It’s a question that has plagued mankind since the dawn of time.
An answer as elusive as Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster.
But in this blog post, we are going to try and finally answer that one question that holds importance over all others:
What is the sweariest song?
Okay, so maybe (definitely) ‘sweariest’ isn’t a word.
But this is blog post about swear words in songs, so I don’t think we need to take this super seriously.
Oh, this blog post will include a lot of swear words, just in case that wasn’t already blindingly obvious.
The oldest swear word in a song
Let’s take a second to talk about the history of curse words in songs.
This may be weird to think about now, but swearing in songs is a very, VERY old custom.
Contrary to what you may think, not all songs from before the 1970s were sweet and innocent love ballads or political work songs.
There is some argument about which recorded song has the very first instance of swear words, but one of the top contenders is ‘Shave Em Dry’ by Lucile Bogan from 1935.
“Say I fucked all night, and all the night before, baby
Lucile Bogan – ‘Shave ‘Em Dry’
And I feel just like I wanna, fuck some more
Oh, great God daddy, grind me, honey, and shave me dry
And when you hear me holler, baby, want you to shave it dry”
This song is honestly better, more provocative and more progressive than WAP. Fight me.
Anyway, enough of that tangent, back to the question of the most sweary song.
Swear criteria
So how do we go about answering the question of what song is the most sweary?
How do we actually measure it?
Are we just looking for the simple answer of ‘which song has the most swear words’?
That is a very pragmatic approach, but it’s also the lazy approach.
Besides, plenty of articles already have done it this way.
WatchMojo suggest that ‘F*ck the world’ by Insane Clown pose is the winner.
However, I disagree that this is really the sweariest, and you’ll see why later on.
The issue is that the length of the song will skew the answer in either a positive or negative way.
A 10-minute song has more words that can be swear words. However, it also has more words that can be non-swear words.
So while the number of swear words in the song goes up, the number of non-swear words in the song goes up as well.
I would argue that a 1-minute song with 9 swear words is more sweary than a 10 minute song with 10 swear words.
So instead, I have chosen to work out the sweariest song by using just the lyrics of the song, with a metrics I like to call the Swear-rate.
Swear-rate
This is a very simple equation:
Take the number of swear words in the song, divide that by the total number of words in the song, multiple by 100 and you can work out what percentage of the song is swear words.
This means that if there was a a song with only one lyric and that lyric was the word ‘fuck’; then it would get a 100% swear-rate, because all of its words are swear words.
But as far as I know, that song doesn’t exist.
Swear word selection
Swear words exist on a sliding scale of offensive, and at some point there has to be a cut-off.
Is ‘butthole’ a swear word, for example?
Most people would say no, but I’m sure that some people would say that it is.
For this test, I have chosen only the following swear words (and their variants) to count in songs.
- Bitch
- Fuck
- Shit
- Cunt
Song choices
These are some songs that either often top lists of the song with the most swear words, or they’re songs that I chose myself because I think they’re good contenders.
Feel free to test your own songs and if you find a more sweary song than I do, please do let me know!
4. Gangster Trippin – Fatboy Slim
Fatboy Slim is an English DJ who was very popular in the 90s with hits like Weapon of Choice and Praise You.
these are both very non-sweary songs and quite family friendly. Gangster Trippin is not.
So it makes sense that it often show up in lists of the sweariest songs.
However, the issue is that it is a very long song with a lot of lyrics; 1,080 words in total.
Of these, 153 are swear words.
Now, 153 swear words is a lot, but not so much in a song that long.
So if we take these numbers and put them into the formula, we get…
A swear-rate of 14.17%
This means that 14.17% of the words in that song are swear words!
That is certainly impressive, but is it the sweariest song ever? I doubt it.
3. F*ck the World – Insane Clown Posse
Insane Clown Posse are a Hip-Hop/Gangster Rap band with a very dedicated fanbase (who get mocked mercilessly) and the band is most well known for their songs Hokus Pokus and Miracles.
This is the song that WatchMojo suggests is the most sweary, but how can it be?
It censors itself in the title!
So, this song contains 563 words, and the lyrics actually helped me when counting the swear words:
“Don’t bother to analyze these rhymes,
F*ck the World – Insane Clown Posse
In this song, I say fuck ninety three times”
They also say the word shit twice and bitch once, making for 96 overall swear words.
So let’s work out that Swear-rate!
Overall, F*ck the World has a swear-rate of 17.05%.
Again, this is a very impressive swear-rate and no-one can deny that this song is very sweary, but it still isn’t the sweariest song in the world.
2. Fucking Ada by Ian Dury
Ian Dury was a singer-songwriter who was very popular during the punk scene of the late 70s, and had hits with Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.
This song has surely got to be a good candidate, there is a swear word in the title! Uncensored!
So the first half of this song is a rather sad love ballad about a sex worker.
It also includes some, but not many, swear words.
So, why is it even on this list?
Because the second half of the song takes… a change of pace.
Here’s a sample of the lyrics from the second half of the song.
“Fucking Ada, fucking Ada
Fucking Ada, Ian Dury
Fucking Ada, fucking Ada
Fucking Ada, fucking Ada
Fucking Ada, fucking Ada”
Basically, for the second half of the song, 50% of the lyrics are swear words.
But how does the song rate overall?
Fucking Ada has 276 words, and of those, 48 are swear words.
This gives Fucking Ada a swear-rate of 17.39%
This is the sweariest song so far, but we can go even further!
1. Another F U Song – Reel Big Fish
Reel Big Fish are a third-wave Ska band who were very popular in the 90s with hits like Sell Out and their cover of Take On Me.
This is a fun, silly song that has a surprising amount of anger, rather like a lot of this bands music…
The song is very short, coming in at just 65 seconds.
This means that for most lists of the most sweary song, it doesn’t even get a chance as it is too short to get that many swear words in.
However, those 65 seconds contain 137 words and of those, 34 are swear words.
You know whats coming; let’s do the maths!
This gives Another F U Song a phenomenal Swear-rate of 24.81%!
Honestly, I dare you to find a song that beats this!
Wrap Up
This is a very silly question and even when using math to answer it, it’s a silly answer.
But we do have an answer!
As far as I know, Another F U Song by Reel Big Fish is the sweariest song ever made.
Proven with maths!
