Bawdy Song: Difference between revisions

* Mondain from ''[[Les Choristes]]'', being the resident [[Delinquent]], loves singing these in the face of the teachers. Maxence almost kicks him to the punishment room, before [[Save Our Students|cheerful music teacher]] Mathieu notices his baritone would be great for his choir.

* Surprisingly (or not so much, if you're one of those surprised that this is supposed to be a children's film), ''[[Coraline (animation)|Coraline]]'' has one in the form of Other Spink and Other Forcible's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGuJXsBqLRA&feature=PlayList&p=DCD67CE98D531DCE&index=6 stage play], in which they argue over whether the ass or the boobs is a more important seduction figure.

And hope to lead sailors astray.<br />

But a true ocean goddess<br />

Must fill out her bodice<br />

* ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]'' had songs such as "Big Bottom," "Sex Farm," and "Lick My Love Pump" (the latter played without lyrics)

* [[Charlie Chaplin]] is to sing one as part of a musical act in ''[[Modern Times]]''... only he loses the paper on which the lyrics are written, and has to use pantomime and gibberish. He brings the house down.

* The [[Jukebox Musical]] ''Oh! What a Lovely War'' included a version of the folk song "Christmas Day In The Cookhouse" where the dirty rhyming words are [[Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion|blatantly dodged]].

* In the 2010 ''[[Robin Hood (2010 film)|Robin Hood]]'' movie, there was a scene in which a lute-playing member of the Merry Men started to sing this song:

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** Pratchett deconstructs this kind of song in ''[[Discworld/Monstrous Regiment|Monstrous Regiment]]'', including a scene where the squad of [[Sweet Polly Oliver|female soldiers]] criticize the numerous [[Double Entendre]]-laden songs treating as humorous [[A Man Is Not a Virgin|a man]] [[My Girl Is Not a Slut|seducing a woman and then abandoning her when she's pregnant]].

{{quote| It's in May, it's about sex.}}

Came down from Inverness,<br />

And when the ball was over<br />

** ''[[Discworld/Soul Music|Soul Music]]'' gives a mention to "Gathering Rhubarb" as a "...song you can snigger along to...". While there are no lyrics given in the book, the [[Cosgrove Hall]] animated adaptation did include it. The version used in the actual production is cut short, but it can be heard in full (and with transcribed lyrics) [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rcPV8fnkQo here].

* There's a passing mention in ''[[The Once and Future King]]'' of an old song about an Old King seeing with each verse more and more of a fair maiden. We only hear the (heavily-accented) first verse:

H-e / saw a-lovely laid-y a / steppin-in-a-puddle.<br />

She-a lifted hup-er-skeat<br />

An ee / saw her / an-kel.<br />

Wasn't that a fuddle?<br />

* In the [[Sven Hassel]] novels the songs "I Was Born And Brought Up In A Brothel" and "The Girl Who Made Love To Electricity" are mentioned several times, fortunately (?) without lyrics.

* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s novella ''The Monarch of the Glen'' (printed in his ''Fragile Things'' anthology) the Norse god Odin is singing one of these (drunkenly, if that needs to be said) when Shadow meets with him. To the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean":

He punctures the tips with a pin,<br />

My Grandma does backstreet abortions;<br />

* Eve Forward's book ''Anamist'' has a song sung by a sailing crew that apparently describes "various obscene things that could be done with most of the trading races."

* The [[Dune]] series has the slightly bawdy song that is not explicitly given a title in the series, focusing mainly on prostitution:

And the Arrakeen for water!<br />

But if you desire dames like consuming flames,<br />

* [[The Wheel of Time]] ("The Dragon Reborn", to be precise) has a song about an easy girl from Lugard sung in a rowdy Illianer tavern. The beginning is given and sounds rather innocent:

With a wink of her eye, and a smile on her lip,<br />

** But the rest, not given by Jordan, mightily embarrasses Perrin who takes some time to understand what precisely is this song about.

* Danilo Thann, a bard from [[Forgotten Realms]] novels by Elaine Cunningham, used to sing these as a part of his [[Rich Idiot With No Day Job]] image and even wrote some himself. The books include a few fragments of the ''Ballad of the Zhentish Raiders'' who "[[But You Screw One Goat!|kill off all the women / For they much prefer the sheep]]" and "[[Be Careful What You Wish For|Elminster's Jest]]" ([http://forum.candlekeep.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1888&whichpage=22#61128 see its full lyrics]).

'''Edmund''': It's a lovely old hymn, isn't it. }}

*** [[Getting Crap Past the Radar|Interestingly safe]], as, unless you'd actually heard the song you [[Unusual Euphemism|wouldn't know for sure what a ''dickie di-do'' was]]. It's exactly as bad as you might suspect - the following is a relatively ''tame'' verse;

To find her vagina,<br />

** In the third series, Blackadder warns Prince George that when wooing a lady with poetry, "Harold the Horny Hunter" might not be such a good idea. ("Harold the horny hunter/Had an enormous horn...")

** Jazz trumpeter Bix Biederbeck made a film called ''The Boy with the Big Horn'' which for similar rreasons had to be renamed on release in the UK...

** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0wRStGT1Bg Sometimes] it [[Gone Horribly Right|fails to be a parody]].

* Period drama ''[[Upstairs, Downstairs]]'' has one of these, and it's a [[Theme Tune Cameo]], at that! In her music hall act, Sarah performs the stately march of the opening theme as a rollicking [[Bawdy Song]], "What Are We Going to Do with Uncle Arthur?"

** The complete lyrics are [http://www.updown.org.uk/sounds/lyrics.htm here].

* In season three of ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', Joxer sings a bawdy version of his theme song, accompanied by an entire brothel. "Just check out my shoe size", indeed.

*** Also, Gabrielle's little ditty in ''Fins, Femmes, and Gems.''

* Parodied on ''[[The Gillies Report]]'' with a 'politically correct' version of ''The Good Ship Venus''. The first verse went:

By Christ you should've seen us!<br />

The figurehead<br />

Wasn't made of lead<br />

* A few lines of different bawdy songs will appear on [[MASH|M* A* S* H]] every once in a while, most notably one Colonel Potter (a WWII vet) sings:

{{quote| '''Potter''': Oh, I love to go swimming<br />

And swim between their legs }}

* Fran asks Bernard to sing one of these in [[Black Books]] because he is Irish. He refuses, so she attempts one herself, in a very bad Irish accent.

I miss the Galway Bay, <br />

And I'll sing for all I've got!<br />

And a riddle-diddle Dublin,<br />

And a riddle-diddle Donegal!<br />

* The [[Mystery Science Theater 3000|Sir Thomas Neville Servo Consort of the Middle Ages Just After the Plague Singers]] followed up their "Aire On a Delta Knight" with one.

{{quote| '''Servo, Servo, Servo and Girl-Servo:''' I love to mush me buggles in me sweetie's Christmas pie...}}

* ''[[Frasier]]'' and Niles:

But we think they're all wussies<br />

'Cause they get all the knowledge<br />

* In ''[[Bottom]]'', Richie sings this version of [[wikipedia:The Sailorchr(27)s Hornpipe|The Sailor's Hornpipe]]:

Can you swing 'em to and fro?<br />

Can you tie 'em in a knot?<br />

Can you tie 'em in a bow?<br />

Do you get a funny feeling when they're hanging from the ceiling?<br />

* In ''[[Spartacus: Blood and Sand]]'', and its sequels, the gladiators have a song called "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|My Cock Rages On]]". This is apparently the only song they know.

 

* "Sally", by [[The Police]] is about a blow up doll ordered from "a special magazine".

* ''Hunting Girl'' by [[Jethro Tull]] deliberately weds the ancient traditions of bawdy folk songs with modern rock and roll.

** [[Folk Music]] is usually pretty filthy. Fairport Convention recording the song Bonny Black Hare in which a young hunter goes in search of the titular hare, which happens to live under the apron of a fair maiden.

*** Indeed, [[Discworld|Granny Weatherwax's]] assessment of the genre is fairly accurate: "I knows all about folk songs. Hah! You think you're listenin' to a nice song about...about cuckoos and fiddlers and nightingales and whatnot, and then it turns out to be about...about something else entirely."

* [[ACDC]]

** "[[Double Entendre|Big Balls]]".

are the ones we like best.<br />

My balls are always bouncing<br />

to the left and to the right<br />

Its my belief that my big balls<br />

** [[Anti-Christmas Song|"Mistress for Christmas"]].

* The ending of [[The Decemberists]]' "{{spoiler|Chimbley Sweep}}" made listeners do a bit of a double take, as it took at least five listens to figure out this was a bawdy song.

* [[Jonathan Coulton]]'s "First of May." "Celebrate spring with a crazy little thing called...{{spoiler|"fucking outside"}}

** Beautifully [[Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion|Subverted Rhyme]] - the expected word would be "Love," to rhyme to "grass below you, sky ''above''".

* [[Ivor Biggun]] does a great number of these including such gems as "Cue for a Song" which purports to be a traditional [[Bawdy Song]] about an old pool player who loses his balls on a cold and wintry night.

* This was the entire point of Tommy Lee's side project Methods of Mayhem.

 

== [[New Media]] ==

* A skit in ''[[I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again]]'' parodying ''Listen With Mother'' (a BBC children's show) presented a song by an Irish folk group. The show's host, appalled at the song's increasingly-bawdy lyrics, finally cleared the group out of the studio by reminding them that the pubs had just opened (at which point they suddenly stampeded off).

* And then on [[Round the Horne]] there was Kenneth Williams' character of Rambling Syd Rumpo, an itinerant folk singer of questionable old English ballads packed with double entendre and general murkiness.

 

== [[Theater]] ==

** And [http://www.imperial-library.info/dfbooks/b068_rudesong.shtml the song it's less rude than] appeared in Daggerfall, an earlier game in the Elder Scrolls series.

* The [[Sound Off]] "quote" upon building a Network Node in ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'' is one of these [[Double Entendre|when you]] [[Unusual Euphemism|think about it]]:

Deirdre's got a Network Node <br />

Likes to press the on-off switch <br />

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Life with Lamarr]]'', the Cactus [http://jill-sandwich.com/lwl/index.php?episode=139 sings one].

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==