Rock music has always been about pushing the boundaries of what was possible. The genre partly exists because there are no limits. A band can be as loud or as quiet as they want to be and it can still be called rock.
Lyrically, there can be an aspect of aggression that other genres cannot include. There are likely no polka songs such as Nails' "You'll Never Be One of Us," though I am happy to be corrected. All that pent-up anger can sometimes lead to bad songs or bad people interpreting some tunes.
Of the five tracks that follow, not all were intended to instigate riots (or murder). In one case, the band just chose a bad path. All of the songs became controversial in their own way, however.
Five of the most controversial rock songs ever made
The Crystals - "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)"
This song is creepy for a lot of reasons. The lyrics are sad enough, but that future convicted murderer Phil Spector produced the single doesn't help. The positive part is that there is no way a song such as this would find the popularity today that it did when the track was released in 1962. Perhaps more shocking, Carole King is credited as the co-writer of the tune.
No matter how one tries to interpret the song, there is little doubt there is domestic assault happening and the person being assaulted does not feel, mentally or physically, like they can leave. Was the world a different place in the early 1960s? Yeah. Was the world a worse place if domestic assault appeared even more hidden? Yep.
The first verse alone is horrifying: "He hit me and it felt like a kiss/He hit me but it didn't hurt me/He couldn't stand to hear me say/That I'd been with someone new/And when I told him I had been untrue." The hope is that the songwriters based the words on a real situation that they were trying to shed light on and the victim was able to get away.
The other side could be true as well, however. Someone could have heard this song and thought it was fine to be the hitter or the person being hit. Either way, that's more than a real shame. It is very much tragic.
Sex Pistols - "God Save the Queen"
Whew. After the awfulness of "He Hit Me" we have a political song about a regime that has been part of oppressing people for centuries. Is the Queen in the song now dead? Of course, the family remains the same. There is little doubt that the royals have been so distanced from real people that they have stopped having any sense as to real problems. They make money simply by being born.
The real controversy with this track did not happen during the recording but the genius of the band to rent a boat during the Queen's Jubilee and the boat drifted next to the Queen while the song played. The band was escorted away by the police, but the damage had been done. The moment was one of the best in the history of rock.
In fact, this is one of the best moments anyone tried to create something to instigate, did it perfectly, and then followed up on it. The Sex Pistols were far from a perfect band and certainly had their issues, but the creation of the song and the moment near the Queen was amazing.
Beatles - "Helter Skelter"
The lyrics read as some drug-induced form of psychedelia because, well...that is what it seems as if they could be (whether that was the band's intent or not). In no way should anyone who is thinking logically interpret the words and then go on a killing spree. However, that is what Charles Manson and his followers did as they believed what the Beatles were saying had something to do with an end-times race war. Seriously...what?
Perhaps Manson, who eventually spent his life in prison and died there, was such a messed up individual that he combined the perceived name of the Beatles record upon which the song exists, the White album (which is not its official name; The Beatles is), the color of one's skin, and then his interpretations of the "Helter Skelter" lyrics.
In any case, Manson clearly was out of his head, unless he just had a deep-seated hate of slides. Maybe he had an incident as a child at a playground? Or, most likely, he was just a lunatic.
Stone Temple Pilots - "Sex Type Thing"
The first song on the tracklist to the band's first album on the surface appears to be one that is shedding light on a sexual predator. No one would write a song so aggressive and mean the words, right? (OK, sure, that does happen, but that was not Scott Weiland and Stone Temple Pilots' intent with this track.)
The issue is that Weiland sings the lyrics with such brutal truth that some might see him as coming across as trying to seem that predatory behavior is fine. He is also, to anyone who might understand what sarcasm is, attempting to get people to understand that assaults are not good in any way.
The music mirrors the words perfectly and might add to someone's interpretation that Weiland is pro-sexual violence as the rhythm drives forward unstoppably. This was also meant to augment the theme of the song. The shame is that some cannot see beyond that.
Guns N' Roses - "One in a Million"
If you were on the fence about becoming a GNR fan then this song will likely make the decision for you. If you hate the band, you will dislike this song even more strongly. If you like the group, you will probably pretend this song did not exist. The lyrics are extremely racist and homophobic and the song's existence takes away from the quality of the band.
We won't print the lyrics here. They are easily found by doing a Google search. Just don't do that when family is around or they might think less of you if they do not know the context. When the song was made part of the group's 1988 record, Lies, Axl Rose thought he could do anything (which, of course, was seemingly the case) but he went too far on this track.
Fans were divided about the words and so was the band. Guitarist Slash is half-African American and he was not a fan of the song, for sure. When GNR released a reissue of the group's seminal album, Appetite For Destruction, which also included songs from Lies, "One in a Million" was not included, and rightfully so.