Sigh. Ready for Round Two of Britain’s Spring of Silliness?
F.U.R.B (F U Right Back), by Frankee (her 1st and only #1)
3 weeks, 16th May – 6th June 2004
Yes, after a month of Eamon’s whiny ‘F**k It (I Don’t Want You Back)’, his supposed ex-girlfriend Frankee had to have her say. There are two sides to every story… she announces in the intro. So far so stupid. But bear with me as I explain why this is the far better record.
‘F.U.R.B.’ is essentially the same song: same tune, same vaguely doo-wop melody, same amount of swearing. But whereas Eamon’s version was plodding and self-indulgent, Frankee’s version is sassy and, in places, pretty hilarious.
The sass is added very easily, by putting some synth blasts at the end of each bar to liven up the original’s treacly tempo, and by adding a couple more beats and clicks to the rhythm. And then by the fact that, lyrically, Frankee doesn’t go in for any moping. She goes for the low blows, and hits Eamon where it hurts. He was, it turns out, a crap shag.
You thought you could really make me moan, I had better sex on my own… and Fuck all those nights you thought you broke my back, Well guess what yo, Your sex was wack… I mean yes it’s childish, yes it’s tawdry, yes it’s vulgar. But I think a line like I do admit I’m glad, I didn’t catch your crabs is funny, and well-deserved after having sat through multiple plays of Eamon’s original.
And at one point there is a moment of precise critical clarity, when Frankee sings: If you really didn’t care, You wouldn’t wanna share, Telling everybody just how you feel… Exactly, Eamon! By writing an entire song about how much you don’t care, you’re showing the world that you really do! Idiot.
I feel there is a comment to be made here, on the power imbalance in male-female relationships. Why is the woman allowed to be rude post-breakup, while the man comes across as vindictive? If Eamon claimed Frankee was bad in bed then it would be very ungentlemanly. Frankee does it and it’s empowering. But also, do two songs as lowbrow as this deserve any deep analysis? Probably not.
Eamon denied that Frankee had ever been his girlfriend, but at the same time claimed he had auditioned her for the role of recording this answer song (he earned royalties for both), and welcomed her into “the world of ho-wop” (his words). Like Eamon, Frankee released an album off the back of this gimmick, but unlike Eamon she remains a gold-star one-hit wonder. She subsequently left the music business, and in 2016 joined the NYPD.
Swear-less:
Swear-full:
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I feel “far better record” is too much praise for this. Both songs are appalling and only became hits because of the UKs childish glee at the swearing.
It’s still complete trash. But at least there’s some humour to it, rather than Eamon’s god-awful whining.
Well, it’s not exactly a big improvement, but at least she has a much better voice and she is much nicer on the eyes than Eamon. It’s interesting hearing the female perspective of this dumb song – if they had done a “Somebody That I Used to Know” and combined both songs and had her part come in the 2nd half of the songs, it would’ve been an really interesting move.
Well if they had combined it into one track, at least it might have freed up a few weeks at number one for a better song…
second-worst number one of the year, it is better-produced and sung than Eamon’s and does at least undermine the original nicely. It’s a cash-in though, at the end of the day. And I don’t disagree with comments about “empowering” female lyrics – I was particularly appalled by the media fuss about one of Lizzo’s tracks for using a politically-incorrect term for disabilities (unknown to the song writers) when the same song referenced doing a “Bobbit” on her cheating boyfriend and not a single media or movement or whatever commented. Threatening to chop off a body part isnt empowering for exes of cheating boyfriends, it’s a massive and illegal over-reaction when most sane people would just immediately dump someone, job done, try to get over it and move on. But there’s money to be made in bitterness in music aimed at teens….
There definitely is a ‘yass, go girl’ element to women being rude about their exes (often fuelled by gay men, oops…), that men can’t get away with when they do it to women. I think it’s the historical power imbalance, in that until very recently – in societal terms – women had very little to no rights against unfaithful, or abusive, partners, so it still feels new and fun. But also there’s a blind spot in people not seeing that this is what is leading to ‘toxic masculinity’, ‘the manosphere’, whatever the right buzzword is, and just claiming that men should recognise their privilege. Something these two records do, for all their many flaws, neatly encapsulate, perhaps more now than they did two decades ago.
Absolutely right, it’s well within my lifetime what second-class citizens women were (and still are in many parts of the world) and the current toxic masculinity BS amongst those wistfully wishing for the “good” old days when men could bully at will is entirely predictable. In an ideal world when trying to set a good example about anything, leading by example is the best way forward, not declaring war and being just as bad. Taking the moral higher ground seems to be SO old fashioned these days when politics is so bitter and twisted and absolutist. Still, new music continues to be fab so there’s always that! 🙂