From Cee Lo Green to Pink, Speaking the Unspeakable

It’s some kind of milestone: Three of the Top 10 hits on last week’s pop music chart have choruses that can't be played uncensored on the radio and won't have their original lyrics quoted in this family newspaper.

All three use variations on a familiar, emphatic, percussive four-letter word. The offending syllable is right in the titles of two of the songs, deployed as an imperative by Cee Lo Green and as an adverbial participle by Pink. Mr. Green’s song was nominated for a Grammy Award, where its televised listing was coyly phrased, “The Song Also Known as ‘Forget You.’ ” Pink’s song, a self-help power ballad assuring insecure people that they don't have to be (emphatically) perfect, also has a cuss-free version. There’s an airplay-ready variant of Enrique Iglesias’s hardcore hit discreetly titled “Tonight (I'm Lovin’ You).” But it’s the bluntness of his original chorus -- which is prefaced by Mr. Iglesias singing, “I don't mean to be rude” -- that got the song noticed in the first place. Of course he means to be rude! Pop songs fight to be noticed in an arms race of sentiments, gimmicks, sonic manipulation and promotional strategies. For Mr. Iglesias, trading pop’s usual affectionate euphemism for the bluntly physical verb couldn't be more calculated; as a pop lover-boy, Mr. Iglesias decided that the crudity would turn on more fans than it would drive away. It’s a cheap shot that worked.