Songfacts®:

• Rihanna recorded a song called "S&M" 24 years after Phil Lynott died. Nine years before she was born, he pre-empted her with this track. Co-written with drummer Brian Downey - no prizes for guessing who supplied the words - this is the third track on the Black Rose album, and runs to 4 minutes 5 seconds.
• During the 1990s there were no less than three biographies of Lynott and Thin Lizzy; although they pulled no punches, none of them even hinted that either he or any member of the band was into S&M, so the probable inspiration for this song was two-fold, to stick up two fingers to the feminist movement:
  
  "He beat her like a drum..."
  
  And to court controversy as he did with "Killer On The Loose."
  
  He will have unquestionably succeeded on the first count. Unlike Rihanna's effort, this "S&M" was not released as a single, so it wasn't banned. As well as the trademark Thin Lizzy duel lead it has a particularly strong drum track, which is hardly surprising. All good clean fun. Well, fun anyway. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2