Lucille Bogan

Lucille Bogan is the reason that this week is drrrrrrty blues week here on Adobe and Teardrops. (Is it pretentious to start going with A&T?) And believe me, Ms. Bogan deserves all of those extra r’s.The ever-trusty Cracked.com unearthed Lucille in their 2009 article “7 Songs From Your Grandpa’s Day That Would Make Eminem Blush“. As talented as Cracked’s writers are, for this article you just need to read the lyrics to believe it.

I’m not really sure where to start — with one of her more coy songs, or if I should just hit you in the face with how shocking this stuff is. Stuff from the 1930s.

If you want to start in easy, read on to Barbecue Bess.

If you want to start with the crass, SCROLL DOWN to “‘Til the Cows Come Home”! (NSFW)

Clearly, Bogan wrote songs for their shock value. Wikipedia is pretty skimpy on the details, so I don’t know how famous she actually was, but she was well-known enough to get recorded and to tour around the country.

Barbecue Bess


“Barbecue Bess” seems to be her tamest song, in which we are lead to compare barbecue and sex. (The refrain is, “I’m talkin’ about barbecue/That’s the only thing I sell.”) For funzies, here’s a Japanese group performing the song. They pretty much nail it, though. (And I believe she’s explaining the meaning of “barbecue” to the audience — it’s hard to tell with that weird grinding sound.)

‘Til the Cows Come Home


The Cracked article features “Shave ‘Em Dry” — probably because she says “fuck” so many times.

But if they had done their research, “‘Til the Cows Come Home” would have given them comedy gold. Oh, and here’s a picture of Ms. Bogan so you can imagine her singing this.

If you suck my pussy
I’ll suck your dick
I’ll do it to you honey
‘Til I make you shit
Ooh, baby, do it all night long.

And then there’s my favorite song. I would like to declare it the international anthem of lesbians everywhere: “BD Woman’s Blues.”