Peaches (song)

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This article is about the song by The Stranglers. For the song of the same name by the rock group The Presidents of the United States of America please see Peaches (single)

"Peaches" is a song and single by The Stranglers. It was one of the big summer hits of 1977 in the UK, a close rival to The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" in terms of notoriety.

While "God Save the Queen" was notorious for its political sentiment, "Peaches" was controversial because of its sexual content: the song's narrator (Hugh Cornwell) is girl-watching on a crowded beach one hot summer day. It is never made clear if his lascivious thoughts (such as "there goes a girl and a half") are an interior monologue, comments to his mates, or come-on lines to the attractive women in question. Critic Tom Maginnis writes that Cornwell sings with "a lecherous sneer, the sexual tension is so unrelenting as to spill into macho parody or even censor bating[sic.] territory."^[1]

The lyrics of the song include the word clitoris (albeit pronounced in a non-standard way: "cli-tar-is", with the same emphasis as "guitarist"). Because of the sexual nature of the lyrics, the B-side "Go Buddy Go" was the song played on UK radio at the time. It reached #8 in the UK singles chart and the radio cut had to be rerecorded with less explicit lyrics. 'Clitoris' was replaced with 'bakini', 'oh shit' with 'oh no' and 'what a bummer' with 'what a summer'.

It is driven by a simplistic bassline, which is one of the most recognisable in rock music.

[edit] Notes

An edited version of Peaches, minus the lyrics was used as the closing theme tune to many of TV Chef Keith Floyd's Floyd on... tv shows.

It featured on the opening sequence of an episode of soap opera Hollyoaks in early October, 2006.