Music History

A Continuing, Very Serious Anthropological Study: Where Did the Special Lyrics in Billy Idol’s Version of “Mony Mony” Come From? (Updated when new information becomes available.)

[NOTE: Since I started digging into this topic in the fall of 2014, this post has become the number one most-read story in the history of this website. I update it periodically when warranted. And dammit, some day we’ll get to the bottom of this. – AC]

It was probably in the spring of 1987 when I first heard the special audience lyrics in the Billy Idol version of the Tommy James classic, “Mony Mony.”  I was hosting one of the old CFNY Video Roadshows at a high school somewhere in Southern Ontario. When Martin Streek, the guy in charge of playing the videos, flipped to this clip, the dancers erupted.

At first, I couldn’t make how what they were yelling.  “What are they shouting?” I asked Martin.  He helpfully translated with the appropriate arm gestures.

Billy:  Here she come now singing Mony Mony
Dancers:  HEY MOTHERF*CKER GET LAID GET F*CKED!
Billy:  Well, shoot ’em down, turn around, come on Mony
Dancers:  HEY MOTHERF*CKER GET LAID GET F*CKED!
Billy:  Hey she give me love and I feel alright now
Dancers:  HEY MOTHERF*CKER GET LAID GET F*CKED!

I looked at him weird.  “How do they know what to say?”

A puzzled look came across Martin’s face for a moment; it was apparent that he’d never considered the question before. Then he just shrugged and turned to deal with a very angry principal who was appalled that such obscenities would be chanted by his students in his gym at his school.

The question of the origins of the special audience participation lyrics has been in the back of my mind ever since.  Perhaps it’s time to address it once and for all–if that’s even possible.

* * *

Wikipedia defines a meme in the following way:

An idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture.” A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.

Over the last decade, we’ve all become familiar with dozens of Internet memes:  Star Wars Kid, LOL cats, the Rickroll and so on.  But this concept of ideas and behaviours spreading within a culture goes far, far back into the depths of time.  At their core, language, religion and all manner of social conventions are memes. Someone comes up with an idea.  Another person likes it and spreads to another person–and so on and so on and so on until it’s a generally accepted practice and everyone is doing it.

How memes take root and travel is a serious area of study for cultural anthropologists and sociologists. Such study can tell us a lot about a culture, its language, its mores and folkways and various forms of communication.

Yes, what you’re about to read is obscene and vulgar, but try to set that aside for a moment.  Instead try to focus on the mystery of where the “Mony Mony” audience chant began, how it spread and how it mutated.

First, a little history.  “Mony Mony” was written in 1968 by Tommy James, an American singer who had a string of hit singles through the 60s.  The title comes from a sign on a building that James could see from his apartment in Manhattan:  the MONY Building, short for Mutual of New York.  The song reached #3 in both Canada and the US and was a #1 hit in the UK.

Over the next decade, the song was covered several times with varying degrees of success.  But then came Billy Idol.

In 1981, fresh from leaving Generation X, Billy released a four-track EP entitled Don’t Stop.  The first song on the disc was his take on “Mony Mony.”  Although it was released as a single, it was a stiff, managing no better than #107 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But by the time Idol re-released the song in a live version on October 2, 1987 (and coinciding with the North American release of his Vital Idol collection), an interesting and inexplicable phenomenon had taken root whenever the song was performed live or played in a club, at a dance or even a wedding reception: the obscene call-and-response audience chant between the lines of the verses.

How did this occur?  It certainly wasn’t via the Internet because in 1987, no one except a few hardcore geeks knew what that was.  It couldn’t have been through radio airplay because no radio version with the chanting bit was ever released.  And it certainly wouldn’t have been through video play because neither MTV or MuchMusic would have dared play something with such vulgarities.

Furthermore, this seems to have largely been a North American phenomenon–or at least I haven’t been able to uncover any evidence of the chant originating (or even being used) in Britain, Europe or anywhere else in the world.  The chants were essentially the same but with slight regional differences. The earliest discussion board post I can find on the subject is from May 20, 1989.

(There’s little documentation I can cite for the following, but this is what I’ve managed to glean from various message boards dating back to the late 80s.  This is far from a comprehensive list, so corrections/additions/elaborations are welcome in the comments section.)

  • Southern Ontario/New York state/Ohio/Pennsylvania: “Hey, motherfucker!  Get laid, get fucked!”
  • Wisconsin/Colorado/British Columbia:  “Hey, what’s that?  Get laid, get fucked!”
  • Texas:  “Come on, everybody!  Get laid, get fucked!”
  • Some university campuses:  “Hey, hey, slut! Get laid, get fucked!”
  • Elsewhere:  “Hey, hey what? Get laid, get fucked!”and “Hey, get drunk, get laid, get fucked!”

There were probably others, but you get the drift.

These chants seemed to emerge spontaneously and at more-or-less the same time.  Why?  It’s unclear, but here are some theories:

1.  Some maintain that the tradition extends back to 1969 when the original Tommy James version was played in New York City clubs like The Guest House and the 44th Street Armory. (Link to discussion board post.)

2.  One rumour involves lip-reading.  There’s allegedly a video where we can clearly see Idol mouthing those words.  Delving further, it appears that Idol himself endorses the “Hey, motherfucker! Get laid, get fucked!” version of the chant.  Witnesses say that endorsement goes back to an Idol show at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas sometime in the late 80s.  

3.  When the Don’t Stop EP was released, Idol appeared on MTV with Martha Quinn.  During the interview, it’s alleged that he admitted to losing his virginity to the Tommy James version.

4. Billy also chronicled the story in his autobiography, Dancing with Myself.

In 1970, the back of the charity shop bear Bromley South held many wonders.

“Do you want to fuck?” I asked. And she said yes! I’d never had sex, so I was a bit nervous as she took me by the hand.

She must have sensed the situation. “You’re a virgin, aren’t you? she half asked, half declared. “No, I’ve done it before,” I lied as we walked up the hill for a tumble in Church House Gardens. We went behind some bushes and she lay down. I got on top and got hard but was having a bit of trouble getting it in her, it being my first time. She rolled me over and said, “Oh, let me do it,” and she stuck my dick insider her and really shagged me.

As we were at it, “Mony Mony” by Tommy James and the Shondells was playing on someone’s transistor radio nearby…

* *

About three years after this original post, I picked up the phone on a Sunday evening to find Billy on the line. Here’s what he had to say about all this.

Well, that adds a fair amount to the story. But who were those frat dudes in England back in the middle 80s? Could they be tracked down to get their take on the matter? England: I’m counting on you. Dig around.

So where does this leave us?  Sadly, no closer to the truth than when we started.  The origins of the “Mony Mony” meme remain a mystery.  Perhaps this might work as a Ph.D. thesis for some budding cultural anthropologists.  Or maybe someone will read this and offer more evidence.

UPDATE: I’d forgotten about this Canadian TV commercial from 2007. (Thanks Steve!)

The other day, I received this piece of information from Julie,

I was studying and working in the US at that time so I know US college students were already listening to a lot of Australian bands by then. It was really wonderful to hear music from home blaring across the quadrangles from the US students’ dorm windows! 

We had a similar “chant thing” going on in Australia in the early 1980s, which may well have been the inspiration for what evolved in the US a few years later. 

As you’d be aware, Australians are great travelers and we tend to bring our Vegemite and other “cultural favourites” with us. It’s quite possible that one or more Aussie larrikin students/travelers could have started the US thing (or a returned US traveler could have “adapted” their Aussie experience…). 

The band involved in Australia was the Angels, one of Australia’s most popular pub rock bands ever. They were promoted as “Angel City” in the US, so as not to be confused with an American band of the same name. 

In the early 1980s, the Angels found their Aussie audiences were adding a few choice words to their 1976 song “Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again? ” (“No way, get ****ed,  **** off!”). I know from personal experience at Angels shows that this chant quickly spread word-for-word right around Australia, without any prompting from the band. 

This was reportedly quite disconcerting for them at first, because the song was written about the death of lead singer Doc Neeson’s friend’s girlfriend. The crowds chanting those extra words were not at all sensitive to this (people tend to forget that hard rockers with punk roots have feelings too!). 

Angels band members have mentioned first hearing this chant at a Queensland show in 1983. When they asked the audience why they were swearing back at the band, they were told the chant had started at a Blue Light Disco (these were Friday night dance parties run by local police at Australian high schools to improve their PR with teenagers and keep them off the streets). Apparently the DJ concerned would stop the record and encourage the chant…  

The Angels (as Angel City – a name hated by the band and their Australian fans) toured America several times from 1980 onwards, so their US audiences could have heard the chant that way. Any young Australian in town would be sure to go to an Angels show when so far away from home…

Over the years, there have been many claims about where and how the Angels’ chant started, but the band just had to get used to it and (as with Billy Idol’s “Mony Mony” in the US) the chant ended up on future live versions of “Am I ever gonna see your face again”. 

“No way – get ****ed,  **** off!” was even used as the title of an Australian SBS TV documentary about the band in 2008.

Fortunately for those of us who love their music, the surviving Angels are still touring. Sadly,  there were splits, accidents, and ill-health along the way and Doc Neeson and bass guitarist Chris Bailey died of cancer in 2014 and 2013, respectively.

To give appropriate credit – much of the above account was summarised by Alexander Pan in his April 2020 Goat website article. 

Hopefully, this communication solves some of the mystery surrounding the origin of both chants. 

If you have anything to contribute to this mystery, please leave it in the comments.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37969 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

176 thoughts on “A Continuing, Very Serious Anthropological Study: Where Did the Special Lyrics in Billy Idol’s Version of “Mony Mony” Come From? (Updated when new information becomes available.)

  • Funny, about six weeks ago after a conversation with my daughter and her friend about my most hated songs played at dances/wedding receptions/etc, I did this very same research and came up with pretty much what you did. This phenomenon started just after my high school days, and I've always been curious too.

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    • I was a teen and I remember saying this chant as well. This song just came on my Playlist and it made me think of the chant which is why I looked it up I have no idea where it came from but we sure as hell thought it was fun to sing. OHIO!

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      • I was listening to the song today and wondered where those “extra” lyrics came from. That brought me to this article. I recall shouting them fervently at every school disco in the 80s/90s in New Zealand!

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      • First heard it south Korea In 1986.

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        • SOUTH KOREA? Wow. How the hell did it ever catch on there?

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          • Armed Forces on deployment

      • In the summer of 1987, I worked on the Boblo Boats (US, Michigan side). “Mony, Mony,” was the disimbarkment song on the boats. We staff loved it! Playing Mony, meant the end of a very hot, very long 14- 16 work hour day. And as a side note, a lot of people, sing Mony, to whomever they wanted to, “I
        nsert lyrics!”

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  • Your "very angry principal" story is quite familiar. It was either '87 or '88 when our principal @ Millwood High School in Nova Scotia put an immediate stop to the evil lyrics and proceeded to ban the playing of Mony Mony at further dances.

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    • Yep, that’s exactly what happened at our schools in Brandon, Manitoba. That song would always get shut down at school dances FAST.

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    • Hahaha, I played this song for my BF from Nova Scotia. I yelled out the “extra” lyrics, and my guy looked at me like I had three heads. This sent me on a mission: Was this just a thing at my junior/ high school (in Toronto)? My survey started with Ottawa friends (yep they did too!) then expanded. Turns out almost everyone I know – from Prince George to PEI sang the “Hey, motherfucker[s]! Get laid, get fucked!” version! Two exceptions: my cousin from Kelowna BC, and my guy from Ketch Harbour, NS. Now…back to work!

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  • Took a trip to Purdue University, Indiana, in early 2000's…Students at pub chanted "Face down, ass up, that's the way we like to fuck". Pretty original…

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    • Which is itself a reference to 2 Live Crew’s “Face down, ass up” from the 1990 release “Banned in the USA” Neat to see it made its way back to Mony Mony.

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      • I am so upset to find out that Mony, Mony has vulgarity in the lyrics. This has been my favorite song since 1968 and even wanted it played at my celebration of life. I just love the beat of the song and the way it starts with “here she comes now”. 😥

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    • Shouted this in 1996/97 at Tippy underage dance club at Tippecanoe Lake, Indiana.

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  • Hmm. That's a new one to add to the list. I wonder how the chant mutations develop?

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  • Alan wrote: " Witnesses say that endorsement goes back to an Idol show at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas sometime in the late 80s."

    Mandalay Bay opened in early 1999. Did you mean the late 90s?

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    • No way we chanted in Saratoga Springs, NY in the winter of 1987! At bar called “The Bijou”.
      Other popular dance songs included: White Lines (Grand Master Flash), Burning Up (Madonna), relax (Frankie goes to Hollywood) lol flashbacks!

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  • Rusty: "Face down, ass up, that's the way we like to fuck" are lyrics from the 2 Live Crew song, "Face Down A— Up."

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  • We did that in high school in a small suburb of Minneapolis, circa 1988. We shouted "hey hey what, get laid, get fucked" on each verse.

    We had several other memes though for dances. For example: we shouted "Leonard Bernstein" in REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It", and had a very choreographed dance to Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun."

    No idea where these came from, but everyone knew them and did them.

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    • 86/87 school year (so Late 86 and Early 87) at University of Illinois Chicago and Champagne-Urbana campus / frat parties and local bars. The original added lyrics were… hey you, hey what? That’s all there was in the beginning. Then it morphed into “hey you! hey what? let’s get naked and f***! In the mid 80s we had a very popular acronym / initialism spelled – lagnaf, which I’m almost certain is where it came from. Then that changed to hey you hey what get laid, get f****d”… that exact phrasing spread across the country. years later other versions followed. The one that begins with “hey m********r”… didn’t even start until mid 90s.

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    • Hey, that reminds me of the dance for Depeche Mode’s ‘Personal Jesus’. Where did THAT come from?

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  • In small town Wooster Ohio, circa 1986 it was 'laid, get laid, get fucked', which is more of an anthem.
    The 'hey motherfucker' part sounds like your yelling at someone.

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    • I lived, and still live, in a small town in Ohio south-west of you and we never said the “Hey, motherfucker!” part. There was just a short pause after the initial line and: “Get laid, get fucked!” Like you said, more of an anthem, or “here’s an idea of something we could do.”

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      • I was at Bowling Green SU in Ohio, boyfriend was down the road at Findlay College, 1983-84. Bars and dance clubs in both places we all said “Hey! Get laid, get f**Ked!”. I like the interpretation as a suggested activity, like maybe there was a committee involved.

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    • Chardon, Ohio in 1986 what “Hey, Get Laid get fucked”.

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  • Nebraska/Iowa variation: Let's get drunk, get laid, get fucked!

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  • PS, that's from about 1990-present. Never heard "hey motherfucker" before.

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  • During on-stage banter @ an L.A. show a few years back Billy Idol sheepishly admitted the story about losing his virginity to the Tommy James version was made up(doubtless riffing on John Belushi insisting "Louie Louie" be included in "Animal House" because Belushi lost his virginity to THAT song) the fact was that his manager had him cover it because he owned the publishing to "Mony Mony" & Idol mused that the truth wasn't a cool story, hence… His story about writing "Sweet Little Sixteen" in a motel room on tour after watching a segment on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search Of" about the Coral Castle in Florida was funny

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  • i was in grade 6 when Vital Idol came out. we used to chant 'hey rubber ducky get wet get soaked' to avoid getting in trouble with the teachers and principal when this song would come on at school dances.

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    • When we were in university, we were chanting “hey everybody go to school and drink milk.” Not sure if a friend of mine just made that up or what. Manitoba, Canada.

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  • It seems the only way to narrow this origin down is to speak with Billy.
    Anybody got his number? I will give the guy a call.

    I especially enjoyed all of your comments on this page. You peeps must all be about my age or a bit younger. I am 47 and I can relate to all of these comments that you people have made. It is like reminiscing about all those fun times that we had, but we don't even know each other… funny.

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  • In California late 80's it was 'Hey you, Hey what, Get laid, Get fucked' Also at every base I was stationed at in the Corps.

    good times…..

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    • Heard this version back in ‘85 while on the Midway in the Philippines.

      Good times……

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      • I’m 56 and I first heard the extra lyrics in 1989 from a guy that lived in Washington state. He attended the University of Washington and said that it was engrained there already in this version: They say what? Get laid, Get fucked ! Very interesting phenomenon that also applies to Margaritaville: Where’s the salt? Where’s the god-damned salt?!! and Sweet Caroline: bah bah bah, so good, so good, so good. All three songs cause crowd interactions 👍🙂

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  • Very interesting, however one correction. Mandalay Bay in Vegas didn't open until 1999. So it could have been Vegas show in the 80s but not at that venue.

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  • @ Carol
    I don't know how to use Twitter.
    (currently very embarrassed)

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    • (don’t be embarrassed, i’m 23 and don’t use twitter or facebook)

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  • Apparently the chant wasn't all THAT common in parts of KY, but I can state that at least in this state the phenomenon seems to have started in dance clubs, especially those catering to the LGBT set–and apparently VERY soon after the song was released. (Of note, this was the "Hey/Hey What?/Get laid/Get fucked!" variant that seems to have been the most common.)

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  • Um, does anyone not remember that people would scream out something very similar between the verses of Hank Williams Jr.'s "Family Tradtion"?

    "Why do you drink?"

    "TO GET DRUNK!"

    "And why do you roll smoke?"

    "TO GET HIGH!"

    "Why must you live out/the songs that you wrote?"

    "TO GET LAID!"

    Sounds like a bunch of Billy Idol fans in the 80's had parents who liked a little ol' Hank Jr every once in awhile.

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  • I used to DJ for parties and stuff, and I'd never heard of the chant before I played it at a wedding…
    The version the guests – groom (who had requested the song, incidentally), bride, almost everyone, started to chant "Hey, she's fat, I'm drunk!"
    after the song was played, the bride's mother came up and very angrily berated me for playing the "Dirty Version" of the song.

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  • In New Brunswick we went with the Southern Ontario version back in the late 80's

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  • In the summer of 1986, the Hey! / Hey what? / Get laid! / Get fucked! version was being sung in Southern MN and Northern Iowa. There was an under 21 dance club named Uncle Sam's in Spirit Lake Iowa.

    Wow, that little trip down memory lane was nice.

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  • We went with the Southern Ontario version in Newfoundland too. It was a very popular song at teen dances at the Lions Club. It got banned pretty quick at the school dances.

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  • I heard the hey motherfukker, get laid, get fukt at school dances as early as 1983 so it goes back at least that far.

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  • "Nuts and bolts, HEY! We got Screwed!" Maybe I just grew up with a slightly less swear-y crowd?

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  • Did anyone else shout, "Fuckin' horny!" over the chorus' "Mony Mony?" In Massachusetts in the late 80s, we did that in addition to the "Hey, hey what, get laid get fucked" variant.

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    • Absolutely!!!

      I live in Southern Ontario, and we chanted “Hey what do ya say, get laid get fucked” along with the “fuckin horny” over Mony Mony.

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      • I was stationed in Germany in 1986, I heard this for the first time at the German bar, all the Germans would yell,”hey,hey what,get laid get fucked” I’m searching where it came from and I found this article and had to correct the author, it spread world wide.

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    • we sang “fucking bullshit” for that part!

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  • Southern Alberta (High River, specifically) did "hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked" in the early nineties, when I was still in school. We also sang "Fucking horny" over the chorus.

    Curiouser and curiouser. I am fascinated by memes, but this one has always been my favourite. Simply because I liked seeing my junior high school principal huffing and puffing through the gym, red fanced and forehead vein ready to burst, shocked that we all were swearing. Funniest thing ever.

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  • Billy has said many times it was from the DJ's in Mexico in Rosarito playing for the Spring Break American kids. Mostly from the bar Papas and Beer. duh. -get out more and see Billy Idol people!!!

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    • This is the most likely reason it spread across the whole U.S. Spring break Mexico >> EVERYWHERE.

      I haven’t heard any other explanation that accounts for it spreading so far.

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      • Good point. Like spokes of profanity spreading out front the center of a bicycle wheel 🛞

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  • Kids in my small Rhode Island town also did the "Fuckin' horny" bit over "Mony Mony," and their chant was "Hey everybody, get laid get fucked!" The first time I heard it was at a church dance.

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  • 1991 I was in Honduras with the US Army. It was at the base club that I first heard the fill in – shouted there as "Hey, hey you, get drunk, get fucked." I never heard that done anywhere else later.

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  • Central Alberta, in Highschool 1987 we sang "Hey MF'er get laid get Fkd". In University two years later we also sang "Fk your balls off" over "Mony Mony".

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  • We were doing 'Hey motherfucker get laid get fucked' in New Zealand by the middle of 1988. I still remember the first time I heard it at a school dance when another school was visiting for a sports week and students from that school all started doing it. From then on it was standard fare at every school disco.

    Interesting article. I've wondered where it came from myself. Must have spread quite quickly.

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  • The version I heard growing up in Ypsilanti, MI was the same as in Texas: "Come on, everybody! Get laid, get fucked!"

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  • In Ohio, I heard females chant, "Be a bitch, say NO!" Can't wait to pass on to the children;)

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  • I was either a freshman or sophomore in high school when I learned of the sub-lyrics. I grew up in central Illinois, and I was taught – "Hey, hey, whaddaya say! Let's get fucked up!"
    My current boyfriend grew up just a few towns away from me, where he knew – "Hey! Get drunk, get fucked!"
    I had no idea that regional variations existed, and that they all essentially say the same thing, and fit similar rhythms within the song. Ha!

    I'm SO fascinated by the fact that this subject still has people talking!

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  • The earliest I remember is late 1983/early 1984 while stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey, CA. You would hear the people at the club on post yelling, "Hey! Get laid! Get fucked!" during "Mony, Mony"

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  • Calgary Alberta in 1986 at the school dance I heard it for the first time, "Hey MF, get laid get fucked!" The song stopped immediately and the vice principal gave us a lecture. This is a great topic, can't wait to share it with my friends.

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  • I had never heard of any of those chants until one night at a bar. A few of my friends had yelled the chant and I just looked at them funny. I guess I had always heard the “radio friendly” version.
    But now everytime I hear this song I cant help but do the chant (in my head). Nice to read the other versions. 🙂

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  • As far as I know the special lyrics started in the dance clubs of Mississauga…..

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  • It’s funny, I heard the version “Hey, motherfucker! Get laid, get fucked!” in NORWAY (Stavanger) in mid-1988.
    Maybe the fact that Stavanger was a waypoint of the NATO naval force, with some USA ships, may explain that.

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  • Heard it in the early ’80’s in college in upstate NY. That was before I ever heard the Idol version, and yes it included the “fuckin’ horny” chorus.

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  • In Hamilton Ontario, we yelled “Hey Motherfucker, Get Laid Get Fucked” at my grade 7 or grade 8 dances (87/88). Someone did it first and we all copied. Love how this stuff started before the internet made everything available to everyone.
    The last time I heard it at a wedding I yelled something I read in another forum that discussed this song, “Hey Everybody, Get Smart, Read Books” and everyone seemed to like that and started chanting it.

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  • The first time I heard it, and it is still the version I like best, was in a club in Barrie, Ontario around sometime late ’88 or early ’89. It was a call-and-respose thing between the males and females:

    Men: Hey!
    Women: Whatcha say?
    All: Get laid, get fucked!

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  • The first version I heard in the GTA/Mississauga at clubs and parties was the “hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked” around the release of Vital Idol. It later seemed to morph into the… Uhmm less politically correct? Chant of “hey motherfucker, get aids, your fucked”.

    Never liked that version.

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  • 1985 here in Tacoma, Washington, in an NCO club off-post from Ft. Lewis:

    “Hey! Say what? Get laid, get fucked!”

    I damn near lost my mind and almost spit out my Keystone Light beer!

    Those 2 years, 1985-1986… the greatest time in my life.

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    • This is the version I heard at my school dance as a sophomore 1986 in conservative SWMissouri for the first time.

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  • Alan – you’ll like this. At a bar mitzvah once, the singer chanted “Hey Bubbie Zaidie (Grandmother and Grandfather in Yiddish) eat Bagels and Lox”

    Very funny

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  • I post this for historical/informational purposes only. I realize it’s horrible.

    Perhaps I went to a High School in a particularly disgusting corner of Hell (it often felt like it). It was actually in Toronto, mid to late 80s. The chant I remember led off with:
    “Hey motherfucker! Get laid! Get fucked!”

    But after the second line it changed to:
    “Hey motherfucker! Get AIDS! Tough luck!”

    We were awful human beings.

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  • The Agora in Akron Ohio, 1985. Everyone simply yelled “Get Laid. Get Fucked.” I heard the same chant at various venues in the Akron OH area over the next few years. Always the same.

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  • The first time I heard it was in 1986 at an Atlanta club, and it was merely “Hey…. Get laid, get fucked!”

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  • I am reading his memoir. I am early into it but remember being in a very rural country bar in OKLA in 1989 and DJ music was played between the very country band sets. The chant was ass down/get fucked and the girls dancing would do an early version of twerking during the chant. Very risqué for that part of the US!

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  • Here in Australia there is the same situation with a different band entirely. The Angels put out a song called “Am I ever going to see your face again?” This was the title and the chorus. The crowd would always respond with “No way, get fucked, fuck off” This started in their live shows but Wiki says it better.

    “The Angels tried three times in the late 1970s and early 1980s to make a hit out of the song Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again. It wasn’t until the song was played live that it attracted, in the mid-1980s an unexpected chant response of “No Way, Get Fucked, Fuck Off” from the audience to the question posed in the title of the track, that the song became an iconic part of Australian culture, so much so that the song cannot be played anywhere at any time in Australia without the chant being sung by whatever crowds are present.

    The audience chant: “No way, get fucked, fuck off”, has become the most famous audience chant in Australian rock history, though the exact origins of it are already lost in Angels mythology.[8] In 2008 Neeson and Brewster tried to discover who started it. The band first heard it in Mount Isa, Queensland, and were shocked they were being told to “Fuck off!”. Neeson asked one of the crowd who said that it originated at a police sponsored ‘Blue Light’ disco.”

    For the record, a blue light disco is an alcohol free, underage event. They breed em tough and mean in Mt Isa…

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  • From my nephew in Wisconsin… Hey. Hey, what? Eat Cheese, Drink Milk.

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  • The Summer of 83′ I worked in Ohio at a radio station . I went to a outdoor house party .The DJ had an Import LP of Mony Mony and played it and that’s the earliest I remember hearing it. Later in 84. I moved back home to Michigan and played it in a Bar one night and I shouted the lyrics into the mic….and everyone stopped and looked at me like I was nuts…..but later everyone caught on to the craze . The rest is History

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  • We always yelled “fuckin’ bullshit!” over the Mony Mony’s.

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  • In indiana the chant goes. . Get high get drunk get laid get fucked… that’s the only version I’ve ever heard since I was a lil kid in the 80’s ..

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  • When I was in Germany in 1985-1987 (US Army Infantry) it was already common in all the clubs/bars that I had visited.

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  • In central Minnesota around 1987-88 we chanted, “Hey, hey, what. Don’t bite, just suck.”

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  • I was at Don Mills Collegiate in Toronto from 83 to 86 and we did it so it definitely had to have started earlier than 86… I also think we chanted ‘come on everybody get laid get f*ckd.

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  • I played in a bar band in 1979-1984. We’d do Ready, Steady, Go and launch right into Mony Mony. The chant started in 82 and overwhelmed the music by 83.

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    • I should have added: Wisconsin, and the chant I heard was simpler: Hey! Get Laid Get Fucked!

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  • Around here it was a call response thing with the DJ saying “Say What”? I thought that the response was redundant, so I never participated!

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  • In Armstrong BC I always said “Hey Mother Fucker get laid get drunk” but that may just have been that I didn’t listen very carefully.

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  • First time I heard it was at Black Angus in Crossroads. Bellevue, Washington circa 1988. It was “hey hey what don’t bite just suck”.

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  • Detroit, late ’80s through ’90s. “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked.”

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  • North-East ND here, my area’s chant was “Hey hey whaddaya say, let’s get fucked!” Never knew there were any other versions until my wife and I caught each other saying different ones.

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    • In 1989, when I was living in Germany, the line was definitely “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!”

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  • Well I thought that growing up in East Bumble we were always behind the times with trends. But this song was bannrd from our school dances sometime around 1980. I graduated in 82. The version we heard was come on, get f#%&*#, get laid or something similar to other versions on here.

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  • In 1989, when I was living in Germany, the line was definitely “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!”

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  • Went to Billy Idol show last night at the Paramount theater Seattle (Feb 13, 2015) and he and the audience chanted “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!” But my first time hearing that was a 7th grade dance at Piti Middle school GUAM 1988. However, back then the “Hey motherfucker” part was missing and the kids just chanted “Get laid, get fucked” 🙂

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  • October 1987 USAF Lakenheath England.
    Played in a band called Street Gang at the above airbase and played Mony Mony which did not go down well with some officer when the crowd jumped up giving it hey get laid get ###ked great night we had the north of England chanting it soon after.

    G H

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  • It’s good to know I wasn’t hearing things back in the day. I’m glad I wasn’t making up my own chant. I’m not good at hearing at concerts, only hear the music.

    When listening to live Billy Idol, Mony Mony, on the radio, I could hear the chants.

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  • I remember the teen dances at the community center in Northeast Indiana back in 83. We sang Hey Now Get Laid Get Fucked.

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  • The high school I went to has a Marathon dance where the students dance for 28 hours to raise money for recipients chosen by the students. Yesterday just ended their 39th annual marathon dance (they raised over $762,000, just bragging lol) the whole community is involved and this song has been played for as long as I can remember. We always chant “Hey, hey, whaddya say? Let’s go fuck!” Or “Hey, hey, whaddya say? Let’s get fucked!” Either of them works. My personal favorite was the “lets go fuck” version. It’s always been a tradition, such a nostalgic song for me; Plus, it’s really fun yelling swear words when your parents are watching but can’t do anything about it. Lol

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    • Ever hear George Clinton’s ‘Get Off Yo ass and Jam’? Nearly NOTHING but swear words!

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  • I live in New Zealand and we sang the Hey mother fucker version back when I was at intermediate school. I’m now 36 and even my parents know this version

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  • I first heard the song in the 1970’s on my parents’ record player. I think I was about 5-6 years old.

    The additional lyrics are not just a North American thing. Here’s further fodder for research.

    1996- Hard Rock Cafe Kuala Lumpur Malaysia- the band plays the song and my cousin from Singapore jumps up and shouts what sounds like “Hey motherfucker, get fucked motherfucker.” . My brother and I (Both Malaysian, (like most everyone else in the audience), are like WTF?? and put it down to my cousin being a tad inebriated. Its bizarre, because we’ve never heard anything like it before. We ask him later and he says “Its a Singaporean “thing”. Fast forward some 5 years, my brother marries a Singaporean girl. And what do you know. She AND her brother confirm it is indeed a Singaporean thing, except her version is ““Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!” Strangely, 20 years on it’s still not a Malaysian thing.

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  • I’m so glad to find some information on this shared cultural phenomenon. I know that we used to shout it at high school dances as early as 1983/84. And that was at a Catholic high school in Western Pennsylvania. Ours was the “Hey! Hey what?” version. Kinda neat to know that we might have been on the forefront of this thing.

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  • Southern New England here. First I recall hearing it was at college parties in like ’83-’84

    Shouted drunkenly as “Hey! Get Laid! Get Fucked”

    And – the background chorus – Oh, You make me Horny, Horny, Horny – or – You’ve got me …

    Also – The lyrics –
    Break this, shake this, Mony, Mony
    Shotgun, get it done, come on, Mony

    Were shouted as “Eat Me , Beat Me, Fuck Me, Suck Me” twice followed with “Hey! Get Laid! Get Fucked!”

    Ahhhh Good Times!

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  • SUBBASE, Point Loma, San Diego, CA 1986 “Get Laid! Get Fucked!” Fun times! 🙂

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  • Back in 1981 at Crazy Zack’s at Myrtle Beach , SC it was …”Get laid, get fucked!”

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  • The first time I ever heard it, was at a company Christmas party in the mid 80’s…about fell on the floor laughing! I was around 45, and the crowd that started it was about 10+ yrs. younger…and I got the impression that it had been around awhile. Amazing what you miss while you are raising kids… lol. Been trying for about a year to try and remember the song…funny that only the chant remained somewhere deep in my brain…haha. This thread was fun…you get older, but some times are forever!

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  • This is crazy! I saw Billy Idol at the Iheart Radio Music Festival in Vegas this year and it was the first time I’d heard it. Previous to that, I saw Billy Idol in a small club in Palo Alto back in perhaps 1982 and that chant most definitely was not occurring. It’s pretty amazing how this has carried on over all these years and basically anyone who’s been to a live Billy Idol show knows when and how to do it.

    In the past couple of years I have had the immense pleasure to attend a half dozen or so concerts by The Killers and there are very unique hand gestures that the fans do (and that I do now, too!), with a number of their songs. The fans even know the differences between the recorded versions of songs and what Brandon Flowers will do live, and will sing along with those changes.

    It is very interesting that there is this sub-culture among live concert enthusiasts that those listening to the songs on the radio would never know about, and that the info is passed from person to person at a show, rather than on the internet. Sooo glad I found this page!

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  • My ex-girlfriend told me that where she was from, Thorold, Ontario, that they used to yell – “Hey, drink beer, get drunk,” but I think that was just a Thorold thing. That’s what they do there!

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  • The only version I’ve ever heard is “hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked!”
    First heard it at a school dance in grade 7 (1987) in Vancouver, BC. After that it was standard at every school dance, clubs and parties. I moved to Boston, MA in the early 90’s, still never heard any of the other versions. In the early 2000s I went for a girl’s night out with a bunch of 20 year olds in the Philippines. When Mony Mony came on, I chanted the phrase to the horror and disgust of my young friends. I guess it hadn’t caught on in Asia.

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  • Hey, hey what version was being done at tiny division 3 college parties at olivet college in the fall of 1985. By spring at the senior party we hired a dj from wvic in lansing. We did it for him and he was blown away. He said he had never heard it before and he djd all over the place. Maybe Olivet created an original?

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  • I first saw Billy Idol in concert in central Ohio in 1990. I first heard the chant “Hey! Get laid, get fucked!”. Funny thing when the song topped the charts in late 1987 I was stationed in California but never heard the chant until 1990. Years later I’m vacationing in Montreal where French is the primary language. I’m in that city’s Hard Rock Café taking snapshots of rock relics in the club and tapping people saying, “Excusem moi, mademoiselle” (sp?). Then the DJ puts another record on: you hear that rumbling bass and the floor is filled up INSTANTLY. Billy Idol sings, “Here she comes now singing, ‘Mony mony'” and the crowd instantly shouts, “HEY MOTHERFUCKER, GET LAID, GET FUCKED!” and they do this in ENGLISH! Figure that!

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  • I’ve also heard that in Wisconsin the chant goes, “Hey! Drink milk, eat cheese!”.

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  • Some random nightclub in Keystone, Colorado — March 1986. Never heard it before, never heard it since, but EVERYONE at that club knew it. Forgot about it until I saw this.

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  • I can definitely remember in Toronto in 1990 at my first school dance people chanted HEY MOTHERFUCKER GET LAID GET FUCKED and the chaperones were NOT pleased. (But WE were).

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  • First time I heard was 1986 at public school dances in Barrie, Ontario but have had conversation with an older gentleman years ago that believes it started before Billy Idols days

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  • Growing up in suburban Chicago, in the early 1980s it was “Hey, get laid get fucked!” when played during parties. I have no idea where the people who were doing it got it from. (Then again I had a bit of a sheltered teen-hood, never even saw “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” until my senior year in HS.) When I went to college in Iowa the 1985 Homecoming dance had a live band, and when they played MM the chant by all the attendees was the same. “Hey [pause], get laid get fucked!”

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  • I first heard while at Huggins on Higgins in Chicago in the late 80’s as hey hey what GL GF’d

    I have also heard/participated in responses to Never been any reason by head east from the 1970’s

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  • I witnessed this also in about March 1986 at new student orientation at Shepherd College, Sheperdstown WV where I’d been accepted as a HS senior, I ended up going to a more civilized University abroad instead

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  • I was in a club in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia in ’89 when this song came on. Although I had not heard English spoken in over a week, all the locals (no tourists) in the club knew to chant, “get laid. Get fucked”.

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  • I grew up near buffalo, ny and went to high school from 83-87. The version I learned at high school was “ hey, say what, get laid, get fucked”.

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  • Funny, I made up those lyrics at a social. Bored just dancing to this song. I decided to sing, making up lyrics as we danced. Who knew it would spread all over with people adding their own lyrics. So now you know. Case closed!

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  • Greater Vancouver (BC)area was always ” hey m’f’er ,get laid ,get fucked….my husband also said that he’s heard a version of the song where Idol sings in the chorus ” ride the pony” mixed in with mony mony….has anyone else heard this version ? I’m not sure if I have but something rings a bell . I started going to the clubs in 1984 and I always thought it was playing back then but when I see it didn’t become a mainstream hit until 87 I thought wrong .

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  • In our case it wasn’t the principal coming in and threatening to shut it all down but the hotel manager we were having our grad banquet at. Long story but the school we went to had their “formal” dinner which would be the prom to everybody else but anybody was welcome to go even if rather few youngsters did and it was mostly the graduating class. Then we had the grad banquet which was only for the graduating class.

    So after dinner, the handing out of the prizes and the speeches came the music and it being the late 80’s of course Mony Mony came up. We were loud. We were raucous. We were drunk off of mickeys of liquor we snuck in so needless to say when it came time to play Mony Mony we belted out, “Hey m’fer get laid get f*cked!” to the point where there was a microphone being passed around.

    Needless to say the hotel manager was called and he threatened to shut us down if we didn’t stop.

    Good times.

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  • First time I heard this song was in Mazatlan, Mexico at the bars/discos in 1991. Very common for just-graduated high school kids to go to Mazatlan in very large numbers and take over the city for various weeks in May/June/July. None of us ever heard the audience participation, until we went there. But, of course, we brought it back to the States for our other high school friends … and then brought it to our various colleges. I have a feeling a lot of other high school kids did the same from around 1987-1993.

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  • Wow! I remember hearing this (“Hey ! Hey what?” variation) in 1985, in Kearney, NE. I was a 17-year-old college freshman, and “Dicky Dugan’s”, had underage nights in the middle of the week. They wouldn’t serve you alcohol, but you could dance and strike out with girls 🙂

    Anyway, the highlight of the night was usually the extended dance version of “Mony Mony”, with the crowd supplying the chant. I was a bit of a wallflower in high school, and so had never heard the chant before I started college, but it definitely stuck in my memory. I always thought it was a local thing, though. Finding this page blew me away!

    Funny how Dan mentioned Rocky Horror in an earlier comment. Talk about memes! The audience memorizes around 2 hours of “parallel” movie dialog – all basically memes! And once again, people were doing it well before the Internet was widely available.

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  • I don’t know who wrote it first, but Travis Hale has exactly the same 3 paragraphs written after the first Billy Idol video.

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    • No clue who wrote it first. I can only tell you is that I wrote 100% of this article. Take it from there.

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  • We did the “Hey mf get laid get f’d” in 1987 at high school football games. Chicago suburbs il.

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    • Saskatchewan and Manitoba in 1987 and 88 did the same as Ontario “Hey motherfucker, get laid get fucked”.

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  • I first heard it at a frat party in ~1989 in Troy NY. The older brothers all knew it, and I was like WTF and laughing. All I could make out was Get laid get fucked, Fuckin bullshit, etc.. I think we all did the Time Warp later that night lol

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  • It did spread beyond the US! Heard the “Special Lyrics” in Stuttgart , Germany in a place called “Rockpalast”. Lots of GIs there (some still friends via Internet) back in 1988.

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  • Just to throw out a super alternative experience. Until summer before last, I’d only been to one Billy Idol show (Rebel Yell, of course). I wouldn’t have been in any scene where he would have played back then even despite being a fan. We just didn’t run in that crowd.

    Never got to see GenX which I would have given my right arm for. (I had to stop myself paying an obscene amount of money at an Alarm show recently because one of the guys was playing with them and had an autographed album — have the album, really didn’t care about the autograph but my lizard brain susurated ‘buy me’ all night).

    I loved Billy Idol nearly as much as GenX but I don’t recall alternate lyrics. Maybe my very innocent ears were in shock during the Rebel Yell tour. I could *totally* picture that. I was pretty mousey back then despite my ever growing edgy side but I certainly didn’t cuss at that point in time.

    Anyways, the one other thing I hate is when people change the lyrics to songs. I had friends who did it to Depeche Mode (Just Can’t Get Enough) and, of course, now when I hear that song, I hear nothing but those alternate lyrics. Even though I’m fairly certain that Billy himself sang the alternate lyrics, or at least let the crowd do so, at the show a year ago, I’m still just not on board with the lyrics being changed. But, maybe it’s not quite the same..because it’s more of an addition? I do like the extendo version of Friends in Low Places. (Yeah yeah, I do like some top 40 country and, yes, it’s embarrassing.) It’s driven by him and it’s his song so he can do what he likes with it so that would be an acceptable exception. I suppose I could picture a bunch of drunken band members and roadies on the bus with Billiy coming up with whatever addititional or alternate lyrics exist. So I’ve come full circle in my article with a big fat, I dunno and I never heard them until recently; more than 30 years later.

    …and I just remembered one more reason…I was a fan of Tommy James and the Shondells and while I love the cover Billy did. You can’t replace Tommy James and the Shondells.

    ps If you haven’t listened to GenX ever, give them a go.

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  • I remember hearing the response lyrics everytime I played the song at the clubs here in Chicago. That was in the early 80s. At the time, rumor has it that it had originated at a club in Canada.

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  • It is certainly done here in New Zealand. Can’t remember the earliest I heard it, would have been after high school for me, maybe 1995 in a bar/club.

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  • I went to (so many) nightclubs in Vancouver, BC in ’87/88 and it was always ‘Hey motherfucker get laid get fucked’, never ‘Hey what’s that…” as attributed to BC in the article. Interesting write-up. Thanks!

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  • Although you have plenty of proof that it is a world-wide phenomena, just want to add I used to hear the Southern-Ontario version in Mexico City, perhaps already in 1985 when I was in highschool but definitely while in University around 1988 at clubs and parties. Then I also heard it in Helsinki, Finland in 1991.

    The same happens with Smokey’s “Living next door to Alice” 😀 After that, you can’t hear the song without adding those chants. You can say we are many who have been curious about this!

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  • In clubs in and around Appleton, Wisconsin, it always sounded to me like people were chanting, ” Hey, say what, get laid get fucked”.

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    • Cool to see my hometown of Appleton, WI mentioned somewhere – I’ve lived in the area my whole life and known the song since I was a kid but never knew about these extra lyrics until I saw this post linked in a thread on a different site this morning! Maybe I just didn’t hang out at the right places but let me just say I don’t think I’ll ever hear the song without thinking of these words again!

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  • I first heard this on Spring Break, South Padre Island, TX, in March 1986. The version was “Hey, hey what? Get laid, get fucked!”and “Hey, get drunk, get laid, get fucked!” interchangeably. Everyone was chanting it (and also replacing the repeated “mony mony” in the choruses with “mony bullshit” or “fucking mony” or “fucking bullshit”). It was so much fun to sing/shout that with everyone else in the various clubs. To this day, I cannot hear Mony, Mony without adding those parts in…I have to be very careful about the audience, but I did share with my then HS-age kids.

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  • Just discovering this article/thread – my wife and I were trying to find the origins of this, since we both knew these refrains from grade school/high school dances. We both grew up in the Philly suburbs in the early 90’s (though didn’t meet until after college) and all our friends had learned what above is listed as the “Texas” version: “Come on everybody, get laid get fucked!” It honestly never made any sense why we did it (does anything when you’re a teenager?) but as others have said it sure was fun to curse loudly as a group at that age.

    I have no idea why the “Texas” version was sung in the Philly area, but everyone we’ve asked that grew up here had the same words. Appreciate all the research in the article and contributions in the comments… quite the rabbit hole to go down!

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  • I think I have a (partially) correct answer to this old question. The first time I heard an audience participate in this custom was at a company Christmas party. It was either Dec 1983 or Dec 1984. I seem to recall that it struck me at the time that the audience was copying a scene from a recent movie that I had watched. The original movie that started the “teen comedy” craze in America was “Animal House” in 1978. There was a scene in the film where the white boys of the Animal House fraternity were so “cool”, they actually had a black-musician band playing at their frat party (which was set in the mid 1960’s, and was something that was STILL very unusual to see in 1978! ) THe band performed the song “Shout” and the characters in the movie who were dancing to the music all did certain dance moves, like crouching down and singing quieter as the band’s singer sang “a little bit softer now” and then they slowly stood up again and threw their arms in the air and shouted more loudly as the singer sang “a little bit louder now!” The movie was a HUGE success, and after “Caddyshack” (1980) and “Stripes” (1980) did great at the box office, a whole string of “teen comedies” came out of Hollywood over the course of the next 20 years, with the 1980’s having over 200 teen comedy titles released! Many going straight-to-video as it became a bigger thing. The makers of these movies know perfectly well their power to influence the behavior of younger viewers and they intentionally encouraged American youths to “be party animals”, to “use drugs to be cool”, to “mix races to show your non-racist progressiveness”, and to be “sexually open and active to show you’re not prudish like the previous generations”. These are all DESTRUCTIVE behaviors adopted by MILLIONS of young Americans during these years, due in no small part to the INTENTIONAL influences of scenes from all those teen comedies and also the music videos that just started hitting it big with the advent of MTV in 1983.

    Anyway, back to Animal House, after that movie came out, soon real life was imitating art, and young people all over were singing and dancing to the song “Shout” when it was played at dance clubs and other venues, as the youths mimicked what they had seen in “Animal House”. “Toga parties” also became a hot custom over the next several years after the movie was released. Food fights also became a common custom for a shorter period. These are all typical younger human reactions to these kinds of movies.

    So, about the “Mony, Mony” custom. Unfortunately, I succumbed to many of the brainwashing tactics of the era and I was a pretty heavy drinker during the 1980s, and I was frequently drunk while watching movies in the evening and night hours. When I was at that Christmas party and the audience started doing the “Hey…get laid, get f*cked” schtick, I seem to recall that I had seen that schtick being done in a teen comedy movie that I had seen on TV perhaps just a few months to a year prior. I couldn’t remember much about the movie at the time, and NOW, 37 years later, I remember even LESS about it. I’m quite sure that I only saw it the one time. If my memory serves me correctly, I think the movie was a made-for-cable movie, perhaps for HBO, and it may have only ever been shown that ONE TIME. I seem to recall the movie was very similar to “Animal House” and other teen comedies in that it featured an exuberant, humorous young man who set off for college, set in the late 1960s, and it followed some of his exploits. I think the movie may have received a considerable amount of promotion on HBO(?) leading up to it’s debut, but then was only aired just the ONE TIME. When cable TV was known for having many, many repeat showings of movies and series episodes.

    Anyway, if my drunken memory was correct, the movie featured a scene where the main character took his girl to some frat party and as they danced, the DJ put on Tommy James’ “Mony Mony” and the guests at the party all started doing the “Hey! Get laid, get f*cked” schtick. I think the scene lasted for the whole song, but I’m not sure. Anyway, i’m pretty sure that this is where life imitated art once again and youths started mimicking this movie at dance clubs and parties. I recall that the movie was pretty entertaining and enjoyable, but it featured no “big names” in its cast. For the life of me, I have NO INKLING what the title of the movie was…sorry! Luckily, there’s only about 200 movies from that era to search and find if my memories are correct! Cheers.

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  • Some historic input here. I am from Europe but was an exchange student in Indiana, USA, 1985-86. I learned this at some kind of high school dance, so that much have been … late in 1985, maybe early 1986. Definitely no later than spring 1986 because I went back to Europe after graduation early summer 1986.

    What we shouted was slightly different than what is written further up, but as you said in the interview … there are regional differences. It has been many decades, but as I remember it, there were two things we shouted:

    (I have replaced a word with a different one, that sounds almost the same)

    1) Hey …. get laid, get fogged.

    2) Fog your balls off .. fog your balls off.

    So in 1) there was no “mother-fogger”, just a short break like waiting for a reply to the “Hey!”

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  • I first heard this in a club in Germany. I was in 1980 or 1981. It’s been in my head ever since. Today I decided to Google it and found this site.

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  • The Version:
    Hey! / Hey what? / Get laid! / Get fucked!
    Cleveland bars and parties 1983

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  • Toronto area (North York to be specific) … I was in last year of high school, so it was for sure 1986, at a restaurant that turned into a bit of a night club after the dinner hour was over – Pat & Marios – and they never carded us (me and my 2 friends were under 19), and I distinctly recall hearing the crowd shout the “MF get laid get F’d” and we the yelled it loud as well. I think it originated right there at that Pat & Mario’s in the Winter of ’86 !

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  • I recall this at a social (Manitoba thing) back in 82 or 83 and everyone knew what to say at that time.

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  • I think the first time Billy idol heard the audience parts live could have been in Sudbury Ontario – august 1990. While the lyrics started and evolved in clubs in the late 80s and were obnoxiously popular in Sudbury bars, he had a hiatus from touring from 87 until his comeback “charmed life tour” – which he rehearsed for with two days in Sudbury. Dates not listed as part of that official tour. One private rehearsal day and one live show. I remember the look on his face and his reaction hearing it live and remember thinking he was taken a bit aback by it. My father ran the stadium in Sudbury when I was growing up and I went to all the events and rehearsals back in the day. Your recent show pinged all these memories and the timing is compellingly plausible.

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  • I grew up south of Vancouver in Delta, and went through high school in the 80’s. We also did the “special lyrics”, but like the eastern group, we shouted “Hey motherf**ker, get laid, get f**ked!” I never heard of the ones mentioned in the article for BC.

    And us outcasts in school had our own lyrics, less explicit…”Hey K-Mart shoppers, Blue Light special Aisle 5!” We would shout that just to annoy the jocks and cool kids.

    Like your article states, none of us have a clue where were learned the special lyrics, but we all new them instinctively.

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  • i can verify that these alternate lyrics were well in use in the new york city suburbs in the mid 80’s, learned and practiced at many bar mitzvahs and weddings. Everyone already knew them, it’s one of those things like the electric slide and Macarena that just “are” and seemingly have always existed.

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  • As a point of order, while I do recall singing the “special lyrics” at high school dances from ’86-’89, I also recall over time that the special lyrics (in Manitoba, at least), began to evolve further, into “Hey, motherf***er, get a life, get a job!”. I recall those newer lyrics being yelled at socials and in bars well into the late ’90s.

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  • This is global. I grew up in Guatemala, Central America, went to Highschool there in the late 90s. Always shouted “ Hey motherf***r get laid and get f***d” during this song. Older siblings said they already did that early 90s.

    Always wondered about the origins of those extra lyrics!

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  • I know I heard it at a HS dance in 1985 (possibly sooner, but 85 for sure) in NW Illinois, it was “Hey! …… Get laid get fucked!” The teachers were standing around trying not to laugh. Within a year it had morphed into Hey! Hey What? Get laid get fucked twice!
    The teachers continued to stand around trying not to laugh, as they knew there was really nothing they could do about it.
    There was one dance where they refused to play it, so at some point someone started singing the song, everyone joined in, and we yelled out the fun stuff anyway.

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  • Billy Idol performed at the 2005 HFStival in Baltimore. I think the crowd ended up settling on “Hey motherfucker, motherfucker get fucked!” That concert made it pretty easy to see how all these mutations could spread over time. The audience was really into that set, and everyone wanted to yell along. But I think most of them weren’t especially big Billy Idol fans (there were dozens of acts that day) and were just going along with what the they they heard.

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  • I haven’t read through all of the comments so maybe someone else has mentioned this already… I was living in Montreal in 1978 and often went to a roller rink/disco called La Récréathèque in Laval. It was there that I first heard “the chant” yelled by the crowd during the song. The venue didn’t serve alcohol and was open to teens for dancing on Friday and Saturday nights (I think you had to be 13 to get in). I remember my high school had a field trip to La Récréathèque in the spring of 1979 and I wondered what would happen if the DJ decided to play Mony Mony because I had no doubt the crowd would sing along, but he didn’t play it – what a disappointment! So the chant definitely predates Billy Idol’s cover. In mid ’79 my family moved to Edmonton. Those poor westerners had no idea they were supposed to add their voices to the chorus. I didn’t hear the chant again until someone mentioned hearing it in a club in the late 80s (in Edmonton). BTW I came across this post because I couldn’t remember the chant and did a search for it.

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  • We shouted the entire “Hey motherfucker get laid get fucked!” at clubs when this song came on. Late 80’s, early 90’s in Orange County and L.A. The tradition continues on however. I saw Billy Idol a couple of years ago at The Joint in Vegas, and sure as shit, everyone shouted “Hey motherfucker get laid get fucked! Ah memories.

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  • It reminds me of Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me.” The most popular version of the song is the live version from Budokan. It’s more up-tempo than the studio version, but the crowd chants “cryin’ cryin cryin'” and “dyin’ dyin’ dyin'” at the chorus. Supposedly, this had never happened before as the song wasn’t a really popular one. Rick Nielsen couldn’t make out what was being shouted so he motioned for the crowd to be louder. The rest is history.

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  • So, the definitive version in southern MN in the late 80s was this: “Hey, hey what. Get laid, get f*cked. Twice!” (too old to type out fucked directly… see what I did there?). Someone out there claims to be the originator of the “twice” addition to the chant/callout. But as nobody will ever really know, let me claim that addition as mine. Yes, I added that, and it has been sung ever since 1987 in the Midwest. “Twice!”

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  • I remember in the juice bars/dance club for underaged, 16-20 or younger, not sure, in Wisconsin in the late 90’s we had a lot of these, but one in particular I didn’t see mentioned.

    multiple times during song there are short pre-choruses, and one or two longer pre-choruses
    The short: Ass down, face up, that’s the way we like to fuck!
    the Long: Hey, Hey; we get drunk, we get high, we get fucked up all the time. Face down, ass up, that’s the way we like to fuck!

    We in Wisconsin seem to like to get fucked up.

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  • Born and raised in British Columbia and went to my first dance in Junior High where I heard this song with the added lyrics. This would have actually been around 1985, and the variant we sang was “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked” (never heard the version attributed to the West Coast in the article – in fact, I’ve never heard any alternative to “Hey motherfucker, get laid, get fucked”).

    I moved cities after junior high and attended a different high school in the late 80’s, and even there the lyrics were the same, and in the 90’s I worked in night clubs as a bouncer in various cities across southern BC and again, the lyrics were always the same; while the late 90’s saw the Internet up and running, this phenomenon seemed firmly ingrained in the regional zeitgeist.

    I am not entire sure how this transmitted, but a parallel is “Surrey Girl” jokes/humour; Surrey, British Columbia (as opposed to Surrey, England) had a long reputation (and still does to some degree) of housing “white trash”, and jokes would be made about the “promiscuity” of Surrey girls – the thing is, wherever I have traveled (and I have traveled globally), there are people aware of these jokes and this reputation, even if they have never been to BC. It is very much an interesting cultural anthropology riddle – how did these things spread pre-Internet? And how were they picked up outside of the region? It was something that always baffled me.

    Of course, one can always look at The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a perfect example of the audience participation motif – while scripts were available, I never used one – I learned from the people around me, and of course, I learned regional variants as well (for example, the scene where Riff Raff drops the champagne bottle and the audience is supposed to yell “Would you let this man drive you home?” those of us in the Vancouver and suburbs added the rejoinder “Better than BC transit” as there had been a series of metro bus accidents around the time – this has, to the best of my knowledge, remained a localized variant only), so it is very likely that the roots of the lyrics and their transmission were similar.

    Anyway, my two cents on this – but as I said, BC native and never heard the alternative versions anywhere in BC.

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  • I am a native Coloradoan currently residing in Colorado. We say “Hey, m***rf**ker! Get l**d, get f**ked!”. I don’t know where you got your intel, but it’s wrong, wrong, wrong!!!

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  • Accurate article. I rember saying exactly what you put for Ontario.

    I was in high school in southern Ontario at that time. We did have CFNY come to our school for a video roadshow (the only show that needed access to the 100amp service box), and yes the principal did ban it after mony mony was played at one of the dances.

    thanks for a trip down memory lane.

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  • While in Houston for a work seminar in 1990 or 91, a Chicago colleague claimed that it was “get AIDS, you’re f****d”

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  • I can remember back to the early 80’s in the bars when mony mony would be played evryone singing get drunk get head get laid. another version was get high get drunk get laid. As my experience it started a lot earlier than Billy Idol’s version. i do love some Billy Idol i did invite him to my 25th birthday party in 88 he must have been busy. rock on billy

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  • A group of friends of mine came up with a different version of the chant: “Hey Kmart shoppers, blue light special, aisle 5!”

    Wasn’t particularly good, but it did annoy those around us who were chanting the other version.

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  • I grew up in Milledgeville Georgia, a small, southern college town. I can tell you that on Thursday nights in the late 80s when we would go dancing there was always a chant when Mony Mony played. I would always fake chant the words as I never understood what everyone was saying. If you wanted to fit in, you would chant when that song played. Flash forward to 2023 I just saw Billy Idol perform at the Kings Theater in Brooklyn Just like my teen years, when he sang that song chanting that I did not understand broke out—that’s how I found this article.

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  • In the Navy we sang “Get laid, get f**ked” twice then “She’s fat, I’m drunk” in the third chorus.

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  • I just found this research because it caught my attention that there was someone trying to investigate the origin of this version. I live in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, Mexico and the first time I went to a club called The Factory I heard this song in may 1990. It was the song that I liked the most from my first visits to the club, which here was called “disco” when I was 13 years old and used to go to our first high school partys.I loved the energy when the DJ lowered the volume of the song and many shouted “HEY MOTHERFUCKER, HEY HEY MOTHERFUCKER”. Yes, that’s how we shouted it, it wasn’t “GET LAID GET FUCKED” at all.

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