What was the first UK number one song with ‘fuck’ in the title?
It’s easy to forget just how shocking ‘fuck’, or any other swear, was to the UK public not too long ago.
While surpassed by racial slurs in the modern age, the sharp intake of breath and acute offence that surrounds discriminatory abuse were reserved for the sharp linguistic hangover of the Norman invasion. Alongside blasphemy, a transgression that can still trigger the ire of the nation’s devout, the family of rude words, from the scatological ‘shit’ to the coarse but effective C-bomb, held barely any presence on UK TV land or the charts until fairly recently.
It’s why publications like Viz or the Sex Pistols’ Bill Grundy affair seem quaint in today’s pop culture. With everybody from Taylor Swift to Ed Sheeran lacing their chart toppers with the odd ‘fuck’, albeit censored for radio, swear words just don’t carry the same shock they used to. Widespread among the pubs and work floors of the working class, it wouldn’t be til the mid-1960s that the faintest whiff of ‘fuck’ would begin to tease TV, theatre critic Kenneth Tynan supposedly dropping the expletive on the late-night BBC 3 show, a good decade before the Pistols’ Today notoriety.
‘Fuck’ began to rear its head among the counterculture, seeing life in the Hair musical and MC5’s ‘Kick Out the Jams’ clarion call in 1969. Over in the UK, The Beatles allegedly contain a hidden “fucking hell” buried in ‘Hey Jude’s mix, and John Lennon would lace ‘Working Class Hero’s raw acoustic with the swear in all its harsh light of day.
Amazingly, Dead Kennedys’ ‘Too Drunk to Fuck’ sailed to a respectable 35 on the UK Singles Chart way back in 1981, no mean feat considering its internal ban by the BBC. Yet, the first number one proudly displaying its ‘fuck’ wouldn’t come to pass til well over 20 years later.
So, what was the first UK number one song with ‘fuck’ in the title?
In 2003, former doo-wop singer turned R&B crooner Eamon debuted on the pop charts with ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, a number that seemed to enjoy rotation every five minutes on the day’s music cable channels.
While revised with the bracketed subtitle as the ‘clean’ name for Top of the Pops appearances and the like, ‘Fuck It (I Don’t Want You Back)’ broke barriers for swears gracing the charts, CeeLo Green’s ‘Fuck You’ topping the UK charts a few years later, again, offering an amended ‘Forget You’ version for radio play.
It’s not likely anyone paid much attention to the minor milestone. By 2003, most kids were well acquainted with expletives in their music, be it Eminem and the broader hip-hop cohort dominating the charts at the time, as well as Limp Bizkit’s frequent spit of ‘fuck’, all but ensuring the curse lost its edge.
The only thing Eamon’s chart topper is really remembered by is the diss response single by Frankee. Alleging to be the lyrical target of Eamon’s ex, he ‘doesn’t want back’, ‘FURB (Fuck You Right Back)’ supposedly was the chance for Frankee to offer her side of the confected love spat. Eamon denied ever knowing her, but it couldn’t have reeked more of a cheap marketing gimmick if it tried.
