This week guest presenter Qasa Alom and I heard some songs of revenge. We explored romantic retribution, violent vengence, and petty payback in music by Johnny Cash, Kate Bush, Taylor Swift, and more…
Sue & Cruel Sisters
A Boy Named Sue was Written by humorist Shel Silverstein and recorded by Johnny Cash live at California’s San Quentin Prison in 1969. The rough, laughter-filled performance catches Cash reading from the lyric sheet, testing the song in front of an audience of inmates. It’s a comic revenge tale with heart: a son hunts down the father who named him Sue, only to discover the act was meant to make him tough. The single topped the country and easy-listening charts, reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 (just behind the Rolling Stones’ Honky Tonk Women), and went Gold in 1969.
Pentangle‘s Cruel Sister (1970) turns a centuries-old murder ballad into a hypnotic piece of folk-rock storytelling. Across 19 verses, two sisters love the same man; the elder kills the younger, whose body becomes a harp that exposes the crime. Jacqui McShee’s voice drifts like a ghost over Bert Jansch and John Renbourn’s interlocking modal guitars and shimmering electric sitar. Drawn from Child Ballad #10, the song anchors Pentangle’s 1970 album of the same name.
Weddings & Woe
The Wedding List by Kate Bush was inspired by François Truffaut’s 1968 film The Bride Wore Black. Over pounding drums and soaring vocals, Bush plays a widow hunting down the five men who killed her groom on their wedding day. Each verse adds another kill to her list, culminating in a melodramatic finale worthy of the film that inspired it. It’s part cabaret, part thriller, and completely Kate Bush – an art-pop revenge fantasy told with wink and fury.
Alanis Morisette released You Oughta Know in 1995, a song that marked a significant shift in how breakup songs were presented in mainstream rock. Co-written with producer Glen Ballard, the track features Morissette’s emotionally direct lyrics alongside guitar work from Dave Navarro and bass by Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers. Morissette has never identified the subject of the song, describing it instead as a product of her subconscious writing process. The single won two Grammy Awards.
Better than Busted Windows
Jazmine Sullivan’s 2008 breakout revenge anthem Bust Your Windows channels heartbreak into righteous destruction. Over dramatic strings sampled from Salaam Remi’s Bad Man Waltz, she tells her cheating lover exactly what she’s done—“I bust the windows out your car.” The song reached No. 4 on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, earned a Grammy nomination, and drew comparisons to Carrie Underwood‘s Before He Cheats, but Sullivan’s version smolders with soulful precision. It’s the modern evolution of a murder ballad: no death, just dents.
Taylor Swift’s Better Than Revenge (2010) presents a pop-punk-influenced response to a breakup, addressing a romantic rival through direct and confrontational lyricism. In the 2023 rerecorded version, Swift alters one of the original lines to reduce its slightly vitriolic tone while maintaining the song’s overall theme – see if you can spot the difference…
Horace Silver v Steely Dan
Our soundslike this week came from listener Bren in Kensal Rise. Bren spotted Horace Silver‘s Song For My Father (1965) at the start of Steely Dan‘s Rikki Don’t Lose That Number (1974). A straightforward sample, but a good spot nonetheless!
Revenge Quiz
For our quiz this week, we played clips from famous songs of revenge – guess the artist and song!
As always, find the show and blog at joebennett.net/5live, with occasional Instagram extras at @joebennettmusicology. With a new show comes a new Spotify mega-playlist, which contains all songs featured on the show:
And you can still listen to our old mega-playlist here.
- Words: Joe Bennett, John Pierce O’Reilly
- Audio production: Joe Bennett, Rafi Waters
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