Bastard by Mötley Crüe

Album: Shout At The Devil (1983)

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Songfacts®:

A track from the second Mötley Crüe album, "Bastard" was written by bass player Nikki Sixx, who was their primary songwriter. The song finds the band taking out their aggressions on an enemy, explaining in graphic detail how they intend to kill him:

Out go the lights
In goes my knife
Pull out his life
Consider that bastard dead
By naming their album Shout At The Devil, the band attracted the attention of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), a group that in 1985 crusaded to put warning labels on albums with offensive content. The album's title track was already condemned by many religious groups, but the blatant depiction of murder is the song that landed Crüe on the PMRC's list of "Filthy 15" songs they used as examples of songs that needed stickering.

As a result of the PMRC hearings, the record industry agreed to put the warning stickers on offensive albums. Shout At The Devil got one, which likely helped it sell more copies. In 1987, they played up the controversy by issuing an "X-rated" version of their "Girls, Girls, Girls" single with a cover photo for "Men Only."

Comments: 1

Bass`cat from Chicago1 of my all time favorite songs, especially lyric wise!!!
Love how Sixx told the record company who ripped his band off, what he'd like to do to them, in a song in which nobody would've noticed what the song was about, if Sixx himself didn't tell what the song"Bastard" meant, in interviews!!

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