In 1973, Procol Harum reached No. 21 on the Billboard 200 with the album "Grand Hotel." The set includes the song "Souvenir of London." Sings the band's Gary Brooker, "Bought a souvenir in London, got to hide it from my mom / Can't declare it at the Customs, but I'll have to take it home. Yes, I found a bit of London, I'd like to lose it quick / Got to show it to my doctor, 'cause it isn't going to shrink."
The song was banned by the BBC because of its subject matter.
AC/DC covered the title ailment of Lil Wayne's new song on its 1976 cut "The Jack": "Said she'd never had a royal flush, but I should have known that all the cards were comin' from the bottom of the pack / And, if I'd known what she was dealin' out, I'd have dealt it back." The song's parent album, "High Voltage," reached the Billboard 200 in 1981, peaking at No. 146.
Shouts out to Wayne, then, for being the first artist to ever get a song called "Gonorrhea" onto the charts. In case you're wondering, the song is accusing his enemies of having gonorrhea and saying that he doesn't want to get it. But it also features Drake, so it's sort of like a real STD. Just kidding! I love Drake, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Plus, this is good corny punchline Drake, who's making jokes about C4 (that's Tha Carter IV and a common explosive) and rapping about getting parking tickets on his Lamborghini. I don't know, man. Wayne also says he's in this bitch like tampons. There's a reason this album is seen as the beginning of the end of Wayne's time on top, but that doesn't change the fact that these are two very good punchlines back to back: "Smoking on that headband, call that shit Paul Pierce / I'm just so ahead of my time like dog years."Incidentally, the song, which is basically straight rapping over a straightforward synth rattle, made it to number 17, if you want an idea of just how dominant Wayne was in 2010. And the opening line rules: "I am not a human, shout to all my moon men."Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.Much more seriously than the above examples, Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia," the theme song to the film "Philadelphia," in which Tom Hanks honorably battles the effects (both physical and societal) of AIDS, alludes to Hanks' character's hardships: "My clothes don't fit me no more / I walked a thousand miles just to slip this skin." The song rose to No. 9 on the Hot 100 in 1994.