I was recently asked to participate in Splotchy's Green Monkey Music Project. Maybe I should have been offended that he thought I'd have plenty of snotty music, but no--I was flattered! And, as it turns out, we've got plenty of snotty music. I sat down with my eldest daughter and we started picking out tunes.
The first tune that came to mind was Iggy Pop's "Dog Food" off his 1980 album Soldier. That is one snotty record, and before I re-read the instructions, and contacted Splotchy directly because I was too dense to follow them anyway, our list of 37 snotty songs was about 2/3 Iggy Pop.
We whittled that down and here's what we ended up with:
Dog Food by Iggy Pop--From the opening puking sound to the closing line "dog food is my whole life, dog food composes my wife" this is one snotty song. Close runners-up to this opener were I Snub You, Take Care of Me, Loco Mosquito and I'm a Conservative from the same record. Shoot, why didn't we choose any Stooges songs? Beats me...
Platypus by Green Day--My daughter picked out this one, and at first I didn't recognize it. Then, when it degenerated into a series of obscene insults halfway through, I did. Good choice.
Fodderstompf by Public Image Ltd.--I knew something from Public Image would show up on here. Is anyone in the world snottier than Johnny Lydon? I ended up going with Fodderstompf because Johnny insulted me, personally, when I shouted it out as a request at a PIL show at the old Granada Theater. His response to my request: "You think I can remember all the f*cking words to THAT? F*ck you you silly c*nt." Runners-up were Religion from the same album and Track 8 from "Flowers of Romance."
Dirt by Lou Reed--This one's almost too dirge-like to be snotty, but Lou still manages. Dirt is off the phenomenally brilliant but depressing album "Street Hassle." We almost chose Vicious from "Transformer" but that seemed too obvious.
People Ain't No Good by The Cramps--One of my favorite bands, ever. To me, most of their songs are too snarly to be snotty, but the chorus of little kids singing "people ain't no good" put this song right into snottyville.
Baby's On Fire by Brian Eno--My daughter surprised me with this one. She's recently gotten a bunch of Brian Eno, and she suggested this right away. This is way snottier than I remembered, a perfect combination of lyrics and tone.
Pretty Vacant by the Sex Pistols--We knew we had to have a Sex Pistols song on here somewhere, and once again my kid came through. "We're so pretty, oh so pretty, we're vacant...and we don't care..."
Oh Bondage, Up Yours by X-Ray Spex--This is one of MizBubs' favorite songs from the old days. No one sounded like X-Ray Spex. In perhaps the snottiest move of all, lead singer Poly Styrene left the band and joined the Hare Krishna.
Bonus round: Sit On My Face Stevie Nicks by The Rotters--When Splotchy asked for one more track this was the first one I thought of. I first heard this as a high school senior in late 79 or 80. So over the top it's really a novelty song, almost a parody of punk. When I looked it up I was amazed to find out that the Rotters are still around. Jello Biafra described them as "another one of those bands that forgot to break up."
