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Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll.  The notorious hat trick of vices.

It’s been a familiar phrase since at least 1977, when British punk rocker Ian Dury had a mildly popular single by that name.  There was even a cable TV comedy series a few years back called “Sex&Drugs&Rock&Roll.”

So let’s explore the connection between sex and rock & roll.  You’ll note that sex is the first thing mentioned, and that’s no coincidence.  From the very beginning, even before there was a genre called rock and roll, the black communities in this country were grooving to rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie and gospel, and they certainly weren’t sitting down.  They were, as they liked to call it, “rockin’ and rollin'”  — swaying, dancing, bumping and grinding, and yes, having sex to the relentlessly contagious rhythms.

So the very term “rock and roll” is actually a euphemism for sexual intercourse.  Disc jockey Alan Freed was well aware of that when he started using the term “rock and roll” on his Cleveland radio show in 1951 to describe the new musical hybrid that combined elements of rhythm and blues, country, gospel and swing.  He often chuckled to himself when he thought about how mainstream America would soon adopt the term and use it liberally to describe this new music, without knowing that it really meant SEX.

The country’s relatively Puritan culture in the 1940s and ’50s forbade mention or depiction of sex in films and popular music, but if you spoke in code and kept it mild, you could sneak in a song now and then.  Dozens of blues tunes featured lyrics about sex (“I Want a Bow-Legged Woman,” “My King-Sized Papa,” “It Ain’t the Meat, It’s the Motion”), but these were certainly not songs you found on the Hit Parade.

Perhaps that era’s most overt example of a mainstream hit about sex was “Makin’ Whoopee,” written way back in 1928 but popularized by Ella Fitzgerald in 1954 and Frank Sinatra in 1956.  It really wasn’t all that racy; its lyrics began with the pleasures of married sex but soon devolved into the tedious routine and responsibility of spouse and kids, all resulting from the aforementioned whoopee:  “Another bride, another June, another sunny honeymoon, another season, another reason for makin’ whoopee…He’s washin dishes and baby clothes, he’s so ambitious, he even sews, so don’t forget, folks, that’s what you get, folks, for makin’ whoopee…”

In 1959, a country singer named Floyd Robinson took it a step further with a rock and roll song entitled “Makin’ Love,” whose lyrics leave no doubt:  “What would people think?  What if people knew?  Instead of being off to school, all day I was with you, makin’ love, makin’ love…”  It was yanked from the airwaves in many markets but still managed to reach #20 on Billboard’s Top 40 chart.

For the most part, any reference to sex in rock song lyrics during its first decade (1955-1965) was buried deep in vague language.  Witness “Wake Up, Little Susie” by The Everly Brothers:  “The movie’s over, it’s four o’clock and we’re in trouble deep…We fell asleep, our goose is cooked, our reputation is shot, wake up, little Susie…”  Nothing ever happened, but they’re still afraid of the public perception.

Starting around 1967 (about the same time veiled references to drugs started appearing, too), taboo topics and more blatant references began showing up in popular music lyrics.  Van Morrison’s classic “Brown-Eyed Girl” spoke of “making love in the green grass behind the stadium with you.”  The Who’s hit “Pictures of Lily” is all about how dirty magazines help a young man learn about self-pleasuring:  “Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful, pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night, pictures of Lily solved my childhood problem, pictures of Lily made me feel all right…”

Leave it to The Beatles to be among the first to come right out and say it with these lyrics from the 1968 “White Album”:  “Why don’t we do it in the road, no one will be watching us, why don’t we do it in the road?”

In 1969, master songwriter Bob Dylan offered a #8 song which made no bones about the narrator’s wishes:  “Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed, stay lady stay, stay with your man a while, until the break of day, let me see you make him smile…”

Even the introspective Paul Simon was capable of a boldly whimsical song like “Cecilia,” which seemed to hint at a threesome:  “Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia up in my bedroom, I got up to wash my face, when I come back to bed, someone’s taken my place…”

The culture started changing considerably in the Seventies, as the sexual revolution gathered steam and the music and film industries pushed the boundaries of acceptability. I’ll never forget the first time I heard an instrumental track called “Jungle Fever” by a Belgian group called The Chakachas in 1972.  It offered no lyrics about sex, in fact no lyrics at all, but with the intermittent heavy breathing and orgasmic moaning, it was easily the most blatantly sexual song ever at that point.

And then there was Barry White.  His lyrics weren’t overtly sexual, graphic or profane in any way, but his songs and their delivery were so steamy hot and sensual, I’d wager to say there were more babies conceived to his music than any other artist of his time.

Under the mainstream radar, plenty of deep album tracks pushed the envelope on sexual lyrics (see “Dinah-Moe Humm” by Frank Zappa).  But even on the Top 40 charts, lyrics about sex were suddenly everywhere, coming from hard rock bands, disco divas, power pop groups, soul music artists, singer-songwriters…even MOR acts like The Captain and Tennille and Olivia Newton-John.  Some were suggestive, some were romantic, some were naughty, even nasty.  A sampling:

“Whole Lotta Love,” Led Zeppelin:  “Way, way down inside, I’m gonna give you my love, I’m gonna give you every inch of my love, want a whole lotta love…”

“Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine,” James Brown:  “Get on up like a sex machine…get on up, then shake your money maker…”  

“Brown Sugar,” The Rolling Stones:  “I’m no schoolboy but I know what I like, you shoulda heard me just around midnight, brown sugar, how come you taste so good?  Brown sugar, just like a young girl should…”

“Brand New Key,” Melanie:  ” I’m okay alone, but you got something I need, I got a brand new pair of roller skates, you’ve got a brand new key, I think that we should get together and try them out to see…”  

“Go All the Way,” The Raspberries:  “She kissed me and said, ‘Baby, please go all the way, it feels so nice being with you here tonight’…”

“Walk on the Wild Side,” Lou Reed:  “In the back room, she was everybody’s darling, but she never lost her head, even when she was giving head, I said hey babe, take a walk on the wild side…”

“Let’s Get It On,” Marvin Gaye:  “I’m asking you, baby, to get it on with me, I ain’t gonna worry, I ain’t gonna push, come on, come on, stop beating around the bush, let’s get it on…”  

“Love to Love You Baby,” Donna Summer:  “I love to love you baby, do it to me again and again, you put me in such an awful spin, in a spin, I love to love you, baby…”

“Feel Like Makin’ Love,” Bad Company:  “You know I would give you both night and day, love satisfyin’, I feel like makin’, feel like makin’ love…”

“Midnight at the Oasis,” Maria Muldaur:  “You won’t need no harem, honey, when I’m by your side, and you won’t need no camel, no no, when I take you for a ride…”

“Miracles,” Jefferson Starship:  “I had a taste of the real world, didn’t waste a drop of it, when I went down on you, girl…”

“Sexy Mama,” The Moments:  “I wanna open up them love gates…I think in just a moment there’s gonna be a love explosion, go ahead and let your jones get good and funky…”

“Get Down Tonight,” KC and the Sunshine Band:  “Do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight…”

“Afternoon Delight,” Starland Vocal Band:  “Rubbin’ sticks and stones together, make the sparks ignite, and the thought of loving you is getting so exciting, sky rockets in flight, afternoon delight…”

“Tonight’s the Night,” Rod Stewart:  “Come on, angel, my heart’s on fire, don’t deny your man’s desire, you’d be a fool to stop this tide, spread your wings and let me come inside, tonight’s the night, gonna be all right…”

“Paradise By the Dashboard Light,” Meat Loaf:   “Ain’t no doubt about it, we were double blessed, we were barely 17 and we were barely dressed, we’re gonna go all the way tonight, we’re gonna go all the way, and tonight’s the night…”

“Do That to Me One More Time,” The Captain and Tennille:  “Once is never enough with a man like you, do that to me one more time, I can never get enough of a man like you, whoa, kiss me like you just did, oh baby, do that to me once again…”

“Physical,” Olivia Newton-John:  “There’s nothing left to talk about unless it’s horizontally, let’s get physical, physical, let me hear your body talk…It’s getting hard, this holding back, if you know what I mean…”

By the time the Eighties rolled around, the old barriers seemed to have been completely obliterated.  Heavy metal groups (Quiet Riot, Def Leppard), R&B artists (Teddy Pendergrass), mainstream divas (Sheena Easton, Madonna) and early hip-hop bands (Salt-N-Pepa, 2 Live Crew) were utterly brazen in the way they used sex as a lyrical topic.

“Sugar Walls,” Sheena Easton:  “Blood races to your private spots, lets me know there’s a fire, you can’t fight passion when passion is hot, temperatures rise inside my sugar walls…”

“Turn Off All the Lights,” Teddy Pendergrass:  “Let’s take a shower, shower together baby, I’ll wash your body and you’ll wash mine, yeah, rub me down in some hot oils, baby, and I’ll do the same thing to you…”

“Like a Virgin,” Madonna:  “Touched for the very first time…Feels so good inside, when you hold me and your heart beats…”

“Push It,” Salt-n-Pepa:  “Can’t you hear the music’s pumpin’ hard like I wish you would, now push it, push it good…”

“I Want Your Sex,” George Michael:  “Sex is something we should do, sex is something for me and you, sex is natural, sex is good, not everybody does it, but everybody should…”

“Pour a Little Sugar on Me,” Def Leppard:  “You gotta squeeze a little, tease a little more, easy operator, come a-knockin’ on my door, sometime, anytime, sugar me sweet, I’m hot sticky sweet, from my head to my feet…

“Love in an Elevator,” Aerosmith:  “In the air, in the air, honey, one more time, now it ain’t fair, love in an elevator, livin’ it up when I’m goin’ down…”

The late great Prince may have been the boldest practitioner of the dirty sex lyric, starting with his “Dirty Mind” album right up through tracks like “Head,” “Jack U Off” and the infamous “Darling Nikki,” which is generally regarded as the match that ignited the fuse
for Congress to slap parental warning stickers on albums with offensive lyrics.  Here’s why:  “I met her in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine, she said, ‘how’d you like to waste some time?’, and I couldn’t resist when I saw little Nikki grind…” 

As the Nineties arrived, well, many older music fans started longing for the days when there was at least a modicum of discretion about sex in song lyrics.  I’m no prude, that’s for damn sure, but holy crap, I can’t even quote from songs like 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny,” Ginuwine’s “Pony” or Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer,” or hundreds and hundreds of others released in the past 20 years.  You’ll have to look ’em up yourself.  

I’ll just say this:  Is there no filter anymore?  Is there no boundary that won’t be crossed?  Is it really necessary to be so damn graphic and ugly in our lyrical expressions of sex?  It’s kind of like the difference between scantily clad and naked — leaving something to the imagination can be much sexier…

Needless to say, we’ve come a long way from ’60s songs like The Stones’ “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” or Tommy James and The Shondells’ “I Think We’re Alone Now”:  “Trying to get away into the night, and then you put your arms around me and we tumble to the ground and then you say, ‘I think we’re alone now, the beating of our hearts is the only sound’…”

You can hear the progression of sex lyrics over the decades on the Spotify list below:

When you mention influential rock bands of the ’60s, you know the usual well-known names:   The Beatles.  The Beach Boys.  The Rolling Stones.  The Who.  The Byrds.  The Grateful Dead.  All worthy candidates.

But there’s another band that arguably tops them all:  The Yardbirds.

Casual rock music listeners will say, “Huh?”  They might remember the 1965 pop hit, “For Your Love,” and some may recall the 1966 singles “Shapes of Things” and “Heart Full of Soul.”  But that’s about it.

Some rock historians maintain that, when it comes to making a seismic impact on many dozens of artists and bands that followed in their wake, you can make a strong case that The Yardbirds win the contest hands down.

For the uninitiated, here’s the deal:  The Yardbirds were born in 1963 as a blues-focused band out of London.  Their first guitarist didn’t last and was soon replaced by 18-year-old Eric Clapton as the lead guitarist.  By 1965, Clapton had moved on, and in his place, the group was steered by the great guitar pioneer Jeff Beck.  In 1966, Beck overlapped with his eventual successor, veteran studio guitarist  Jimmy Page.

That’s right:  The three recognized kings of electric guitar and British rock/blues, who all ranked in the Top Five on Rolling Stone‘s Top 50 Guitarists of All Time, were all graduates of “Yardbirds University.”

The History

England in the late ’50s and early ’60s was still recovering from the shell shock of World War II, and as far as popular music was concerned, the teenagers growing up in that era didn’t know much more than what the staid BBC was willing to feed them — dance hall music, classical, show tunes and the like.  But the new music of America filtered in from the seamen who returned from the US with the latest 45s of bold new genres known as Jazz, and The Blues.

Young Britishers like Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies were entranced.  They learned the riffs, the grooves, the feel for it all, and even opened a club called “London Blues and Barrelhouse Club,” which featured American blues artists like Muddy Waters and Memphis Slim.  Young Brits starved for something more than the usual BBC fare frequented the place, and Korner and Davies formed a band called Blues Incorporated, which became a breeding ground for young British musicians similarly mesmerized by this compelling new music.

Four of these guys, all fanatical about blues music, were Keith Relf (singer and harmonica player), Paul Samwell-Smith (bass), Jim McCarty (drums) and Chris Dreja (rhythm guitar), who were eager to start their own band.  With “Top” Topham on lead guitar, they formed the Blue-Sounds, and were thrilled to support Davies on several gigs in early 1963.

They soon renamed themselves The Yardbirds, named after the nickname of wanderers who hung out in railyard stations, and for the great jazz saxophonist Charlie “Yardbird” Parker.

They drew considerable attention around London playing the Chicago blues tunes of Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf and Elmore James, future classics like “Smokestack Lightning,” “Boom Boom” and “I’m a Man.”

The Clapton Era

In October 1963,  Topham grew bored and left, and in walked Eric Clapton, a remarkably accomplished guitarist despite being only 18.  He’d cut his teeth in a couple bands (The Roosters, Casey Jones & The Engineers) and was a disciple of Delta bluesman Robert Johnson, and idolized American blues guitarists like B.B. King, Buddy Guy and Freddie King.  Bringing Clapton into The Yardbirds helped them secure a gig as the new house band at the famed Crawdaddy Club in suburban Richmond, succeeding The Rolling Stones there. That, in turn, helped them land a recording contract with EMI’s Columbia label in 1964.

Clapton steered The Yardbirds deeper into blues material, as evidenced by their first two singles, “I Wish You Would” and “Good Morning, Little School Girl.” Manager/producer Georgio Gomelsky was the man behind the band’s first LP, “Five Live Yardbirds,” recorded in concert at the legendary Marquee Club in London.  Despite favorable reviews in R&B circles, it failed to make the charts in the UK and was never released in the US.

Eager to follow the path of other British blues bands like The Animals, who had a huge international hit with “House of the Rising Sun,” the Yardbirds agreed to record “For Your Love,” a decidedly commercial pop song by Graham Gouldman, who also wrote songs for The Hollies and Herman’s Hermits.  Sure enough, “For Your Love” quickly climbed the charts in early 1965, reaching #3 in England and #6 in the US.

But Clapton, a diehard blues purist, was not happy.  He heatedly objected to the commercial pop direction the band was heading in, and even as “For Your Love” was establishing The Yardbirds as a success, he abruptly left.  “I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist,” he said years later.  “It was a very powerful drug to be introduced to me, and I absorbed it totally.  I didn’t care for pop music at that time.  Blues was it for me.”

Clapton soon hooked up with another blues purist, John Mayall, and became one of his Bluesbreakers for a spell before going on to worldwide fame with the power trio Cream (1966-1968), the short-lived supergroup Blind Faith (1969), the drug-plagued Derek and the Dominos (1970-1971) and, eventually, a long solo career that has spanned five decades.  He has won multiple Grammys and been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame three times (for Yardbirds, Cream and as a solo artist).  He is generally regarded as the finest rock/blues guitarist of all time.

The Beck Era

Before departing The Yardbirds, Clapton suggested the band hire veteran studio guitarist Jimmy Page to replace him.  But Page turned them down, preferring the lucrative work of regular studio sessions.  He, in turn, suggested Jeff Beck, who eagerly joined the lineup in April 1965.

Beck had most recently been in The Tridents, another London blues group, where he was known for innovations with guitar fuzz tone, sustain, feedback and distortion.  He brought all that and more to The Yardbirds, first heard on their next hit single, “Heart Full of Soul,” which peaked at #2 in the UK and #9 in the US in the summer of ’65.  Beck’s brief but meaty solos in tracks like “Shapes of Things” and “Over Under Sideways Down” were mini-masterpieces of early heavy metal techniques.  Dozens of guitarists who followed — Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple, Rainbow), Kirk Hammett (Metallica), Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) — often name Beck as a key influence in their own musical paths.

The Yardbirds gave Beck ample room to try new things, which suited him fine.  “I don’t understand why some people will only accept a guitar if it has an instantly recognizable guitar sound,” he said in 1975.  “Finding ways to use the same guitar people have been playing for years to make sounds no one has heard before — that’s truly what gets me off.”

With Beck, the band released the seminal album “Roger the Engineer,” seen now as the peak of their recorded work.  But Beck was developing a rebellious nature, and combined with a perfectionist attitude and an unpredictable temper, he often alienated the rest of the group, especially bassist Samwell-Smith, who chose to leave in mid-1966 to become a respected producer.

Once again, The Yardbirds approached Page, this time asking if he would join as their bass player.  He agreed, but Relf soon assumed the role of bassist, and Page became their second lead guitarist.  Page and Beck shared lead guitar duties in concert, which sounds like a dream come true, but sadly, there are very few recordings of the two of them together.  (Indeed, ’70s guitar great Ronnie Montrose recalls, “Seeing the original Yardbirds with Beck and Page together at the old Fillmore was a pretty powerful influence on me.”)

That arrangement lasted only three months.  In November 1966, during a US tour, Beck was unceremoniously fired from The Yardbirds, evidently because he was a no-show at concert dates one too many times.

Bruised but not beaten, Beck went on to a colorful solo career, starting with the phenomenal “Truth” LP in 1968, featuring a young Rod Stewart on vocals, Ronnie Wood on guitar and bass and Nicky Hopkins on piano.  He has played with many other musicians from different genres, including Tim Bogert and Carmine Appice from Vanilla Fudge, keyboard legend Max Middleton, jazz keyboardist Jan Hammer, most notably on “Blow By Blow” (1975) and “Wired” (1976), his best-charting albums in the US (#4 and #16 respectively).  His recorded output has been sporadic, but his occasional jaw-dropping appearances at major rock events in recent years has cemented his status as a “guitarist’s guitarist.”  He has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a Yardbird in 1992 and as a solo artist in 2009.  He passed away in 2023 at age 78.

The Page Era

Before joining The Yardbirds, Page had already established a formidable reputation as a skillful studio guitarist, playing on recording sessions for dozens of British acts like The Kinks, Donovan, Joe Cocker, Petula Clark and Marianne Faithfull.  “It was lucrative and exciting for a while,” Page said, “but then it turned dull and uninspiring when they had me doing incidental film soundtracks and Muzak.”  So when the Yardbirds came calling, this time he said yes.

Following the aforementioned stints on bass and then sharing guitar duties with Beck until his departure, the band carried on as a four-piece (McCarty on drums, Dreja on rhythm guitar, Relf on bass and vocals, and Page on lead guitar).  Psychedelic rock was becoming the rage as Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Grateful Dead and others led the way.  Page was intrigued by the possibilities and steered the band in that direction.  The album they came up with, “Little Games,” was all over the map, thanks in large part to the record company (Epic) insisting on pop producer Mickie Most’s involvement.  The album stalled at #80 in the US, and the single “Happenings Ten Years Time Ago” managed only #30 here.  The commercial singles Most produced for them fared even worse, many not even charting in the US nor the UK.

In concert, The Yardbirds were almost like a different band.  Page took them through the paces:  long jams on old standards like “Smokestack Lightning,” covers of Velvet Underground songs, Eastern-flavored tour-de-forces like “White Summer,” and an electrified folk ballad by American Jake Holmes called “Dazed and Confused,” on which Page used a cello bow to coax bold new sounds from his Les Paul guitar (a clear sign of things to come).

By mid-1968, the band was fracturing.  Relf and McCarty wanted the group to pursue elements of folk and classical music in their repertoire; Page was firmly pointed toward the heavier blues rock idiom; Dreja, meanwhile, had developed an interest in rock photography.  Clearly, it was time to call it quits.  Relf and McCarty left, and made good on their dream by forming the classical rock group Renaissance.

Page, meanwhile, started looking around for other musicians to form a new Yardbirds lineup, in part because he wanted to honor a set of Scandinavian concert dates in late 1968.  But more pointedly, he had slowly been building “a textbook of ideas” during his tenure in the band, and was already envisioning his own group.  He contacted accomplished keyboard/bass wizard John Paul Jones, another veteran of numerous ’60s studio sessions.  Page also approached promising singer Terry Reid to join, but he had just signed a solo recording deal, so he declined.  But he sent Page to check out a then-unknown vocalist named Robert Plant, who was turning heads in Band of Joy up in Birmingham.  Page was blown away by what he heard and invited him to join his “New Yardbirds,” along with Band of Joy’s explosive drummer, John Bonham.

This new foursome rehearsed intensely for two weeks and then played the shows in Scandinavia, where the crowds were bowled over by the group’s power and intensity.  In order to make a clean slate, Page dropped the New Yardbirds name and substituted a phrase that drummer Keith Moon of The Who had once used to describe a band that would fail badly:  “Lead Zeppelin.”  Manager Peter Grant suggested changing “lead” to “led” so people wouldn’t mispronounce it, and voila!  The greatest rock band of the 1970s, Led Zeppelin, was born.

The Aftermath

Many dozens of Yardbirds compilations, live recordings (official and bootleg) and stray singles and B-sides emerged in the ’70s and ’80s and beyond, as a new generation of rock fans were curious to hear Clapton, Beck and Page in their formative years.  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell whose guitar licks you’re hearing, particularly on tracks from the period Beck and Page overlapped.  But there are some real jewels in there for those willing to dig through the mixed bag of 1964-1968 recordings.

And what of the other alumni?  Sadly, Relf met his untimely end when he was electrocuted in his home recording studio in 1976.  Dreja and McCarty attempted a reunion in the early ’80s, and assembled a new lineup as recently as 2003 when they released “Birdland,” with re-recordings of eight classic Yardbirds tracks along with seven new ones.  It didn’t sell or chart, but I found it entertaining.  You might check it out.

https://open.spotify.com/user/1232216776/playlist/50HZ3g1L265V8jDaTYosQU