Though his popularity has fluctuated through the years, many of Pop's songs have become well-known, including "Lust for Life", "The Passenger", "Real Wild Child", "Candy" (a duet with Kate Pierson of The B-52's), "China Girl", "Nightclubbing", "Search and Destroy" and "I Wanna Be Your Dog".
In 2010, The Stooges were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Pop was the lead singer of The Stooges, a late 1960s/early 1970s band that featured brothers Ron and Scott Asheton and Dave Alexander and was highly influential in the development of hard rock. The debut album was produced by the Velvet Underground's John Cale. The band's "I Wanna Be Your Dog" is a garage punk standard.
Raw Power was first released in1973, perhaps the first record that could truly be called punk. It was the confluence of The Stooges ages, hormones, creativity, ability, experience, tastes, lack of supervision, contempt for authority and ambition that has made Raw Power one of the most influential albums of all time.
The Stooges were infamous for performances in which Pop leapt off the stage (hence, the "stage dive"), smeared raw meat or peanut butter over his chest and cut himself with broken bottles. A glimpse of the vibrating intensity of Iggy live can be seen in the Ramones movie "End of the Century." Guitarist James Williamson became a key collaborator, a partnership documented on the 1978 album Kill City.
In 25 years as a solo artist, Pop's best-known songs have included the thumping Lust for Life, to be heard on the soundtrack of the find-a-vein, shoot-it-up movie Trainspotting, I'm Bored and The Passenger (the latter based on a poem written by Jim Morrison). David Bowie played a key role in reinvigorating Pop's post-Stooges career and was a collaborator on the albums Lust for Life and The Idiot. Iggy may be under-rated as a songwriter. Bowie and Tina Turner covered his "Tonight". Bowie also put out his own version of "China Girl," while Grace Jones covered the icey "Nightclubbing".
Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell
Iggy Pop Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Whoo!
A pretty face and a dirty love
Knew right away that I had to get my hooks in you
Yeah, yeah
I'm running low on memories
If you wanna make a buck, boy, you gotta be a tease, uh-huh
I need it all, baby, that's no lie
I need a lover with an alibi
I wanna fall into a love so sweet
Honey baby, baby, I'm hard
Hard to beat
A pound of flesh and a touch of bone
Smells in the air but I'm feeling so alone, uh-huh
I say yeah, yeah
Hallucination, true romance
I needed love but I only got a chance, uh-huh
And that ain't all
I tell ya honey, it's a crying shame
All the pretty girls they look the same
I wanna fall into a love so sweet
Honey, baby, baby I'm hard
Hard to beat
Whoo!
Hey
Hey
Your pretty face is going to hell
Your pretty face is going to hell
Honey, honey, I can tell
Your pretty face is going to
Hell!
That's right, baby
Hell!
A pretty face and a dirty love
Knew right away that I had to get my hooks in you
I say yeah, yeah
I'm running low on my memories
If you wanna make a buck, boy, you gotta be a tease, uh-huh
And that ain't all
Ow!
I need it all, honey, that's no lie
I need a lover with an alibi
I wanna fall into a love so sweet
Honey baby, baby I'm hard
Hard to beat
Whoo!
Yeah
Hey
Your pretty face is going to hell, your pretty face is going to hell
Honey, honey, I can tell, your pretty face is going to hell
Honey, baby, ride on, ride on pretty mama
Honey, honey, ride on your rollerskates
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Ah, honey, whoo, baby, oh yeah
Come on, a-baby, baby, baby, baby , no-no, baby, baby
Baby, baby, honey baby, don't you fight me
Really, don't you fight me
Really, don't you fight me
Really, don't you fight me
Really, don't you, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby
Baby, all right on mama, baby, I said
Oh, baby baby, hey, hey, honey, hey-hey, hey, hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey, hey
Baby, baby, your pretty face is a-going to hell
Your pretty face is going to hell
Honey, honey, I can tell
Your pretty face is going to hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Hey, hey
Iggy Pop's song "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" is a heavy dosage of crude love and lust. The song is about seduction and the price of living for the moment; a figurative declaration of the old saying, 'if it smells good, go for it.'
The lyrics begin with the singer introducing the central theme of the song: a pretty face and dirty love. The second line, "Knew right away that I had to get my hooks in you," establishes the singer's intentions of capturing the object of his desire. The singer talks about running low on memories and wanting to experience new things, hence the insinuation of needing a lover with an alibi. He describes wanting to fall into a love so sweet, but yet being hard to beat.
The chorus of the song is an epic declaration that the pretty face he was pursuing is bound for hell. The chorus repeats several times and is a representation of his love for the unnamed person. He uses the phrase "going to hell" as a metaphor, which suggests that the love he experienced was tinged with sin.
Overall, "Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell" demonstrates Iggy Pop's extraordinary ability to write lyrics with a potent mix of dark humor and irony.
Line by Line Meaning
A pretty face and a dirty love
I fell for someone who looked good on the outside, but the love we have is unhealthy and immoral.
Knew right away that I had to get my hooks in you
I knew I had to seduce you and make you mine.
I'm running low on memories
I've had so many experiences and relationships that I can barely recall them.
If you wanna make a buck, boy, you gotta be a tease
You have to play hard to get and manipulate people to make money in the dating game.
I need it all, baby, that's no lie
I have high expectations for my relationships, and I want everything in a lover.
I need a lover with an alibi
I want a partner who can cover for me when I engage in questionable activities.
I wanna fall into a love so sweet
I want a love that feels pure and genuine, even though I know it's not.
A pound of flesh and a touch of bone
Physical attraction is important to me, but it's not enough to make a relationship work.
Smells in the air but I'm feeling so alone
Even though there's chemistry between us, I still feel lonely and disconnected.
Hallucination, true romance
My idealized version of romance is not grounded in reality.
I needed love but I only got a chance
I wanted a real connection, but all I got was an opportunity for physical pleasure.
All the pretty girls they look the same
I've been with so many attractive people that they all blend together in my memory.
Your pretty face is going to hell
Your beauty won't save you from the harmful relationship we're in.
Honey, honey, I can tell
I see through your facade and know you're not as innocent as you seem.
Honey, baby, ride on, ride on pretty mama
I want you to stay with me and keep playing the game, even if it leads to destruction.
Really, don't you fight me
Don't resist my advances, even if you know they're wrong.
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: JAMES OSTERBERG, JAMES WILLIAMSON
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@colin6768
This song has got to be the greatest punk or rock and roll songs of all time. When I first heard Raw Power almost 30 years ago it knocked me on my ass quicker than any whiskey!!!
@JohnnyangelNIU
Ron Jeremy’s knokked a lot o’ asses👍
@Tsotha
It's amazing how "Raw Power" has aged so well, it literally sounds like something some random greasy garage punk band could have put out in 1983 or 1993 or 2003 or 2013...
@Avery2880
Simon Johansen it's top.good to have been put put post 70s
@theeoddments960
This mix was made in 1997. 20 years after. The history of the album is that David Bowie has one day to mix it and pretty much made the album unlistenable. Listen to the Bowie mix. That’s what you’d be referring to. It sucks. It was mixed into what it was supposed to be by iggy later but this sound wasn’t made in 1973.
@qty1315
@Curious Betsy vlogs I think he's referring to the song itself. It has aged quite well, particularly the vocals.
@borbetomagus
@Curious Betsy vlogs In 1991 David Bowie noted that he was given 24 track tapes to mix "Raw Power", but only 3 tracks were used: '... the band on one track, lead guitar on another and [Iggy] on a third. Out of 24 tracks there were just three tracks that were used', which severely limited mixing possibilities. If Iggy was in charge of production, I assume it was his decision (or a financial issue), instead of bringing someone in with better skills who could have put out a record with the clear production heard on "Fun House". Given that unfortunate situation who knows if fans would have appreciated it if Ron and Scott re-recorded their parts (with period recording equipment) for the 1997 reissue to make the original recording more of what it could have been. In any case, it's very sad that Ron's amazing bass parts and Scott's drumming were (and remain) buried. I can only wonder why the 3m27s version of 'I Got A Right' (which had better production) wasn't included in the album. It's exclusion was perhaps even more of a crime than the "Raw Power" production(s).
@ignaciogarcia1690
@borbetomagus Lazy Duke...
@Gold33728
This is still how punk rock SHOULD be played. Raw and grotty with no rules.
@quiuboolokoo9325
Phnk is so generuc now a days, they strayed away from playing music to make more of a statement..when the stooges had the blues running through em heavy, they are real rockstars man.