Eat Me Alive

Lead singer Rob Halford wrote the lyrics to this one, which are pretty outrageous, even by Judas Priest standards: Squealing impassioned As the rod of steel injects Halford called it "a fun S&M, rock, sex song." "I wrote that song one night when I was smashed out of my mind in Ibitha, where we recorded that album," he told Creem magazine. "I was given the rough idea of the music from Ken (guitarist K. K. Downing) and Glenn (guitarist Glenn Tipton) and I got drunk and went off in a tirade of verse after verse. It was one of those cases of waking up next morning with a hangover and saying, 'My God, did I write that?!' If you'd have seen some of the verses you would have died! We censored them ourselves! We did it very tongue-in-cheek, a real spoof, a total send-up. Of course, people take it too seriously."

This was one of 15 songs the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) cited in 1985 as so objectionable, it needed a sticker to warn parents of its explicit content. The PMRC was well-connected, comprised of the wives of top lawmakers, so they forced Senate hearings on the issue, resulting in the RIAA agreeing to label albums deemed offensive. How did Judas Priest feel about their role in this controversy? Halford told Rolling Stone in 2015: "The PMRC twisted it into some kind of snuff song, which is ridiculous. The PMRC's suggestion of giving people some guidance was OK to me. It was just common sense from my perspective for young kids at the time. But the fact that there was this scary political screaming and yelling and shouting at the forefront was smothering the whole message." The 1986 Judas Priest song "Parental Guidance" is their response to the controversy.