The word dates back at least to the late 19th century. In a 1889 Texas murder case, a witness testified that the victim had called the defendant a "God damned mother-f—king, bastardly son-of-a-bitch" shortly before his death. and used it in full in his 1967 novel
Why Are We in Vietnam?. In
Kurt Vonnegut's novel
Slaughterhouse-Five the word is used by one of the soldiers in the story – leading to the novel being often
challenged in libraries and schools. Vonnegut joked in a speech, published in the collection
Fates Worse Than Death, that "Ever since that word was published, way back in 1969, children have been attempting to have intercourse with their mothers. When it will stop no one knows." The words "mother for you" or "mother fuyer", as
minced oaths for "motherfucker", were used in
blues and
R&B records from the 1930s. A few examples include
Memphis Minnie's "Dirty Mother For You" (1935),
Roosevelt Sykes' "Dirty Mother For You" (1936), and
Dirty Red's "
Mother Fuyer" (1947). The singer
Stick McGhee, whose recording of "Drinking Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" was a hit in 1949, claimed that he had originally heard the song as "Drinking Wine, Motherfucker". Later,
Johnny "Guitar" Watson had a hit in 1977 with "A Real Mother For Ya". In popular music, the first mainstream
rock release to include the word was the 1969 album
Kick Out the Jams by
MC5. The title track, a live recording, is introduced by vocalist
Rob Tyner shouting "And right now. right now. right now it's time to. kick out the jams, motherfuckers!". This was quickly pulled from stores, and an edited version was released with the words "brothers and sisters" overdubbed on the offending word. At about the same time, the
Jefferson Airplane released the album
Volunteers, the opening track of which, "We Can Be Together", included the line "
up against the wall, motherfucker", a popular catch phrase among radical groups at the time. This attracted less attention. The word was strongly implied, but not said explicitly, in
Isaac Hayes' huge 1971 hit song "
Theme from Shaft".
Arlo Guthrie's 1967 piece "
Alice's Restaurant" used a minced version, "mother rapers." The band
Self used the word strongly in their 2001 hit single "
Trunk Fulla Amps" from their 2000 album
Gizmodgery, in which the track appears twice; appearing normally once uncensored, and as the final track on the album, with its swears replaced with comedic noises. Though rarely broadcast in the US, the word has since become common in popular music, particularly in
hip hop. The word appears in
George Carlin's ''
Seven Words You Can't Say on Television''. In one HBO special, he comments that at one point, someone asked him to remove it, since, as a derivative of the word "
fuck", it constituted a duplication. He later added it back, claiming that the bit's rhythm does not work without it. His use of the word helped him overcome a lifelong
stuttering problem. == Literature ==