By The Landlord
"I like your opera. I think I will set it to music." – Beethoven, on another composer's work
"The tautness of his face sours ripe grapes." – William Shakespeare, Coriolanus
"He's a man with a fork in a world of soup." – Noel Gallagher on brother Liam
“He’s so dense that light bends around him … He’s useless. He’s absolutely fucking useless. He’s as useless as a marzipan dildo.” – Malcolm Tucker, In The Thick Of It
Then can fizz up spontaneously in mind and out of the lips – hot, flaming balls of wit, anger, some like a wrecking ball, others like a rapier with a blade so fine, as John Dryden put it, appearing to leave the victim’s head still in place. While some are considered, the best are often off the cuff, from the lightly humorous to the downright outrageous – variously creative, destructive, motivating, soul-destroying. Insults cover a huge range of nuance in the way we communicate, whether direct or indirect at their target, and so they are supremely potent and ripe for the stuff of song. This week then let's capture how they come out in song lyrics, those single phrases lines or verses or even full songs, delivered with grace, energy or power containing those killer moments.
It's all about tone. Insults range from the gentle to, from slight discourtesy and cast aspersion to full invective and withering put-down and full-on fire-y scorn. There are many books on the subject, but my favourite is by the actor, best known for the Carry On films, Kenneth Williams, who himself had a ready, wicked often filthy wit, but who had a fabulous ability to pull many facial expressions and look offended himself. Unlike the many compendiums of insults out there, his slim volume Acid Drops a wonderfully witty, considered book that covers insults right across the spectrum of type, tone, form and scenario from a to z, ranging through acrimony, bitchery, carping, devilry, epigram, feuding, gamesmanship, humiliation, invective, jibing, knock-out, lampoon, malice, nemesis, obloquy, pique, quip, ridicule, scorn, terseness, upstaging, vitriol, wordplay, xenophobia, yahoo and the zany.
Here then are a few of his expressions, and also two editions of his book. In the latter, the hardback, the pose is supposedly him pretending to eat an acid drop sweet, but with his legendarily clever ability with innuendo, one wonders whether he is miming an act of a less innocent nature. “Ooh I’ve never been so insulted in all my life,” he would say, wickedly.
But where do you draw the line between insult and the offensive? That's all down to the individual although in the latter category, sex, violence, race, death and religion are often the touchstones. In Acid Drops, Williams highlights his collection of favourites as being particularly of the "cruel bon mot which has its sting drawn by the laughter that ensues. It was Oscar Wilde who pointed out that no comment was in bad taste if it was amusing – and for that reason alone it is worthwhile preserving these delightful examples of verbal dexterity."
There are many gems in the book, but to pick one at random, he describes a brilliantly bitchy, and well chosen phrase by Bette Davis, who during the autumn of her career, was in a restaurant when a younger new actress was also on the premises and was gaining all the attention. When the actress and her party were setting off to the exit, she casually observed, with beautiful phrasing: "There goes the good time that's had by all."
Ooh Bette Davis
There are many guests in the Bar this week to give it the full barrels, but first there are a few who want to talk about insults in a more nuanced way. Insults are very subjective after all.
"It is not he who reviles or strikes you who insults you, but your opinion that these things are insulting," says the Greek Stoic philosopher Epictetus, who you could say puts on a stony face about it.
Insults? Get over it. Be stony faced, reckons Epictetus
While some insults are like bludgeons to your very being, others prefer the more subtle touch. "A graceful taunt is worth a thousand insults," says the famous lawyer Louis Nizer, who no doubt could unleash the slower ball, as it were. And sometimes the disguised kinder phrase can indeed be disconcerting. "We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled," says the American aphorist Mason Cooley.
There are also a couple of music stars in the house. "It's hard to make out the difference between insults and bad advice," says Cass McCombs, suggesting heavily the rocky road of the music industry. And it's tough world, but Billy Idol is up for a fight. "I love it when someone insults me. That means that I don't have to be nice anymore.
But let's now unleash more of a salvo of insults that cover the full range. Among the greatest of sharp-tongued is of course Dorothy Parker. Few were spared her rapier wit. "She ran the whole gamut of the emotions, from A to B,” she remarked on Katherine Hepburn's acting.
Join up the dots … Dorothy Parker
Some of the best insults are the pithiest. When President Calvin Coolidge died in 1933, and it would be conventional to show respect for the deceased, Dorothy Parker remarked at this news: "How can they tell?”
Parker had her rivals of course. "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork,” said Mae West on a man she didn't like in the 1934 film Belle of the Nineties.
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music,” said writer and filmmaker Billy Wilder, while listening to an actor sing in the movie Kiss Me, Stupid.
Groucho Marx had a disarming line in insults too: "I never forget a face, but in your case, I'll make an exception."
Some insults aren’t necessarily clever or witty at all. Ironically, this example comes from a great intellectual on a rival, the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard on fellow Dane, bishop and academic Hans Martenson: "My opponent is a glob of snot."
Aristotle was not all about profound aphorisms either. Here he remarks on another classical figure with with something of a salvo: "It is Homer who has chiefly taught other poets the art of lying skilfully."
Meanwhile French author Victor Hugo sums up his countrymen’s supposed great statesman and conqueror Napoleon: "God was bored by him."
Mahatma Gandhi is not known for his insults, but could be withering in his remarks, as shown on this one not about an individual but an entire culture: "What do you think of Western Civilisation?" he was asked. "I think it would be a good idea,” he replied.
It would indeed be insulting not to include Oscar Wilde in this selection. Here’s one of many: "Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go."
A big bit of a shit. Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill’s vicious verbal sparring was legendary, not least with Lady Astor. After being informed by her that if she was married to him, she would have poisoned his coffee, he said: "Nancy, if you were my wife, I'd drink it."
On another occasion, when the prime minister was interrupted on the toilet in his wartime bunker and was informed that the Lord Privy Seal wished to see him, he came his reply: "Tell the Lord Privy Seal I am sealed in my privy, and can only deal with one shit at a time."
In contemporary circles, the comedian and writer Frankie Boyle is perhaps a leading light of darkness when it comes to insults that run close the bone, and are certainly designed to play with that line between funny and offensive. In reference to the film Braveheart, he not only manages to savage an actor but also his own countrymen: "Nobody thought Mel Gibson could play a Scot, but look at him now! Alcoholic and a racist!"
Frankie Boyle
But in terms of fictional insulters, perhaps none can rival the fabulously vicious Malcolm Tucker, played by Peter Capaldi, the Glasgow-accented head of press communications in the brilliant political series The Thick of It, about the shambolic goings-on behind British government. Here are some his many finest moments, increasingly, vivid, funny and offensive.
To Nicola Murray: “You’re not a grandee, you’re a fucking bland-ee. No one knew what the fuck you stood for, political fing mist, no substance, no weight. You have all the charm of a rotting teddy bear by a graveside.”
To Ollie Reeder: “Feet off the furniture you Oxbridge twat, you’re not in a punt now.”
“I’d love to stop and chat but I’d rather have type 2 diabetes.”
“Shitehead Revisited.”
“You’re about as funny as a blind toddler in a fucking minefield.”
To Nicola Murray: “Your dress is way too loud, I’m getting fucking tinnitus here.”
To Nicola Murray: “Jesus Christ, see you, you’re a fucking omnishambles, that’s what you are. You’re like that coffee machine, you know: from bean to cup, you fuck up.”
To Ollie Reeder: “If you don’t go and get me some cheese, I’m going to rip your head off and give you a spine-dectomy.”
To Ben Swain: “I’ve never seen anybody look so fucking ugly with just one head ... Your hands were all over place, you were like a sweaty octopus trying to unhook a bra.”
And with that barrage, it is time to turn you over, with your song suggestions, into the hands of another with a more than capable rapier wit, our very own Olive Butler! Deadline for what she seeks, songs insulting, backhanded compliments, offensive phraseology, the potential to cause offence in the widest possible sense, is this coming Monday at 11pm, for playlists published on Wednesday. So pull your fucking fingers out!
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