10 erotic songs that went totally over everyone’s head

‘Twisted Transistor’ – Korn

There is no conceivable way that most Korn songs could be considered sexy. There is a way to make a metal song sound seductive (just ask Trent Reznor), but there aren’t many people looking to listen to someone scream at the top of their lungs and somehow have the urge to get busy. Then again, when listening to what Jonathan Davis is talking about, it’s not exactly the kind of seductive song that most people would think about when singing about sex.

Let’s dissect the lyrics real quick. The titular transistor is referring to a radio, and Davis is talking about someone using music as a means of getting away from all the troubles in their life. Perfectly simple. Far grosser songs have been made out of premises thinner than that, but things take a turn when you start looking at what the main character is doing with that transistor radio. And it becomes a lot clearer when David talks about turning the music up as they put it between their legs.

For all two of you not in the know, this is the equivalent of someone masturbating and using their stereo system as a makeshift vibrator. Although most people wouldn’t have expected anything less from those who wrote a song with the acronym ‘A.D.I.D.A.S’, but for a band that seemed to be willing to play the game and make something more mainstream, this is the kind of Faustian bargain that their label made. You can have your steamy sex song, but it’s going to make people feel a lot dirtier than they realised.

‘Dancing With Myself’ – Billy Idol

From day one, Billy Idol was never considered punk in the truest sense of the word. He may have had the credibility of being part of Generation X, but looking through his string of hits, it’s not like he was going to be the MTV-updated version of John Lydon by any stretch. If anything, he was the cartoon version of what a punk rocker should be, but that did mean cheating the system a tiny bit when it came to what could and couldn’t be shown on the station.

Since the dawn of MTV was always about throwing whatever shocking images people could think of on the air, ‘Dancing With Myself’ does have a few too many allusions to masturbation to really ignore. Outside of the song’s references to him dancing with himself a little bit too close, the line about him doing his little dance after every type of girl passes him by leaves the listener with no other explanation for what he’s doing.

While the zombies on the video do a great job at steering people away from the self-loving talk, it’s not like anyone paying attention was going to ignore it. Because in terms of songs based around someone being alone and in need of some carnal action, Idol fits in pretty snugly between ‘Turning Japanese’ and Green Day’s ‘Longview’ in terms of songs that are a lot grosser than people realise.

‘She Bop’ – Cyndi Lauper

The beginning of the 1980s seemed to be a golden age of songs that played it coy about sex. While most people would have dismissed many tunes as innocent fun, it’s not like people were jamming along to songs with titles such as ‘Hold On Loosely’ and ‘Beat It’ without picking up some subtextual hints, right? And considering what happened on ‘She Bop’, it’s not like Cyndi Lauper was exactly a prude when it came to talking about something a bit more risque.

This is the same woman who had the king of sex songs, Prince, contribute a song like ‘When You Were Mine’, but ‘She Bop’ is a bit of a different beast. From front to back, it was a secret for the longest time that this song was about masturbation, but it’s not exactly on the same level of ‘I Touch Myself’ or anything. Lauper is only singing about having fun, but that type of fun is a lot more nasty than people would have been willing to sing about.

Then again, not many songs have the distinction of being about lewd behaviour and are on the charts sharing screentime with some of the biggest pop stars like Billy Joel and Michael Jackson. And since this was the age of excess in every sense of the word, why wouldn’t someone want to have a little bit of their own personal pleasure along the way?

‘Tusk’ – Fleetwood Mac

I know this is a bold claim to be making, but yes, there is, in fact, a song by Fleetwood Mac that has to do with their personal love lives. Who are we kidding here? The entirety of Rumours may as well have been personal diaries about how much everyone’s ex sucked, and given how vicious Lindsey Buckingham could get on ‘Go Your Own Way’, it’s not like they were looking to pull punches. But Buckingham wasn’t finished with his rage, and that came out in one of the most overtly sexual tunes in their catalogue.

Although the whole of Tusk is already a bit much to take in all at once, the title track is one of the few times his experimenting worked. The marching band was a genius move to be making, and having everyone chant the title of the tune is a fine addition to the track, by judging by how raw and angry Buckingham sounds singing the title, it gets a bit more uncomfortable when he keeps talking about an object that is known for being particularly phallic.

While there’s been some speculation that the song was Buckingham’s retort back at Mick Fleetwood after he and Stevie Nicks had an affair, that would at least explain why he’s singing in that particular cadence. Because if it were anything less than sexual frustration, it would be pretty confusing having to explain why the hell he used the same kind of effect when recording ‘Not That Funny’.

‘Sledgehammer’ – Peter Gabriel

By the time Peter Gabriel left Genesis, he never seemed to want a solo career. The first time he suggested that he leave was because he wanted to raise his daughter, but after cutting a few ties with his old bandmates, he was more than happy to keep following wherever his muse would take him next. It was bound to get weird in a few places, though, but his rise to the top with ‘Sledgehammer’ came packaged with allusions to sex that are nearly impossible to ignore once knowing the lyrics.

Again, the music video does a great job of hiding everything with the groundbreaking animation scenes, but Gabriel brings out the phallic imagery pretty quickly when talking about the sledgehammer. From the thick bass to the incessant groove, there was at least a seductive bounce to the whole thing, but the metaphor about being shown around her fruit cage and him being the honey bee to pollinate everything is so hammy that hair metal bands would be telling him to tone things down.

But at the same time, it’s not like Gabriel was doing anything his heroes hadn’t done before. After all, one of his biggest influences on this tune was Otis Redding, and if he wanted to get in touch with that smooth R&B groove and have the horns punch, he was going to come up with something that had a little bit more edge than ‘Solsbury Hill’. He had shed the skin of progressive music and the new stuff had a lot more swagger.

‘Little Red Corvette’ – Prince

Putting Prince on a list of songs people didn’t know were about sex feels like an oxymoron. ‘The Purple One’ exuded sex appeal out of every pore in his body, and it’s impossible to listen to any one of his records and not get an inkling that he was horny within the first five seconds. But for an album that has the erotic scene of ‘International Lover’, ‘Little Red Corvette’ is a bit more sly with the way it plays into the sexual undercurrents.

Then again, Prince isn’t known for being subtle about anything. If he wanted to have sex with something, he’d let it be known, but before ‘Darling Nikki’, hearing him sing about an ode to a groupie is one of the most euphoric sing-alongs of his entire career. There are many moments where Prince talks about a woman’s features, but this is almost a wholesome take on sex compared to his other stuff, almost telling his female counterpart that she needs to find someone to settle down with.

It might be sound advice for some people, but it’s a little strange coming from Prince. There are plenty of people who need to find time to settle down and not live such a fast-and-loose lifestyle, but considering this is coming from the same person with songs named ‘Cream’, albums named Come, and is single-handedly responsible for the creation of the Parental Advisory sticker, it’s not like he was an absolute angel when it came to affairs of the heart, either.

‘Press’ – Paul McCartney

If there’s one thing that radio loved as much as The Beatles, it was banning The Beatles. The Fab Four were inescapable in their prime, but there were always sceptics who turned their nose up at some of their material, whether it was the sexual undertones of ‘Ticket to Ride’ or wondering whether Henry the Horse in ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite’ was heroin. And for someone known as the resident wholesome member of the group, Paul McCartney managed to sneak one of his slyest sex songs past any of the censors.

While Press to Play is far from his greatest album, the track ‘Press’ is at least a nice bit of mindless fun, as McCartney sings his heart out about the joys of having sex with Linda. Although there have been many songs that have taken on new meanings after being featured on this list, this is one of the few that might be both a little too descriptive and too sanitised all at the same time.

Everyone would know by now what he means by the word ‘press’, but considering he’s singing the song aloud while going throughout the train station, it does sound more than a little bit middle-aged compared to the other horny anthems coming out of Los Angeles round the same time. But what’s wrong with that? After all, it’s not like those sporting a few grey hairs are afraid of a little bit of carnal knowledge, and for all of his granny songs, McCartney always knew to keep the good times rolling if he was singing about something sexy.

‘Heart-Shaped Box’ – Nirvana

The grunge scene was the last place to come to for a song about sex. Although the mantra has always been about sex, drugs and rock and roll, every member of the Seattle scene was more interested in the drug angle, and judging by the fact that they played with androgyny every so often, it wasn’t clear whether they even wanted to acknowledge the fact that they had genitalia. And while it’s hard to figure out most of what Kurt Cobain is going on about in his songs, ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ did have a much broader sentiment behind it.

As Courtney Love would reveal years later, this song was written by Cobain as an ode to her vagina. Looking at the title, it’s obvious to think about it in that regard, but there’s a lot more that goes into it than those few lines. There are callouts to an umbilical noose and Cobain mentioning both of their astrological signs, but it’s hard to think of the chorus line of ‘I got a new complaint’ and not think that Cobain was aiming directly at the record company when writing that line.

Because if it wasn’t about the record company, there’s a good chance that Love wouldn’t be talking up a song that portrays her as someone who complains to him all the time. No matter how many people like to paint her as the villain of the Nirvana story, she did have a natural relationship with Cobain during his lifetime, and there’s nothing wrong with Cobain singing about how much he loved his wife.

‘One Slip’ – Pink Floyd

It was always going to be difficult for David Gilmour to move past Roger Waters leaving Pink Floyd. The band itself would always be fine considering his pedigree as a musician, but given his strengths as a lyricist, A Momentary Lapse of Reason was always going to be a step down from projects like The Wall. Then again, no one would have expected him to make the kind of song that feels ripped out of the classic rock playbook.

There had been a handful of Floyd songs dealing with sex like Richard Wright’s ‘Summer ‘68’, but this tune is all about a one-night stand that turns into an unplanned pregnancy later down the line. It’s a novel concept to write a song about, but the fact that the album gets its title from one of the lines of this song is hilarious and a little concerning if it were based in reality.

Because on one hand, that one slip-up can mean something big, but if they went ahead with the pregnancy, this is a hell of a song to show one of your kids when they ask if you’ve ever written a song for them. A lot of A Momentary Lapse of Reason ranges from being some degree of decent to outright boring in most regards, but since Waters was making his tour de force album about temptation on The Pros and Cons of Hitchhiking, it’s only natural that Gilmour try to get a little bit horny in betwene everything as well.

‘All My Life’ – Foo Fighters

Half of Dave Grohl’s first songs for Foo Fighters were never supposed to mean anything. He had gone to the Kurt Cobain school of lyricism, and that meant pasting together words that made sense when singing them but were never supposed to have any great significance. The audience was supposed to work that part out for themselves, but after nearly falling out with the entire band, it’s strange to think that a song with the subject matter of ‘All My Life’ is what brought them back from the brink.

The initial version of the tune had be thrown away after it sounded like shit, but after going through it again, Grohl felt no need to change the lyrics of the original. And for an album that’s all about them trying to heal and trying to find a way through their most tumultuous period on tracks like ‘Times Like These’ and ‘Halo’, the whole thing kicks off with this tune about the pleasures of him performing oral sex on someone.

It’s a lot more apparent when you look at the chorus, but the fact that Grohl got away with this for so long and made it feel like one of the most empowering Foo Fighters songs is almost commendable in its own right. He may have been searching for that kind of pleasure all his life, but since the guitar riff could be used as a sonic weapon at most Foo Fighters concerts, it’s given as many thrills onstage as it has backstage.