Have The Prodigy changed the lyrics to their most controversial song?
Twenty-six years on from its original release, The Prodigy appear to have changed the polarising lyrics to one of their biggest songs, Smack My Bitch Up.
The track, featured on the British electronic group’s breakthrough album The Fat Of The Land, was released in 1997 and immediately provoked backlash for its title and central hook, which were interpreted as glorifying violence against women.
In 2010, the track was voted by the UK public as the most controversial song of all time in a poll conducted by the Performing Right Society (PRS).
However, The Prodigy are currently on tour through the UK and Europe and have omitted the problematic lyrics during recent performances.
Performing at London’s Alexandra Palace over two nights (on Friday 24 and Saturday 25 November), fan-shoot footage shows vocalist Maxim – who’s taken on full frontman duties following the death of Keith Flint – omitting the titular lyric and instead repeating the line “Change my pitch up”.
Actually he says “switch up, change my pitch up”, but that’s not the point. Are you trying to tell me The Prodigy have potentially had second thoughts about a song they put out 26 years ago? Maybe Maxim’s not comfortable with the lyric any more? Maybe they’ve grown and even matured? Honestly, it’s political correctness gone mad, I tell you. Next thing you’ll be wondering why Robert Smith has regrets about “Killing an Arab”… And I’ve still never been able to found out if there was ever a backlash over the Ultramagnetic MCs track that they sampled the lyric from in the first place…