I have a couple of likely lads for you today. Softly spoken poet-types who probably wouldn’t slip a swear into their every day speech but prefer to save all the blue pencil moments for their song lyrics.

Sweary Song No. 5

“Rootless Tree” by Damien Rice

I first came across Damien Rice on a trip to Dublin. I walked into

HMV - Grafton Street

the HMV shop on Grafton Street and he was all over the place. They were hawking copies of his first album, O, and I had no idea then that Rice had started off by busking right outside the building.

The album might have made a good impulse buy, local flavor and all that, but I resisted simply because of the packaging. Rather than using a traditional plastic CD cover, someone had made the decision to make Rice’s album stand out from the crown by packaging it like a book, bound with a cloth cover with pages of art and the CD in the back.

I just decided that it wouldn’t fit in my collection looking like that.

Later, when I got to actually hear the album, I wondered if I might have been too hasty. O is a tremendous collection of songs that doesn’t sound like much else. It might not have the depth of Jeff Buckley’s Grace, but it has the sincerity and, of course, the tunes.

A couple of years after O, Damien Rice returned with 9. Today’s sweary track was the second single, but I can’t imagine it got much airplay once the radio programmers got to the chorus.

You may find yourself turning up the volume during the verses just to catch what Rice is singing, but make sure you clear your kids out of the room because when the chorus arrives, he really goes off on one.

Sweary Song No. 6

“The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores” by Morrissey

Kevin Pietersen

I was never going to get through writing anything music related without getting to Morrissey. He’s too huge. He should have died years ago, but he continues into his 50s followed around by mooning men continuing into their 40s.

I love Morrissey. If you don’t, I’m not sure we have a future together. I’m just saying.

“The World Is Full Of Crashing Bores” is from Morrissey’s 2004 comeback album You Are The Quarry. Like the best Morrissey lyrics the title is a misdirection. You think he’s criticizing everyone else, but he really only has it in for himself.

This world is full, so full of crashing bores and I must be one, cause no one ever turns to me to say, “Take me in your arms, take me in your arms and love me.”

Morrissey is human and he needs to be loved. Just like everybody else does.

As for the swearing, he throws in the essword in the last verse.

Enjoy.