Lucille Bogan, Shave ‘Em Dry | Midnight Heat 🕛 🔥

In the 78^th edition of Midnight Heat 🕛 🔥 (2024), we explore the naughty, sexy vibes behind “Shave ‘Em Dry” by Lucille Bogan.

Ah, bring on Midnight Heat 🕛 🔥! Wait – it is not usually hot at midnight! Well, it is steaming hot 🥵 at midnight when it comes to this naughty, innuendo, and sex-laden column featuring songs intended for nighttime. We are talking about that after-dark type $hi†, ya dig? These risqué, unapologetic records often raise eyebrows and temperature alike. In the 78^th edition of Midnight Heat (2024), we explore the naughty, sexy vibes behind, “Shave ‘Em Dry” by Lucille Bogan.

“Want you to grind me, baby, grind me until I cry.” Oh, my! Late blues singer Lucille Bogan (1897 – 1948) was one of a kind. That’s an understatement.  After hearing her shocking 1934 song, “Till the Cows Come Home” (“You know both of my mens / They are tight like that / They got a great big dick just like a baseball bat / Ooh, fuck me”), I couldn’t resist partaking of another raunchy song. “Shave ‘Em Dry” doesn’t disappoint either.  After all, Bogan commences the song ‘assertively’: “I’ve got nipples on my titties, big as the end of my thumb / I got somethin’ between my legs’ll make a dead man come.” Oh, snap! Bogan (also called Bessie Jackson), wasn’t the first to record “Shave ‘Em Dry.” Ma Rainey recorded it in 1924.  However, the Rainey version wasn’t like the rendition explored here. Fittingly, the outlandish “Shave ‘Em Dry” is the titular track of her best-of compilation, Shave ‘Em Dry: The Best of Lucille Bogan, released in 2004. Notably, there are three versions of the song.  We are focusing on the explicit version, officially released much later, posthumously 😈.

Like “Till the Cows Come Home”, “Shave ‘Em Dry” doesn’t hold back in its naughtiness.  The sex is ripe, rather, it’s raw as fuck – see what I did there? Sex positivity came long before most of us think. It’s almost unfathomable in the 1930s that Bogan, would sing, “Say I fucked all night, and all the night before baby / And I feel just like I wanna, fuck some more.” Ooh-wee! Bogan goes on to sing, “Grind me honey and shave me dry / And when you hear me holler, baby / Want you to shave it dry.” Orgasmic, isn’t it? On this NSFW, pornographic cut, Bogan shocks with all kinds of outlandish sexual lines.

“I’m gon’ turn back my mattress and let you oil my springs
I want you to grind me, daddy, ‘til the bell do ring
Oh daddy, want you to shave ‘em dry
Oh great God daddy, if you can’t shave ‘em baby won’t you try?”

I feel like I should repent after listening to those lines! There’s more, of course.  “Now your nuts hang down like a damn bell sapper / And your dick stands up like a steeple,” she sings lustfully. She adds to the blasphemy, “Your goddamn asshole stands open like a church door / And the crabs walk in like people.” Holy fuckin’ shit… rather, JESUS 🙏 🙏 🙏! Also contributing to the shock: “And my fuckin’ is made for workin’ men’s two dollars.” Again, we’re shocked when we hear “WAP” and “Pound Town”, but, Lucille Bogan may have been ‘badder’ than Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Sexyy Redd. “Shave ‘Em Dry” is feral!

Lucille Bogan // Shave ‘Em Dry: The Best of Lucille Bogan // Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. // 2004

Lucille Bogan, Shave ‘Em Dry 🕛 🔥 No. 78 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.; Hasan Muneer, Natan from Pexels; Aristal Branson, Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay]