Obligatory Bondage Song

"She's just like a penguin in bondage, boy! OH YEAH! OH YEAH! OH YEAH!"

—Frank Zappa

A music/lyrics trope. Subtrope of Playing to The Fetishes and related to Fetish Fuel.

Eventually, an alternative music band (although sometimes even a relatively mainstream music band) whose lyrics usually do not deal with fetishistic and/or sadomasochistic sex, will at some point write a song that (almost entirely) deals with fetishistic and/or sadomasochistic sex. It could be because they are actually kinky in real life, or it could merely be an attempt at sounding Darker and Edgier. Frequently invoked by Industrial bands, but many other genres do it too.

Bondage Is Bad may or may not be invoked.

Examples of Obligatory Bondage Song include:

• "Venus In Furs" by The Velvet Underground is almost certainly the Trope Maker, way back in 1967. It's the title of a book about a man who enjoys being dominated by a rich woman, whom he calls his "Venus in furs." The book is old enough and well-known enough that James Joyce referred to it in the Nightown chapter of Ulysses.
  • The very name of the band (The Velvet Underground) comes from a book about New York City's BDSM scene.
• "Pain", by Three Days Grace is about exactly what you'd expect. This is one possible interpretation.
• "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by Iggy and the Stooges. Iggy Pop alluded to it being about bondage in an interview. The lyrics are not so subtle.
• A very early David Bowie song, "Little Toy Soldier," borrows some lyrics from Venus in Furs for very creepy results since it's about a child's toy.
• "The Bondage Song" by London After Midnight
• "White Poem I" by X Japan. Both the music video and the live performance are BDSM scenes featuring Yoshiki Hayashi as the sub. The live performance during Dahlia Tour is unique because it is an actual domination scene with Yoshiki being actually blindfolded, cuffed, whipped, and kicked around for real... and definitely enjoying every moment of it.
• "Catharsis (Heal Me; Control Me)" by SITD
• "Strap Me Down" by Leaetherstrip. Leaetherstrip write so many Obligatory Bondage Songs that they practically invert this trope and have Obligatory non-Bondage Songs.
• Fully inverted by Die Form, where literally the vast majority of their songs are related to BDSM.
• "Torment Me" by Suicide Commando
• "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" by X-Ray Spex. Complete with saxophone solo.
• "Happiness in Slavery" by Nine Inch Nails is a subversion. The title (and the fact the Nightmare Fuel music video stars S&M Performance Artist Bob Flanagan, as well as the music itself to some extent) makes you expect a bondage song, but in reality the song is about Trent's experiences with TVT Records.
  • Granted, a lot of NIN songs have shades of this ("Closer," "Head Like a Hole," "Meet Your Master," etc.), though it's generally subverted because most of their OBS's usually mean something else completely. With them it's more like "obligatory bondage video, considering the music video can get pretty...odd.
• "Torture Me" by Metric
• "Bad List" and "Hurting You Is Good For Me" by Ayria
• "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)": "Some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused" indeed.
• "Handsome Devil" by The Smiths has elements of this. "I crack the whip And you skip But you deserve it", etc.
  • "Reel Around The Fountain" as well.
• "The Masochism Tango" by Tom Lehrer, although it is an unbuilt parody of the genre, (as well as of Slap Slap Kiss tango dances. It's Tom Lehrer after all...)
  • Updated with The Amateur Transplants, who made the original sound rather vanilla.
• Another humorous oldie - "Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball" by Shel Silverstein.
• "Eat Me Alive" and "Pain and Pleasure" by Judas Priest. However, despite the title, "Hell-Bent for Leather" is not one of these, instead being about leather-clad badassery. Neither is Island of Domination.
• "Whip It" by Devo. Although this is arguably a result of Misaimed Fandom. Word of God says it was actually meant as an inspirational song for Jimmy Carter, president at the time, to "whip" American policy into shape. When it was a hit, people thought it was about S&M, which amused the band enough that they said Sure Why Not, and made the video feature literal whipping.

Jerry Casale: "All the DJs and people hearing it assumed it was a song about beating off or sadomasochism, so we let them think that. We didn't want to ruin it and tell them the truth."

• • Devo played the trope more straight in an early demo, "The Rope Song."

I found a girl with a pretty face
I tied a rope around her waist
I know when she's in and when she's out
But there ain't nothing to guess about
...
One word from her, and she'd be free
But she's exactly where she wants to be

• "Pretty Tied Up" by Guns N' Roses.
• The Anime Tenchi Muyo! featured an Image Song on a soundtrack CD called Ojou-sama to O-yobi, which loosely translates to "Call Me Mistress/Princess." It is sung by the Ojou Princess Ayeka. The song involves her explaining to Tenchi that she is going to put him through Juraian Bridegroom Training. Especially after the music video, this song became a Never Live It Down moment in Fanon for both Ayeka and her people. And the creepy thing about it? Even Sasami helps Ayeka out in her training.
• Similiar to the Tenchi example, there is a Weiss Kreuz song called Bosanova, Casanova with some provocative lyrics. And since it is a duet between male singers, it even plays into the show's Ho Yay factor.
• "Hell in a Bucket" by the Grateful Dead.
• "She Whipped" by Peter Tägtgren's Pain.
• "Blood, Sex and Booze" and "Dominated Love Slave" by Green Day.
• "Little Mary Sunshine" from Reefer Madness: The Musical.
• Then, of course, there's "S&M (A Love Song)" and "Spank" by the Kidneythieves, the former featuring such lyrics as "pound the love out of me / beat the love out of me!" and in the latter "thick drops of rain sound like the way you spanked me / your pleasure thrills in every way you make me."
• By Vice Squad, "Latex Love" and "Spikey Hair."

I wanna tie you up and whip you,
Cause you're my dream-come-true!

• "The Thin Line" by Queensrÿche.
• "House of Pain" by Van Halen.
• Sarah Brightman, of all people, with "Once in a Lifetime." If you take her connections to Enigma and Gregorian into account, it makes a bit more sense.
• Adam Lambert's "For Your Entertainment" takes place at a bondage club, and includes lyrics like "Take the pain, take the pleasure; I'm the master of both."
• "Poison" and "Bed of nails" by Alice Cooper.
• Vocaloid and UTAU are basically a collection of user-generated content using the Vocaloid/UTAU program. This means that anyone can make a Vocaloid sing anything they want. Anything.
  • The Rin Kagamine song Iroha Uta opens up with a list of the various things the singer wants to be tied up with. The rest of the song is a touch more subtle, but the implications are still there.
  • "Watashi no Inu" ('my dog') is another Vocaloid example.
• Shackles and Whips both feature prominently in the bridge of Justin Timberlake's Sexyback.
• Even The Go-Go's have one - one of their early punk songs was called "Fun With Ropes".
• The Marginal Prophets' "Mistress" is an ode to S&M.
• "Bang Goes the Knighthood" by The Divine Comedy approaches the subject with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
• Lady Gaga's "Teeth"

"Take a bite of my bad girl meat...I'm gonna love you with my hands tied/show me your teeth"

• • "Heavy Metal Lover" and "I Like It Rough" also play with this trope technically.
• Of course, Ludo's "The Horror of Our Love".
• "House Of Wolves" by My Chemical Romance has shades of this.
• "Not My Slave" by Oingo Boingo. Well, it's one possible interpretation. Still, given that the song's "Club Dub Mix" begins with several musically-timed whip-snaps, one wonders how much ambiguity is actually existent. Oh, Danny Elfman...
• "Sado-Maso" by the Austrian pop-folk singer-songwriter Georg Danzer. Sung to the tune of the Flea Waltz.
• Pleasure Slave by Manowar.
• Submission by the Sex Pistols was suppposed to be this. Halfway through, the band got pissed off with Malcolm McLaren, who proposed the idea in the first place, and decided instead to make it a cheesy, innuendo-filled song about a... submarine mission.
• My name is Dita. I'll be your mistress tonight.
  • "Hanky Panky" could also fit this trope.
• "Margaret's Eyes" by King Missile, in which the singer tries to describe the color of Margaret's eyes while she keeps him on a leash and puts out cigarettes on him. They also have Leather Clown, in which is described a fictional relationship with a non-existing leather-clad, female clown, consisting of "kinky clown-domination stories"
• "Love" by Abney Park.
• "Treat Me Like The Dog I am" by Mötley Crüe has this in spades.
• "Whip Appeal" by Babyface.
• Although the lyrics are cryptic, the Kaizers Orchestra song "Kaizers 115. drøm" has some definite BDSM-y subtext.
• A rare reggae version of this trope: "How to Be a Master" from the Cult Classic movie musical The Apple.
• "So Painfully" by Saigon Kick.
• "My Latex Queen" by Dark Funeral.
• There's a few songs by the Deftones with BDSM overtones, occasionally overlapping with Lyrical Dissonance.
• Mainstream example: S&M by Rihanna. Lyrics:

I may be bad, but I'm perfectly good at it
Sex in the air, I don't care, I love the smell of it
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me

• Cubiky's "Erotic Platonic".
• "Anna mulle piiskaa", a hit song by the Finnish band Apulanta. The title translates as "Spank Me".
• "Queen Of Pain" by The Cramps. Actually a rather sweet love song too.
• Good With Grenades gives us "Bruises and Bitemarks". Subject to a rather odd misaimed fandom at times, with people using it for warrior cats fan videos.
• The Queercore band Pansy Division, specifically "James Bondage", with a subversion in "Vanilla" which is about how the singer isn't all that kinky at all.
• The Adam and the Ants song "Beat My Guest" is a pretty straightforward example of this.
  • As is their "Whip in My Valise"
• Helloween's "Mr. Torture".
• Green Jelly's "Whip Me Teenage Babe"
• "Lagartija Nick" by Bauhaus
• Here's an updated Bondage Jukebox that includes most BDSM tracks and album covers.
• The French song "Fais-moi mal", written by Boris Vian and sung by Magali Noël. It's also a Parody of this kind of song.
• Korn's 2002 song "Beat It Upright".
• "Oh My God" by P!nk.
• Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant" is an obvious fit to this trope. "Strangelove" is as well, though not until you listen to the lyrics
• Razed in Black is yet another band that it's difficult to find a song in their discography that doesn't fit the trope.
• "Spread Your Legs" by Funker Vogt.
• The upbeat hit "Hurt So Good" by John Mellencamp.

Sink your teeth right through my bones, baby...

• "Lace and Leather" by Britney Spears falls into this..even with an electro guitar present.
  • "Selfish" also mentions similar lyrics compared to "Lace and Leather"
• While there is no specific bondage mentioned, The Police song, "Wrapped around your finger" is about a dominatrix/submissive relationship (that changes places at the end).
• "Bata Motel" by Crass, much like "Oh Bondage, Up Yours," is both an Obligatory Bondage Song and a harsh rebuke of sexism in modern media and the fashion industry.
• Suicide Commando - "Die Motherfucker Die"
• Almost anything by Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio - with songs like "She's in Love With The Whip" and Imbecile, My Idiot Lover
• "Hollow eyes hollow soul" by Gossamer
• "Choke Me, Spank Me, Pull My Hair" by Xzibit
• Joan Armatrading's "(I Love It When You) Call Me Names" - even without the verse that you don't hear in the radio and video edits ("She's wearing heavy leather with lace/He's dressed up in cowboy taste"), it's still fairly explicit.
• "Dominance and Submission" from Blue Öyster Cult's third album, Secret Treaties. It's even in the title.
• "Hooks in You" by Iron Maiden
• If taken literally, The Judybats' "Pain (Makes You Beautiful)" appears to be a surprisingly sweet take on this:

No sorrow tied, tied to me hurting you
We delight in every torture I put you through

• Electric Wizard's "Torquemada '71" is this with a disturbing Spanish Inquisition twist. Their song "Venus in Furs", which is the same as the Trope Maker only in name, uses a more conventional approach.
• Modern Man's "The Worst Dominatrix in L.A." straddles the line between an invocation and a subversion.
• "Edna" by Strapped, from 1985.