Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Sex in early pop song relied on euphemism. In this essay, Emily Margot Gale challenges familiar presentist orientations toward pop music and sexuality by listening to this early history as it emerged on the pages of songsters: pocket-sized collections of printed song lyrics for the most popular and celebrated songs of the day. In particular, Gale explores two examples of nineteenth-century pop song writers who used lutes and guitars as sexual metaphors. “Oh, Lady, Touch Thy Lute Again” and “Listen to My Wild Guitar” both suggest Victorian-era precedents for cock rock. So, long before Jimi Hendrix did the “Wild Thing” with his guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival, or Taylor Swift bedded hers in the video for “Teardrops on My Guitar,” nineteenth-century songwriters were composing euphemistically sexual songs about string instruments.</jats:p>