What was the first charted song to contain swearing?
Anyone looking for a radio hit is usually looking for something that’s tame and family-friendly compared to everything else clogging up the charts. Most people could try their best to make something that could fit in with the easy-listening tunes of the world, but the appeal of the biggest artists of the past century is making something that stirs people up rather than play it safe every time they step up to the mic. That meant creating something a bit more risque, and by the time the 1930s rolled around, fans got to listen to the first “bad words” being used in a popular song.
But there’s really no way of trying to go against someone’s right to freedom of speech. Although there are always limits as to what radio stations will allow on their programs, there are always going to be kids who willfully seek out any kind of risque music they can get their hands on that might not be the most PC for their household.
It’s not like the biggest chart stars in the world were exempt from having potty mouths, either. Even though no one could escape The Beatles if they tried back in the day, hearing John Lennon sing a line about becoming so fucking crazy in the middle of ‘Working Class Hero’ definitely caught some people off guard when they first heard it on Plastic Ono Band.
But for anyone immersed in the blues scene, that word wasn’t something all that out of the ordinary. Going all the way back to the glory days of the blues, people born and bred in the Chicago blues scene would end up calling everyone ‘motherfucker’, either using it as a term of endearment or a way to reprimand someone on the bandstand who wasn’t playing nearly as well as they should have been.
So, when did a swear word first end up in a song?
Even though the biggest pieces of profanity were just reserved for the backstage rooms and dress rehearsals, the word ‘fuck’ almost occurred by accident when the song ‘Ol Man Moses’ by Eddie Duchin was released back in 1938. Despite being a cover of the Louis Armstrong original, there was one piece that Duchin let slip, singing what sounds like the words ‘fuck it’ midway through the tune.
While the pop charts were a shadow of what they are today back in the 1930s, the International Journal of Scientific and Technology Research cites this as the first time that profanity was used within the confines of a pop song. Then again, we were only scratching the surface of what a charting song could do in terms of swearing.
Even though the biggest names in rock and roll were still cutting their teeth in the late 1960s, most people were still toeing the line of what they could get away with. And despite not all of them getting the top spot, songs like ‘The End’ by The Doors and ‘Kick Out the Jams’ by MC5 were becoming praised by kids in hushed tones because of how profane they were, whether that’s just an exclamation or Jim Morrison talking about wanting to do some particularly unsavoury things with his mother.
And fast-forwarding all the way to 2025, hearing songs by the likes of Kendrick Lamar become popular is a testament to what people can do despite having some unsavoury stanzas in their verses. It might be reprimanded for having strong language, but if no one’s pushing the envelope, we’d still be listening to Sinatra these days.
