Gimme an F

It’s well past 2 am and my glorious slumber is rudely interrupted by a bunch of motley revellers that has decided to keep the party going at that unearthly hour with a whole lot of shouting, whistling and abusive language. To top it all, some idiot decides to add to the decibels with some rap music at full blast. I decide to call the cops.

The one thing about that bit of cacophony that grabbed me by the ears was the horrendous lyrics. What’s the big deal with using the F-word? The rap artiste delivering his diatribe on stereo seemed to think it was hip and used the word in practically every other line of the song.

I’m all for free speech and have always felt it’s quite nice to use the F word if it makes a point. In fact, the first time I heard a singer use it was in the movie Woodstock, when Country Joe McDonald urged the audience to spell the word out one letter at a time. “Gimme an F,” he roared, and 300,000 throats obliged in unison. “Gimme a U”. And they did. While McDonald hadn’t used the word in the lyrics of his song, “The ‘Fish’ Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag”, what he did achieve with his peculiar call was to bring forth the solidarity of an audience which, in terms of sheer numbers, would make a small city in the United States during the 1960s. That was an America that was seeing body bags being brought home by the dozens every day from Vietnam. “Gimme an F” was just his way and that of a disgruntled population protesting against a war the nation had no business to be in.

Country Joe McDonald urged the Woodstock crowd to spell the F word out one letter at a time

But some artistes have even used F-U-whatever assertively in the lyrics of their songs. One such band is Steely Dan, two of whose tracks have employed the term to great effect. Dan is a band that has been known to deliver dark statements about the socio-political and economic scenario in America, while permitting the listener to make his own interpretation of what the band is trying to say. To my mind, their iconic piece “FM” is a subtle rebuke to a debased materialistic society that treats musical excellence with disdain. The use of the F word in the admonition has just got to be the songwriter’s delight: “The Girls don’t seem to care what’s on / As long as they play till dawn / Nothing but Blues and Elvis and somebody else’s favourite song / Give her some f***ed up music, she’ll treat you nice.”

You’ve got to listen to the whole track to get the essence.

Steely Dan’s “Show Biz Kids” is a rap on the knuckles to megalomaniac nouveau riche youth who don’t know the true value of money because their wealth is legacy and they haven’t worked hard to keep the home fires burning. Dan uses the F word to say so many things in just a single incomplete sentence: “Show business kids making movies of themselves, you know they don’t give a f*** about anybody else...”

Some of the later bands, however, seem to have lost the plot. Sample this little bit from a band called Puddle of Mudd (how appropriate) about an apparent break-up: “She f***ing hates me / Trust she f***ing hates me /La la la love / I tried too hard and she tore my feelings like I had none/ And ripped them away.”

Pardon the prude in me, but how does f*** bring out the anguish of the songwriter? Or take this thing by American rock band Godsmack that seems to revel on insulting language. I’m not sure who the angst in the song “I F***ing Hate you” is directed at, but the songwriter has used “F” very liberally without really making a point. Another set-up derived sadistic pleasure by wanting to break someone’s “f***ing head”. There are innumerable cases of unnecessary use of this expletive by the bands of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and it would be difficult to encapsulate them all.

The point is that the use of expletives can be counterproductive if they don’t enhance the arguments made by the songwriter. At best, they could appeal to the baser instincts of an immature audience and provide a cocaine shot to the popularity of the lyricist.

Perhaps present-day rap, grunge and metal acts could draw on the genius of John Lennon who threw his weight behind the have-nots in his epic “Working Class Hero” with this simple yet fiery verse:

“They hurt you at home and they hit you at school / They hate you if you’re clever and they despise a fool / Till you’re so f***ing crazy you can’t follow their rules / A working class hero is something to be/ A working class hero is something to be.”

They’re planning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the original Woodstock festival. I’m not sure how the new gig will pan out or whether a modern-day Country Joe McDonald will be able to replicate the act of his predecessor in 1969.