"The Villain Sucks" Song
"Well, Kyle's mom's a bitch, she's a big fat bitch, she's the biggest bitch in the whole wide world..."
—Eric Cartman, South Park
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This is differentiated from the Villain Song in that it is not sung by the villain, but about the villain. The Villain Sucks Song basically just describes how the villain is a horrible person in every way, hopefully with lots of witty jabs. This song is sometimes interrupted because the villain is Right Behind Me.
Sometimes also becomes a Insult Backfire, because some villains actually find it flattering. Normally said villain is a Complete Monster or Card-Carrying Villain.
Note the character this song is aimed at doesn't have to be the villain. It can also be sung about a main character who starts off bad, but who is destined to undergo a Heel Face Turn. Not to be confused with the villain sucking at being a villain, though that might also be the case.
In period pieces, this can overlap with Hail to the Thief. If it's sung to the villain, it could count as "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
Anime and Manga
- In the 1974 Jack and the Beanstalk anime there's the song "Tulip!" which is all about Jack insulting the giant named Tulip.
Film
- A Muppet Christmas Carol had one about Scrooge here.
- Although aimed at the villains as a whole rather than individually, Muppet Treasure Island opens with Shiver My Timbers, which is this trope for the verses but switches to a straight Villain Song for the chorus.
- There is a rare combination of this with a normal Villain Song "Marley and Marley" in death they discovered just how big a Heels they were.
- Speaking of A Christmas Carol, the 1970 musical adaptation, Scrooge, has one of these about the title character, the snarkily ironic "Father Christmas". From the same film, "Thank You Very Much" is about how happy everyone is that he's dead.
- Later, "Thank You Very Much" is sung in earnest in a Bright Reprise after Scrooge changes his ways and cancels everyone's debt to him. None of the lyrics are changed; the song itself is about how the singer is grateful for an unspecified favor, the only change is the favor that caused the song to be sung. The lyrics of the "Father Christmas" reprise, however, change dramatically.
- The James Bond series loves these, though it's less "the villain sucks" than "the villain is pretty awesome, but dangerous and evil".
- The title song to Goldfinger. "He loves only gold; he loves only gold; he loves GOOOOOOOOOOOOLD!!!" Why yes. Yes he does.
- Likewise, the innuendo-laden Lulu song for The Man with the Golden Gun. "He has a powerful weapon", apparently. "Who will he bang? We shall see..."
- And the lyrics for Thunderball are less explicit, but appear to be talking about a man who "looks at the world and wants it all", and "strikes like Thunderball". Of course, the whole point of that song was that it could be either about Bond or the villain.
- "Dr. Evil", written for Austin Powers by They Might Be Giants, is a parody of this type of song as used in James Bond movies.
- Not to mention that song about Goldmember. "He's got the Midas touch / but he touched it too much / Hey Goldmember!"
- "The Man Behind The Mask" by Alice Cooper, a song about Jason Voorhees that was the main "theme" of Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives to mark the character's return to the franchise after a brief absence. Not so much a "villain sucks" song as a "run the hell away!" song.
- Somewhat subverted in Dudley Do-Right when "Bread and Butter" by the Newbeats starts up as the main villain, Snidely Whiplash, walks onto a balcony to greet everyone at a party. Hardly threatening stuff.
- But what if he really does like bread and butter instead of toast and jelly?
- Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame opens with "Bells of Notre Dame", most of which is all about just how evil Frollo is and how he's the real monster of the story. It's basically one long Moral Event Horizon in song form.
- So much so that the backing vocals borrow "Kyrie eleison" and "Dies irae" from liturgical music. "Lord have mercy" and "Day of wrath" indeed...
- Disney's Pocahontas has "Savages", which consists of the British and the Natives each singing about how evil and uncivilized the other side is.
- Disney's Beauty and the Beast contains a song about Gaston that's full of backhanded compliments and descriptions that would be insulting if they weren't sung by his fawning followers.
- Bartok the Magnificent opens with this. It's not so much The Villain "Sucks" Song as a The Villain is "Damn Scary" Song.
- Subverted in The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. Nick Cave sings the real-life song "The Ballad of Jesse James", which villifies Robert Ford and casts James as a martyr. Ford hears the song and is enraged by the bias as well as his own guilt.
- In Fern Gully, Batty Koda sings "Batty Rap". While he's not exactly singing about Hexxus, the villain of the movie, he is singing about humans, who cause a lot of trouble in the movie, and he certainly sees them as villainous after all they've done to him.
- In Super Mario Bros, Toad is arrested for singing one about Koopa as a street corner protest.
- Rama's Great in Sita Sings the Blues is a song about how the hero sucks.
- In A Series of Unfortunate Events, there was a song called "Scream and Runaway" about Count Olaf in which Lemony Snicket holds up title cards. It says to avoid him and his villainous troupe and can be viewed here.
- Phantom of the Paradise has The Hell of It playing right as it segues into the closing credits, making the song a rare posthumous example.
- The Return of Captain Invincible, a superhero rock opera, includes "Evil Midnight" sung by Alan Arkin and Christopher Lee. It's a duet between hero and villain that manages to be both a Villain Sucks Song and a Villain Song at the same time.
- "Believe me that no mother ever cried for Midnight..."
Literature
- "The Rains of Castamere" from A Song of Ice and Fire. Its subject, Tywin Lannister, actually likes the song, though, as it details exactly what happens to those who oppose him. As a result, it's mostly played either to curry favor with him or to intimidate his enemies.
- In the Left Behind book series, Buck Williams twists Nicolae Carpathia's self-indulging national anthem "Hail Carpathia" into "Fail Carpathia" and even has his wife Chloe sing it.
- Once per year, the boys in Krabat are allowed to make fun of the miller (their evil master), and do this.
- MuggleNet, a Harry Potter fansite, has several song parodies that fall under this category, including "You're A Mean One, Voldemort", sung to the tune of "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" and "Dolores Umbridge", which is set to the tune of "Cruella De Vil".
- In Deathly Hallows, Peeves sings a brief one after Voldemort's death.
Live-Action TV
- Some of the different sets of lyrics that have accompanied the Blackadder theme tune over the years could be said to fall into this category. Particularly those from the first series, which claim "he's very bad indeed", and berate him as "you horrid little man".
- Later seasons, where the latest Edmund Blackadder is less of an outright Villain Protagonist, aren't quite as strong about it; the second season in particular actually has different lyrics each episode, relevant to the episode (and, on at least one occasion, taking time off from berating Blackadder to poke fun at Lord Melchett instead).
- "Well, she glides around the globe and she'll flimflam every nation, she's a double-dealing diva with a taste for thievery! Her itinerary's loaded up with moving violations, tell me Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego??" Though this may be more of a The Villain Is Awesome song...
- Tori from Victorious uses one of these to give Ryder Daniels a Humiliation Conga. She and her friends write "Begging On Your Knees", which details Rynder's way of using girls' love for him to manipulate them and explain how she (and his ex-girlfriends) will have revenge on him. She then sings it in front of the entire school while her friends force him to remain on stage and take his punishment like a man. While it doesn't mention Ryder by name, in the context it's used, it works as one of these.
- The main cast of Glee does one of these in the episode "Original Song", called "Loser Like Me" which is basically an anthem to the underdogs of the school. It's a Crowning Moment of Awesome because Sue, who has taken every step imaginable to keep New Directions from succeeding in any way, shape, or form, is in the audience and her face slowly goes from just watching the song to looking like "Wait a minute..." It's basically a gigantic "Screw you!" for all the crap she's put them through over the course of the show.
Music
- Jim Croce was fond of these. See "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown", "Ma Baker", and "You Don't Mess Around With Jim."
- "Leroy Brown" is actually a Double Subversion: it starts out claiming what a Badass Leroy is, but ends with his humiliation or, possibly, death.
- "Mean Mr. Mustard" by The Beatles. It's about a mean old man... named Mr. Mustard.
- Ludo's "Love Me Dead", about a Femme Fatale:
Love me cancerously |
Professional Wrestling
- I'm not sure if raps qualify as "songs", but if they do then John Cena definitely treated Madison Square Garden to one of these at Wrestlemania XX when he ridiculed Big Show with some hip-hop rhymes before their U.S. Championship match. The rap even explicitly ended with "Big Show sucks!" - which the crowd then echoed back in unison.
- Triple H and Shawn Michaels managed to turn the otherwise pretty neutral song "Stand Back" (performed by Vince McMahon at the 1987 Slammy Awards) into a song of this type in their uproarious parody of Vince and his son Shane on an episode of Monday Night Raw in 2006.
- Former Nexus and Corre member Heath Slater was given a fan-made song of this sort. I HATE YOU HEATH SLATER!
- Zig-Zagged with Kurt Angle's WWE song with the crowd going You Suck!!
- Booker T sings one about Cody Rhodes based off of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on the December 23, 2011 episode of WWE Smackdown.
Theatre
- While "Master of the House" from Theatre/Les Miserables starts off as a typical Villain Song for Thenardier, it fits neatly into this trope as soon as his wife starts singing.
- While well-known as a freestanding pop favorite, the song "Mack the Knife" is actually a Villain Sucks Song (or an Anti-Hero Sucks Song) from the Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera.
- The middle portion of "You Did It" from My Fair Lady ("Karparthy? That dreadful Hungarian? Was he there?")
- "Macavity: The Mystery Cat" in the musical Cats.
- "The Stuff" from Reefer Madness.
- There's an anti-Captain Hook song in certain versions of Peter Pan.
- "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd", from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street:
"Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd! His skin was pale and his eye was odd. He shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard of again... Sweeney was smooth, Sweeney was subtle. Sweeney would blink and rats would scuttle..." |
- In Titanic, the song "The Blame" consists of Captain Smith, builder Thomas Andrews, and owner J. Bruce Ismay each singing about how one or both of the others is responsible for the ship's sinking. No matter who you think is responsible, this song explains why he sucks.
- "He Did It" from Curtains has three groups of people singing about how the villain(s) suck(s). Each group thinks the villain(s) is/are somebody different.
- While not "villains" per se (they don't actually ever appear), the male portion of "Six Months Out of Every Year" from Damn Yankees probably qualifies for its abuse of the title team.
- "Pore Jud is Daid" in Oklahoma! basically amounts to Curly making a bunch of thinly-veiled jabs at Jud. Interesting example because it's a duet sung with the villain who doesn't catch the insults.
- And it's a parody of Never Speak Ill of the Dead, because Curly is singing about how much everyone would like Jud if only he would kill himself.
- And it's really really creepy because Curly is trying to drive Jud to suicide.
- Or (less creepily) Curly's trying to get Jud to lighten up and laugh at his own gloominess. Some residual creepiness, in that Curly's a trifle optimistic for a grown man about Jud actually having a sense of humor...but then, Curly IS the guy who sang "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning!"
- "No One Mourns the Wicked", the beginning of "Thank Goodness", and "March of the Witch Hunters" from Wicked are subversions of this trope, as they describe how horrible the protagonist is, but are composed of perversions/exaggerations of the truth and outright lies.
- Elphaba is arguably a Villain Protagonist though
- Merrily We Roll Along has "Franklin Shepard Inc", where a lyricist talks about how he works with the composer. He goes on to rail against said composer's money-grubbing and selling out.
- The opera Regina has the Rain Quartet in act III, in which Horace compares the nourishing rain to the people who "eat all the earth." In the end, Alexandra sings a Dark Reprise, making it more blatant that it refers to the operas Villain Protagonist.
- Team Rocket in Pokémon Live combine a more literal version of this with Villain Song in The Best At Being The Worst. "The Hindenburgs of crime" indeed.
- "Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher" from Billy Elliot: The Musical. While she does not herself appear, Margaret Thatcher is the nearest thing to a Big Bad in Billy Elliot.
Merry Christmas, Maggie Thatcher, may God's love be with you. |
- Brett's friends mercilessly tear into Lucy in 13's "Bad Bad News". Does she deserve it? Eh, subjective...
Video Games
- "Lord Laharl's Hymn" from Disgaea. The general declarations of his awfulness are badges of honor to the Card-Carrying Villain overlord rather than insults, however.
- Same with the "Etna Boogie", which plays it a little more straight. A little.
- Disgaea 3 gives us "Onwards Mao" which describes the main character as a Mad Scientist.
- The frighteningly catchy song for villain Nuclear Winter in Freedom Force
- Nuuucleaaar Wiiinnteeerrr... aaaaAAAAaaa... Turn you land into SNOOOWW!!! He will kill you all for the motherland... aaaAAAAaaa...
- The ClueFinders (Third Grade) had an unnamed song unofficially titled The Monkey Song or Do You Believe In Monsters, focusing primarily on how evil Mathra (yes, really) is. Skip to 5:15, though the rest of the show is somewhat amusing as well...
- Intercontinental Music Lab made one of these for Dr Robotnik, fittingly titled Dr Robotnik
Western Animation
- "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
- In the Jim Carrey version, he sings it himself, making it a full Villain Song.
- Copied and parodied in Just Shoot Me, except it's Mr. Finch.
- The song is also parodied in Freakazoid! in the form of "You're a Mean One, Nasty Lobe", a Villain Sucks sung by the narrator about the Lobe while he freely commits various crimes and atrocities.
- Also from Freakazoid, "Where, did he go / That Invisibo / He's a power-hungry crook / with a Scepter full of juice".
- Brawl in the Family did this, as well as the actual story. ♪You're a penguin, Dedede...♫
- "Cruella De Vil" from One Hundred and One Dalmatians. She apparently doesn't like it very much, given hearing it on the radio in Patch's London Adventure is enough to make her kick her dashboard until it shuts up.O
- Even the live-action version has the song play over the credits, even though there's no in-universe version since Roger got his career changed.
- Walt Disney's Robin Hood has "The Phony King of England", written by Johnny Mercer, of all famous songwriters one otherwise wouldn't associate with Disney.
- The aforementioned king catches Sir Hiss and the Sheriff of Nottingham singing this song, and chucks a bottle of wine at the latter, just barely missing him—but covering him with the contents. Upon being told the whole village is singing it, he says they'll be singing a different tune from now on. "Double the taxes! Triple the taxes! SQUEEZE EVERY LAST DROP out of those insolent -- musical -- peasants."
- Lucky he never heard the "Bastard King" version, really.
- The Disney adaptation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow features Bing Crosby's dangerously catchy "The Headless Horseman".
- "Icky Vicky" and "Vicky-Free Summer" from Fairly Oddparents.
- "Kyle's Mom Is A Bitch" from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut.
- Kyle's mom appears directly behind Cartman, who's singing the song, towards the end—causing the other children to all gasp in horror. After his grand finale, he looks up to see the children staring at him, and he says, "What?!" He turns around. "Oh,fuck." He proceeds to get a chip installed in him causing him to get zapped every time he swears.
- The episode "Asspen" has the song "Stan Darsh", a rare example of The Hero Sucks Song.
- "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" from Disney's The Three Little Pigs.
- "Mortimer, Mortimer, Mortimer Mouse" in House Of Mouse—was originally a song penned by Mortimer to sing his own praises, but Daisy, Clarabelle and Minnie reworked the lyrics because as they were, the audience was not buying it.
- Technically, the torch song Harley Quinn sings in Batman the Animated Series is a "The Villain Sucks" Song, but because of the nature of her relationship with the Joker, it's also a twisted love song.
- The "Mob Song" ("Kill the Beast!, Kill the Beast!") sounds like one of these but is sung about the film's hero. When you take into account that the song that is actually sung about the villain (predominantly sung by Le Fou) is how great Gaston is ("Gaston"), then these are arguable inversions.
- Another parody of the Bond Villain song: "Scorpio" in The Simpsons episode "You Only Move Twice". Also Tito Puente's slanderous mambo "Senor Burns" in the 7th season premiere.
- Not to mention Homer singing a self-praising version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" as he steals Springfield's Christmas presents (in an attempt to make them see the real meaning of the holiday beyond commercialism).
- He also writes one about Flanders...but only Homer would see Flanders as the villain, since he's basically the most kind, decent person in town.
- Not to mention Homer singing a self-praising version of "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" as he steals Springfield's Christmas presents (in an attempt to make them see the real meaning of the holiday beyond commercialism).
- Kootie Pie Rap! Kootie Pie Rap!
- "He's a Tramp" from Lady and the Tramp counts as one of these, although Tramp isn't really a villain and more of a lovable rogue.
- Peg, the wayward lap dog who sang the tune, even admitted in the lyrics that "I love him" and "I only hope he'll stay that way."
- On the "old west" episode of Spongebob, SpongeBuck's idiot friend leads everyone in town in a little Ear Worm about how horrible Dead Eye Plankton is. Dead Eye approves.
- Not strictly an animation, but a record called "Mousercise" had a tune about The Beagle Boys about how they could never get Uncle Scrooge's money, but they kept on trying anyway.
- The second part of "The Gospel Truth" in Disney's Hercules was one for Hades, although it was very short.
- Home Movies has a quite literal example ad-libbed from Walter and Perry. "We hate Fenton, Fenton sucks. We hate Fenton, Fenton so much..."
- "This Cat Is Coming After You" from the Atomic Betty album, though the singer tends to praise Maximus rather than denounce him.
- "Heffalumps and Woozles" from Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day.
- The Backson Song from the new film.
- This one from Fantastic Mr. Fox made the Crowning Music of Awesome page.
Boggis and Bunce and Bean |
- Another inversion, inasmuch as it is the hero who sucks in this variant, comes from the Musical Episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold; the villains (and even some of the heroes) sing a song called "Drives Us Bats", venting their frustration about how Batman is always showing them up.
- In Thomas the Tank Engine, one group of villains does this to another villain. When Diesel attempts to pull old, worn trucks, and badly fails, all the trucks in the yard start singing a little ditty called "Pop Goes the Diesel", which infuriates him.
- Played with magnificently in the Disney edition of The Little Mermaid with "Poor, Unfortunate Souls", the gist of which is Ursula the Sea Witch, as part of her evil plans, trying to convince the heroine that Ursula's "Repented, seen the light and made a switch". The con is obvious to everyone but a naive, sheltered little princess:
And I fortunately know a little magic |
- Peter Pan had "Never Smile at a Crocodile", which was about Tick Tock the Crocodile. Lyrics were written for it, but only the melody made it into the final film (though the song ended up in a Sing-Along Songs video, however). On the other hand, the sequel has "Here We Go, Another Plan", which starts out praising Captain Hook but ends up mocking him at the last line.
- Who else can think of the perfect crime / And bumble and fumble it every time?
- Oddly enough, Disney seems to consider "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo one, having placed it on the Simply Sinister Songs CD and in Hallowishes.
- The opening theme to Angela Anaconda becomes one right at the end ("Shoo-bee-doo-bee-doo-wah-wah/My name is Angela, and you are not/Nanette Manoir is a stuck-up jerkface snot!")
- The theme song for Pinky and The Brain could be considered one, although they are really villain protagonists.
- Total Drama World Tour had several:
- "Her Real Name Isn't Blaineley", about Blaineley ("Here's an open letter to a treasure of a girl, whose behavior on the show always makes me hurl...")
- "Sisters", about Alejandro ("You think you got me good, okay, maybe you did [...] Sisters, come together now and take him down!")
- "Boyfriend Kisser", about Gwen ("Boyfriend kisser, I thought she was my friend, but now it's time to dis her...") A borderline example, as her actions fall more under What the Hell, Hero?? than real villainy.
- "Versus" is an interesting example, as it's primarily two villains (Heather and Alejandro) singing about each other. This makes it both a Villain Song (as it is song by villains) and a "The Villain Sucks" Song at the same time.
- In the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic episode "Bridle Gossip", Pinkie Pie comes up with a short but catchy one about Zecora (who later turns out to be perfectly nice):
She's an evil enchantress |
- While completely fanmade, Super Ponybeat's "Discord" somewhat qualifies as one for Discord, detailing how he's making life miserable and the singer despises him and what he's doing. Though the Evil Laughter could be considered a inclination that Discord enjoys it.
- Family Guy has numerous examples, but one of the best was "The Fellas at the Freakin' FCC".
So they sent this little warning they're prepared to do the worst |
- Madeline and the Bad Hat has an infectiously simple song about the girls' new neighbors' bratty son, Pepito. Once Pepito pulls a Heel Face Turn, he and the girls sing a version describing how he used to suck.
- In The Lion King 2: Simba's Pride, the song Not One of Us certainly sounds like this, but the reality as a lot more complicated
Real Life
- "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", "Whistle While You Work (Hitler is a Jerk)" and "Der Fuehrer's Face" by Spike Jones. Hitler seemed to attract these. And Not for the reasons you might think today! At the time those songs were written, the Final Solution and other Nazi atrocities were generally unknown. Spike Jones wrote those songs because we were at war with Germany, and an enemy leader is an Acceptable Target.
- There's some evidence that "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" is actually derived from an earlier song about Napoleon. Mocking villains with song goes back a long way.
- There's apparently some evidence that Hitler really did only have one ball. This doesn't necessarily mean that the earlier idea of the song to that effect being based on one about Napoleon is wrong, of course.
- It is set to the "Colonel Bogey March", written in 1914 by Lt. Frederick Joseph Ricketts, Royal Marine bandmaster and Director of Music. The lyric was composed by Winston Churchill's press secretary, who came up with it in the bath, and sang it to Churchill to amuse him. Churchill was highly amused, and insisted that he sing it to the next meeting of the Chiefs of Staff. It worked its way down the ranks from there.
- Most modern audiences would recognize it as the song whistled by the POWs in The Bridge on the River Kwai, where it was certainly meant as a covert insult to Japan's ally, giving a subtle moral boost.
- John Valby does a modern version with "Oh, Bin Laden" and "The Tabliban Blues"
- "Who Do You Think You Are Kidding, Mr. Hitler". It seems to have been adopted by ASDA in ad campaigns now... Before that it was the theme tune of Dads Army.
- Neil Young devoted a whole concept album to disapproving of George W. Bush.
- Jamiroquai also had a "screw Dubya" song with "The World He Wants", although it could also be thought of as a Take That against Tony Blair.
- Also, Nine Inch Nails' "Capital G".
- The incomparable "The FCC Song" (or, "Fuck you very much") by Eric Idle, recorded 2004. The FCC are actually only minor villains, doing the bidding of the real supervillains who suck. Idle describes in lovely detail and whimsical rhyming verse exactly how much senior Bush Administration figures (i.e. Ashcroft, Rice, Cheney and Bush) suck.
- Let's not forget The English Beat's song, Stand Down Margaret about Margaret Thatcher, the PM of the UK at the time. History has marched on, however... Perhaps it's a bit unwise to record these kinds of songs anymore? No longer will they be spared later embarrassment by the medium wearing out, like those people who, for example, recorded paens to Hitler.
- It's not really a case of History Marches On, since Thatcher is reviled in the UK by large numbers of Leftists who had to suffer through a decade where the Labour party was categorically unelectable, and their dreams of glorious revolution came to nothing.
- Elvis Costello also got his in against Maggie Thatcher, in the form of "Tramp the Dirt Down."
- As did Pink Floyd in the second verse of "Pigs (three different ones)". It should be noted the song was recorded long before Thatcher even became Prime Minister.
- And then there's Dear Mr. President by Pink
- "Favorite Son" by Green Day is also about George W. Bush, and "Governator" is about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- There's also Eric Schwartz's "Clinton Got A Blowjob", which is not about Bill Clinton, but rather about Bush, and the irony that Clinton got impeached for getting a blowjob, but Bush remained unscathed despite a laundry list of crimes, dick-moves and blunders that the song describes in detail.
- And there's "The Real Dick Cheney", (a parody of The Real Slim Shady) about how much of a vicious, corrupt, warmongering monster Dick Cheney is.
- Rock Against Bush was a compilation of The Villain Sucks Songs about George W. Bush by various artists. They got about 20 of them on the first album... and then had to do a second: Rock Against Bush, Vol. 2, another 20 tracks about how much Bush sucks.
- And then there was Pearl Jam's "Bu$hleaguer"... let's face it, The Villain Sucks Songs about George W. Bush were pretty much a cottage industry in the 2000's.
- In The Name Of God by Sabaton is a Villain Sucks Song about terrorists.
- Many football chants have a strong basis in themes of the opposition and their support, crudely done, badly sung, but not bad considering their folky, improvised origins.
- The folk song "General Taylor", covered by Newfoundland band Great Big Sea, is a sort of sly Take That sung by British sailors. General (later President) Zachary Taylor was responsible for a decisive victory against the British, so the song describes his funeral (a very lavish funeral, of course - but still a funeral) in great detail.
- Something of a Funny Aneurysm in retrospect as he did end up having a rather lavish funeral, being the second president to die in office. (Of what is generally accepted to be food poisoning.)
- Averted by "Yankee Doodle." It's believed that British soldiers coined the song to mock colonials, whom they saw as yokels with delusions of sophistication. However, by the time of the Revolutionary War, colonials had already adopted the song as an amusing anthem.
- Michael Jackson's song D.S. which was about Tom Sneddon, the District Attorney who had prosecuted him. Well, officially it's about a fictional character called "Dom Sheldon", but the way the name is sung sounds extraordinarily like "Tom Sneddon"...
- Queen's Death on Two Legs (from the same record that gives us Bohemian Rhapsody) was dedicated to Norman Sheffield, their former manager. Let's just say they didn't part on the nicest of terms.
You suck my blood like a leech / You break the law and you preach / Screw my brain till it hurts / You've taken all my money - and you want more. |
- Jill Sobule's "Soldiers of Christ" is this for the American Christian right.
- Former UK Moral Guardian Mary Whitehouse picked up a number of these: "Mary Long" (Deep Purple), "Mrs Blackhouse" (Sensational Alex Harvey Band), "Mary Whitehouse" (The Adicts) and the last verse of "Pigs (Three Different Ones)" (Pink Floyd).
- Washington-Bagdad by french humorist Laurent Gerra is about how much both Saddam Hussein and George W Bush suck and depicts them as equally insane. It is a parodie of the much more neutral song Manhathan Kaboul by Renaud. lyrics here.
- Don't forget about the Ozzy Osbourne song "Mr. Crowley" about Aleister Crowley. Although, the real Crowley wasn't so much a horrible Satanist like in the song so much as a jerk who happened to be really into the occult.
- Eddie Goomba wrote and performed a Web Original song about a Real Life individual, the ironically-named Tribute to Kent Hovind, about how much of a fraud and liar Kent Hovind is. His family was not amused, but they couldn't really do anything about it.
- "Diss tracks" (prevalent in hip-hop and dancehall) will often paint the target of the track as this.
- Fighting Trousers deserves special note for hanging a lampshade on it. After a comically scathing diatribe against Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer, we get this little gem:
Professor Elemental: No, Jeffrey, no jazz solos, this is supposed to be a dis song. Get off the drums! |
- Aforementioned "Dis Tracks" go hand-in-hand with rap battles.
- The Sons of Maxwell's viral YouTube hit United Breaks Guitars.
- "Here's to the State of Richard Nixon" by Phil Ochs.
- "Do You Hear the Fanbase Sing?" is a song about how much Capcom sucks for canceling Mega Man Legends 3.
- "Big Fat Road Manager" by "The Arrogant Worms" was written during their first tour and performed at the last concert of said tour because of how horrible their road manager was.
- Depending on one's political viewpoint, numerous scathing songs by The Capital Steps might count as this trope in your opinion.
- "Cheney's Got A Gun" by Bob Rivers, a parody of Aerosmith's "Janie's Got A Gun".
- Heck, plenty of Protest Songs apply well enough under this trope.
- For that matter, plenty of parody songs step fairly close to outright vilification. Vince Vance and the Valiants, a One-Hit Wonder infamous for changing the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann" lyrics to "Bomb Iran", had a followup single "Yakkety Yak (Bomb Irag)" which crosses this line with lyrics like "Saddam's a tyrant; he's insane / A Hitler by another name / He gassed his people and the Kurds / It's time to squash that camel turd!"