Tightrope to the Sun

Profanity in music.  Frankly, I don’t see its purpose.  It’s base and crude, and is usually avoidable.  It’s lazy writing, and I am most disappointed when my favourite bands, with marvellous lyricists, resort to the effs.  I know many people consider profanity’s usage to be valid in different circumstances, so it’s only fair that I look at why I dislike cursing in songs where the usage varies.

Just to be clear, the songs I’m going to be looking at are all from artists I really admire.  Their music and their lyrics usually astound me, but the few exceptions here and there do irk me – particularly since the music itself in the following songs is fantastic.  Also, fair warning, all the videos I link to will obviously contain coarse language.  So here we go:

Pointless Usage: Walcott, Vampire Weekend

Walcott, fish the women from Wellfleet
Fish the bears out in Provincetown
Heed my words and take flight.

 There is not a single reason I can think of to qualify the use of profanity in this song.  The lyrics are a plea to a character named Walcott to flee Cape Cod and escape the impending, eponymous weekend of vampiric mayhem.  Despite this, it’s a quite upbeat, energetic piece, and such coarse language is jarringly out of place.  It is quite clear from the preceeding lyrics that Walcott really needs to get out of Cape Cod – resorting to such crude instructions is unnecessary.

And that’s omitting the inherent violence in the phrasing.  This is the only time that people are referenced as something to leave behind, and the choice to use profanity certainly has some questionable undertones.  Obviously, the song isn’t using the eff word literally, but in its more figurative sense, but that doesn’t entirely excuse it.  The word is harsh and purposefully derogatory, and is at its most unpleasant in the “eff you” context.  Using it so blatantly, and so casually, in this song completely undermines it – or at least, makes it unpleasant to listen to until that stanza has passed.

Contradictory Usage: Grace Under Pressure, Elbow

We’re in love, so fish you.
(repeat)

This is yet another song where the use of profanity baffles me.  The song is a sweet love ditty with musical glory that lends an epic, uplifting quality.  It is simple and yet elegant, calming yet empowering.  And then it reaches the chorus.  A recording of the crowd at an Elbow concert shout in unison, “We’re in love, so fish you.”  The unity and power of hundreds of voices gives the repeating mantra an anthemic tone and influence.  I want to join in – I feel compelled to add my voice to the army of chanting fans.  But then I check myself, and the words themselves, and it turns the uplifting song into an awkward experience.

It is the context, though, that really puzzles me.  To pair one of the nicest phrases in the English language (“We’re in love”) with one of the most unpleasant (“So fish you”) is bizarre.  The sweetness of the declaration of adoration is erased by the curse.  Instead of elevating the love song to a level of transcendence, it debases it to the place of those upstart ‘punks’ who hate society and all that it stands for.  It puts the song in the mouths of the ungrateful, which leaves a bitter taste on my tongue.

I’ve seen comments on the interwebs discussing how liberating the chorus is.  It exemplifies the freedom bequeathed by love – no matter what you may think, I love this person and I always will.  I have no objection to this concept.  It’s a tried and true narrative trope – we have it in Shakespeare, in fairy tales, in modern literature.  It is a vaild and usually applaudable statement.  Yet surely Guy Garvey (the band’s lyricist) could have found a more poetic way to say this.

Glorified Usage: Little Lion Man, Mumford & Sons

It was not your fault but mine.
And it was your heart on the line.
I really fished it up this time,
Didn’t I, my dear?

By far the most aggressive usage of the word on my brief list, I again found it uncomfortable to listen to the song.  Yet again I wanted to chant the chorus, but I was even more turned off by the sharpness of the phrase.  Musically engaging and inherently catchy (yet heavy and dark), Mumford & Sons’ angsty song of frustration certainly creates an appropriate mood for the use of the word.  In contrast to the decidedly upbeat nature of Walcott and the whistful dreaminess of Grace Under Pressure, Little Lion Man suits the ferocity of the eff.  It almost seems appropriate.

Yet the more I think about it, the more I feel that the song glorifies the word.  Its prominent placement in the chorus and the emphasis imparted on it musically make it clear that the songwriter wants you to notice it.  The folk-influenced melody locks in your brain and the stressed phrase sticks.  Instead of mulling on the overarching concept of the song – remorse at a relationship-endangering error – the listener focuses on the phrase of utter self-hatred.

The word is turned upon the narrator – he uses it to describe his own actions.  It’s harsh and brutal – perhaps apt for the emotion.  But the overt emphasis on the word makes it the centrepiece.  It detracts from the overall impact of the song by being too powerful in itself, and yet with every repetition of the chorus, the listener becomes desensitised to the curse and it becomes just another word.  Perhaps if it had been used sparingly in a verse it may have had the desired effect of showing just how furious the narrator is at his own stupidity, without turning the chorus into a near-celebration of the profanity itself.

‘Last Resort’ Usage: Some Riot, Elbow

‘Cause it’s breaking my heart, it’s breaking my heart,
And it’s breaking my heart to pour like the rain.
Brother of mine, don’t run with those fishers,
When will my friend start singing again?

Of the songs I’ve discussed, this is the one which I feel most appropriately uses the eff word, although I still ardently wish it didn’t.  This song of angst over a dear friend’s succumb to alcoholism is an elegy of despair.  It’s the last call, and hope dwindles.  Whereas Little Lion Man uses profanity to emphasise the angst, Some Riot seems to include the word almost as an afterthought, buried in a breath in the middle of the verse.  It doesn’t place the word as the pinnacle of the emotion that is expressed bombastically.  It is an anguished last resort – I’ve tried and tried to reason with you, but I’ve run out of things to say.

I personally feel that if profanity is ever to be given into, it should be used sparingly.  Only then does it retain its purpose.  If a curse comes from the mouth of a clean-lipped person, it has all the more effect.  And this is the sensation I get from this song – the melancholy music and the quiet lyrics give the impression that the word is deserved.  Perhaps it helps that it only appears once.

And yet, I still think the song would be just as effective, if not more, with the exclusion of cussing.  The song is one of the most lyrical of Elbow’s songs and contains one of the most beautifully poetic lines I have ever come across: Beautiful, quivering, chivalrous shambles.  The words just flow off the tongue, and in context of the opening verse, paint the tone of the song in an instant.  If such poetry can appear at the beginning, why can’t it continue?  With the establishment of metaphor, surely a more poetic phrase could have been devised to beg the dear friend to turn away from the drink and the drunkards.

In Conclusion…

In all four of these songs, the reasoning behind the usage of profanity is clear.  They are all logical arguments.  Yet they do not convince me that the intention justifies the means.  In all of these cases, I believe the omission of the eff word would not harm the meaning of the song.  Surely there are some less attention-seeking, less shock-value synonyms out there.

But what do you think?  Does profanity have its place in music?  Does it achieve what other phrases in the thesaurus can not?  Do you believe Mumford & Sons, Elbow and Vampire Weekend have made appropriate use of cusses?  Swear by your opinions in the comments!