is nothing new for humans.
Of course, social sanctions against sexual innuendo and expression are nothing new either. Though the urge to create “dirty” entertainment and art is culturally ubiquitous, the urge to eradicate those creations waxes and wanes. Even the bounds of what constitutes prurience are in constant flux.
Personally, I find it humbling that Ancient Romans scrawled offensive lines on public walls or that medieval writers drew dirty cartoons in religious texts. Perversion is a uniquely human trait and I am happy to embrace bawdiness.
Posted by Lisa on July 19, 2010 at 11:57 am
That is the weirdest, craziest thing I ever heard in my life,
Posted by sexademic on July 19, 2010 at 11:59 am
Isn’t it? I want that song to be my new ringtone.
Posted by sociosound on July 19, 2010 at 12:29 pm
I want it as a ringtone, too LOL … damn. Well, that’s different!!
Posted by Tarot on July 19, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Then you must simply own a copy of the Copulatin’ Blues.
http://amzn.com/B000001LYI
Posted by sexademic on July 19, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Yes! Thank you!
Posted by beverly heels on July 19, 2010 at 5:23 pm
i love lucille bogan! pretty much the only things she sings about are alcoholism, sex, prostitution, being angry with her lovers, etc. and so on. she also sang about lesbian experiences, etc. and so on, and, considering this was the 20s/30s, thats pretty cool.
she was one of the first artists ever recorded! (and subsequently sings about fucking in the recording studio ;D! ).
Posted by The Beautiful Kind on July 27, 2010 at 1:08 pm
My friend teaches a popular music in America course at a college and he points out songs like the one by Buddy Guy about following a little schoolgirl home… http://www.justsomelyrics.com/1906509/Buddy-Guy-Good-Morning-Little-Schoolgirl-Lyrics
Anyway, I sent him a link to this post so he can mention Lucille in class
Posted by Kristine on January 27, 2011 at 12:43 pm
A bit late, but you might also be interested in “My sweet farm girl” by Clarence Ashley, available on Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/Farm
Kristine