"Fucking Hostile": 15 Greatest "Fuck" Songs of All Time | Page 2 | Revolver

"Fucking Hostile": 15 Greatest "Fuck" Songs of All Time

From Rage Against the Machine to Suicide Silence
zack de la rocha rage against the macine GETTY 1993 live, Gie Knaeps/Getty Images
Rage Against the Machine's Zack de la Rocha, 1993
photograph by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

In our modern times, the word "fuck" doesn't hold the antisocial force that it once did, but it's still one of the most powerful and fun-to-scream curse words in the dictionary. Whether it's being lobbed as an assailing verb ("Fuck you"), harnessed as an assertive adjective ("That fucking guy") or relished as shorthand for engaging in coital activities, the F-bomb is a uniquely palpable word that everyone loves to say even if they pretend they don't — and it's a cornerstone of metal's foul-mouthed lexicon.

While pretty much every heavy band who aren't explicitly wedded to Jesus have at least one "fuck" in their musical catalog, we wanted to pick out the most exceptional "fuck" songs in all of metal history — cuts that simply wouldn't be the same without a righteous "motherfuck," "fuck it all" or "fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck." Below, are the 15 best fucking "fuck" songs of all fucking time.

Chimaira - "Power Trip"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck your power trip"
Total "fuck" count: 6

The classic Roadrunner Records sound that Chimaira specialized in was all about pairing nu-metal-adjacent groove-metal riffs with vitriolic screams, and "Power Trip" distilled that approach down to a single raging song. "You're an asshole" is the thesis, but the drawn-out roar with which Mark Hunter emphasized the "fuuuuck" in "fuck your power trip" in the chorus is just as crucial to the overall message.

Korn - "Y'all Want a Single?"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck that/fuck that, fuck that"
Total "fuck" count: 65

The great irony of Korn's big middle finger to record execs demanding the band produce a radio hit is that "Y'All Wanna Single?" is the most straightforward, mindlessly catchy song Korn ever wrote. It'd be a perfect Top 40 nugget — if only Jonathan Davis didn't say "fuck" a whopping 65 times during its brief 3:17 runtime. 

Lamb of God - "Redneck"

Crucial F-bomb: "This is a motherfucking invitation"
Total "fuck" count: 8

Like Korn, Lamb of God are another band who sneered at FCC language rules by adorning their biggest hit with roiling F-bombs. "This is a motherfucking invitation," screams Randy Blythe during "Redneck"'s adversarial hook, inviting fame-drunk rockers up for a sock in the face — and 10-year-old listeners to scrounge up the words getting bleeped on their parent's car stereo. 

Machine Head - "Block"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck it all!"
Total "fuck" count: 11

On "Block," the particularly pissed closer on Machine Head's Burn My Eyes debut, Robb Flynn fumes about a political system that breeds misery and a media that consciously ignores the real-world struggle in the streets. The one-line chorus, "Fuck it all!," feels like the only reasonable response to the calculated malfeasance Flynn's identified.

Metallica - "Hardwired"

Crucial F-bomb: "We're so fucked"
Total "fuck" count: 3

While the thrash OGs are by no means good Christian boys, Metallica have never been half as potty-mouthed as their peers and protégés, which makes Papa Het's snappy "We're so fucked" in the chorus of "Hardwired" feel as exciting as when your English teacher accidentally let one slip under her breath. Plus, the song rips.

Mudvayne - "Determined"

Crucial F-bomb: "So fucking determined"
Total "fuck" count: 12

On the standout "Determined," Mudvayne use "fuck" in an usually positive way, emphasizing Chad Gray's chest-thumping conviction. "So fucking determined," he bellows over a riff that hits like a battering ram decked out in spikes. It's a song about striking while the fame iron is hot: "Fuck an inch 'cause I'm bringin' a mile," he blusters during a later verse.

Nine Inch Nails - "Closer"

Crucial F-bomb: "I wanna fuck you like an animal"
Total "fuck" count: 4

For many, this strip-club staple, with its funky bassline and disco beat, will be forever known as the "'Fuck You Like an Animal' song." But true NIN fans know the unlikely hit to be much more nuanced and twisted than its in-your-face chorus suggests — from the dense production to the dark verse lyrics, which take the song far beyond a blunt expression of bestial lust.

Pantera - "Fucking Hostile"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fucking hostile"
Total "fuck" count: 7

"Fucking Hostile" sounds like the word "fuck" transposed into musical form, putting the "vulgar" in Vulgar Display of Power. The galloping hardcore blast from Pantera's magnum opus drops the F-word in each refrain, but it's all building to the mighty finale when Philip Anselmo lets off four cheekbone-smashing, microphone-clipping curses.

Rage Against the Machine - "Killing in the Name"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"
Total "fuck" count: 17

One of the main reasons Rage Against the Machine resonate is that their politics go far deeper than vapid sloganeering. Zack de la Rocha is one of heavy music's most incisive lyricists, but the band's core mission statement can also be summed up in one single line: "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" Every great theorist also understands there's power in brevity.

Slipknot - "Surfacing"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck it all, fuck this world"
Total "fuck" count: 15

The violently misanthropic rage of early Slipknot is what made them so dangerously captivating, and no song (other than "People = Shit," perhaps) translates that better than "Surfacing," which begins with a vicious "Fuck you all!" and routinely returns to the eloquent tell-off "Fuck it all, fuck this world/fuck everything that you stand for."

Soulfly - "Jumpdafuckup" (Feat. Corey Taylor)

Crucial F-bomb: "Jumpdafuckup!"
Total "fuck" count: 24

If the circle pit rager is the father and the karate-mosh chugger is the son, then the jump song is the holy spirit of metal's physically-inducing trinity. Soulfly's Max Cavalera and Slipknot's Corey Taylor know exactly what they're doing on "Jumpdafuckup," doling out one fighting word after another in between a bullet spray of F-bombs.

Soundgarden - "Big Dumb Sex"

Crucial F-bomb: "I'm gonna fuck fuck fuck fuck you"
Total "fuck" count: 30

Chris Cornell is "no fool for discretion" on one of Soundgarden's most overtly ridiculous jams, a tongue-in-cheek parody of hair-metal lasciviousness that went way over a lot of headbangers' heads. Everything you need to know is right in the title, but Cornell still lays it on especially thick in the hook: "I'm gonna fuck fuck fuck fuck you."

Suicide Silence - "Fuck Everything"

Crucial F-bomb: "Fuck everything"
Total "fuck" count: 43

For the late Mitch Lucker, "fuck everything" wasn't an outcry of defeat, it was a rallying cry for defying societal pressures and living life to the fullest. Looking back almost 10 years after he passed, the song's lines that confront our mortal impermanence have a poignant prescience, which only underscores his main point even further. Fuck everything that sucks, because none of it — good or bad — is guaranteed to be there tomorrow.

Tenacious D - "Fuck Her Gently"

Crucial F-bomb: "I'll fucking fuck you discreetly"
Total "fuck" count: 8

One of Tenacious D's most hysterical little ditties rails against rock & roll's infamously untamed libido and puts soft, loving intercourse on a pedestal for once. Within these chords, Jack Black offers such titillating advice as "You don't always have to fuck her hard" and "Fuckin' give her some smooches, too." D'awwhh.

TOOL - "Hooker with a Penis"

Crucial F-bomb: "Point that fuckin' finger up your ass"
Total "fuck" count: 10

While the concept of "selling out" hardly even exists anymore, in the Nineties it was a common accusation tossed at underground bands as they became more popular, and "Hooker With a Penis" is the greatest clapback to haters making such a claim. Line by line, Maynard James Keenan annihilates one particular "OGT" fan wearing "vans, 501s," who points his finger at TOOL. It all culminates in a scathing string of "Fuck you, buddy"s.