"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. Contrary to popular belief, it is not about fruit.
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."
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 'bikini', 'oh shit' with 'oh no' and 'what a bummer' with 'what a summer'. The catalogue number of the radio version was FREE 4.
It is driven by a simple bassline, which is one of the most recognisable in rock music. 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 also featured in the opening sequence of 2000 British film Sexy Beast. The song is also on the sound track of the game Driver parallel lines. It featured on the opening sequence of an episode of soap opera Hollyoaks in early October, 2006.
"Peaches" is a single by the post-grunge band The Presidents of the United States of America. The "hook-filled" song about eating peaches from a can was the second single from their self-titled album, and reached #8 on the United States Billboard Modern Rock Charts.
The band members have acknowledged that they borrowed riffs for this song from Bad Company's "Making Love".
"Peaches" was nominated for a pop performance Grammy.
"Peaches'" opening riffs (although played in reverse) and the repeated lines "Yeah, Yeah!" and "Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Me; Millions of Peaches, Peaches for Free" were heavily sampled in the Lemon Jelly dance track "The Fruity Track".
