Incest in Popular Culture - Popular Music

Popular Music

One of the first incest lines was a song called "The End" by psychedelic rock band The Doors, in which Jim Morrison sings, "Father/ Yes son?/ I want to kill you/ Mother, I want to... (fuck you),"

In his classic song for the Flamin' Groovies' 1970 album "Flamingo", Roy Loney's song "Second Cousin" describes a man's desire to marry his second cousin ("with the kind of body on her make a bald man tear his hair!") despite the opposition of their families.

Prince's groundbreakingly explicit album Dirty Mind contains the song "Sister", an ode to incest.

British musician Kate Bush's song "The Kick Inside" from her 1978 album of the same name depicts an incestuous relationship, pregnancy and suicide involving a brother and sister.

The song "Fa La Fa Lee" by rock band Sparks contains the line: "Fa la fa lee /she ain't heavy, she's a brother to me/ What I need, she can't be / Nature, nurture, who's to say?/ But still fa la, fa lee / Anything between us is a felony"

Southern Californian Pop Punk band Blink 182 are notorious for being lighthearted about it in songs like, "The Grandpa Song", and "The Country Song", as well they joke about it frequently at live shows.

The song "Weakest Moments" by American rock musician John Mellencamp contains the line "Well, I hear you downstairs/ you're fooling around/ with your father's brother/ and your mother's gown".

The song "Don't Wake The Baby" by Jack Off Jill is also apparently about father-daughter incest.

American rock band Giant Drag have a song called "YFLMD" – which stands for "You Fuck Like My Dad".

Alternative rock band Pixies utilize themes of incest in several songs, including "The Holiday Song", "Nimrod's Son", "Break My Body", and "Broken Face".

The German metal band Rammstein touches on incest in “Spiel mit mir”, ("Play with me"), featuring an incestuous relationship between brothers. In “Spiel mit mir”, the older brother apparently forces himself on his younger brother for sex so he will be able to sleep. Rammstein has written other songs dealing with incest including “Laichzeit” (“Spawn time”) and “Tier” (“Animal”).

Alternative rock band 3 Doors Down also deals with father-daughter incest in the song "Sarah Yellin'", and the subsequent murder of the father by his daughter.

The song "Little Sister" by Queens of the Stone Age deals with what can be seen as a brother-sister relationship.

Nirvana released an album entitled Incesticide on December 15, 1992.

Steely Dan's "Cousin Dupree" from their 2000 album Two Against Nature is about a travelling singer who lusts after his cousin. For example, "When I see my little cousin Janine walk in / All I could say was ow-ow-ouch / ... How about a kiss for your cousin Dupree."

American singer Sophie B. Hawkins sings about brother-sister incest in her song "Don't Stop Swaying" from the 1992 album Tongues and Tails. The spoken phrase at the end of the song is explicit: "Hansel and Gretel are holding hands deep in the forest. They are lost. This is their own story. The two have fallen in love, and so, after a long quietness amidst the creatures of the night, they begin to kiss."

There are many examples where incestuous themes are interpreted into lyrics that are undoubtedly dealing with "normal sex". For instance, the term "mama" and "my old lady" are sometimes misinterpreted as representing "mother".

Arena rock band Queen was criticized for their song "Tie Your Mother Down", for the theory that the song was about incestuous rape, although cursory inspection of the lyrics reveals that the song actually refers to the singer's girlfriend's mother, who wants to prevent her daughter from seeing the singer.

On his 2003 album Poodle Hat, "Weird Al" Yankovic included a parody of Avril Lavigne's song, "Complicated (Avril Lavigne song)" titled "A Complicated Song". The song was sung in the first-person, and one of the verses sung was about going to dinner to propose to his girlfriend, only to learn that she was his cousin. The verse was sung as, "How was I supposed to know we were both related?/Believe me, if I knew she was my cousin, we never would have dated."

In their 2003 "metal opera" Days of Rising Doom, the band Aina tells through music a story that features an unknowing incestuous relationship between the Ainae princess Oriana and her half-brother Syrius. The evil warlord Sorvahr abducts the queen Oria from his brother Talon, the king of the land of Aina, and rapes her until she bears a son named Syrius. Oriana, whom Oria had conceived with Talon before Sorvahr kidnapped her, encounters Syrius many years later, who was being groomed to be the leader of Sorvahr's Krakhon army, falls in love with him, and has sexual intercourse with him. In a later battle between the Ainae and Krakhon, Syrius calls a truce between his forces and the Ainae when he spots Oriana on the Ainae battle line. Furious, Sorvahr kills Syrius with magic and appears in the sky, telling Oriana how Syrius was her brother. Oriana then destroys Sorvahr, and with the help of the Ainae army, defeats the Krakhon, rescues her mother, and restores peace to the realm of Aina.

Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers based their song "The Deeper In", from their Decoration Day album, on the real-life consensual incestuous relationship between Allen and Patricia Muth. The Muths are a brother and sister from Wisconsin, although Hood mistakenly implies Michigan in the song. In interviews he has claimed this is due to incorrectly recalling an article from Esquire magazine, in which he read about the couple. Patricia was adopted at birth and did not meet Allen until she was eighteen and he thirty-three, however both were aware of their relationship to each other. They went on to produce four children, one of which was disabled; this led to their arrest and subsequent imprisonment in 1997. Allen was sentenced to eight years and Patricia five, to be served in maximum-security prisons, twenty-five miles apart.

The song "This Love is Fucking Right" by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is about a consensual brother-sister relationship that is both romantic and sexual in nature.

The so-called "Mamasan Trilogy" by Seattle rockers Pearl Jam tells the story of a man's incestuous relationship with his mother and the subsequent unfolding events. The trilogy begins with Alive, which singer Eddie Vedder explains as being part autobiographical and part fiction. When Eddie was a teenager, his mother revealed to him that the man he thought was his father was actually his stepfather, and his biological father was dead. It is the first piece to a trilogy of songs: "Alive", "Once" and "Footsteps." "Alive" tells a story of incest, which leads to the murderous killing spree described in "Once", and eventually looking back from a prison cell in "Footsteps".

The song "My Promiscuous Daughter" by West Chester, Pennsylvania band CKY starts off with lyrics, "I caught my daughter giving head to my brother," suggesting sexual relations between a man's daughter and her uncle.

Eyehategod have a song called "Sister Fucker."

"Suck My Left One" by Bikini Kill was about father-daughter incest.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut features the song "Uncle Fucka", in which accusations of incest are leveled by Terrance and Phillip.

"Chinese Dunkirk" by the Australian blues/hard rock band, Rose Tattoo, on their 1981 album Assault & Battery contains lyrics that suggest brother-sister incest.

The indie rock band from Boston Jaggery released a song entitled Incestuous Tendencies off their 2010 album Upon a Penumbra.

The song "Ark" from the Japanese band Sound Horizon deals with a brother-sister relationship where the sister falls in love and kills her older brother.

The Horrorcore rapper King Gordy talks about smoking crack with and repeatedly raping his sister on the song "This World" in 2009.