The Prodigy Alter Lyrics To 'Smack My B*tch Up' Live In London

On Friday (24 November), fans at Alexandra Palace picked up on a noticeable change to the lyrics of a beloved The Prodigy song: Smack My Bitch Up was performed as the “clean version”.

As flashing footage from the concert shows, frontman Maxim – who became the vocalist following the passing of Keith Flint – repeatedly sang “Change my pitch up”- only the first part of the lyric - rather than the original lines, which saw the band accused of celebrating or glorifying violence against women.

The rave band haven’t commented on the lyrical change, but according to Setlist.fm, the “clean version” was performed on the 24th, while on the 25th, no such appendix was mentioned.

Smack My Bitch Up was released as the third and final single from The Prodigy’s widely successful, critically acclaimed 1997 album The Fat Of The Land. The song features the refrain “Change my pitch up/Smack my bitch up”, a lyric sampled from the 1988 track Give The Drummer Some by Ultramagnetic MCs.

In 2010, Smack My Bitch Up was named the most controversial song of all time via a poll conducted by the Performing Right Society (PRS), following its 1997 banning on the BBC due to the controversially graphic music video.

In 1997, The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett defended the lyrics of Smack My Bitch Up in an Addicted To Noise interview (via MTV).

“It's obvious that Firestarter is not about starting fires,” Howlett said. “It's about Keith's personality. I thought, 'Well, if people are going to kick up a fuss about this, then they're really gonna kick up a fuss about Smack My Bitch Up.' It was kind of a joke on the English press, in a way.”

Howlett continued, “There's lots of different angles. The main angle is it works, and it's a simple track, and it's got hard vibe. That's why I use that lyric. The other vibe is what I was saying about the press.”

Howlett later said that if people believed that The Prodigy were actually making a song about glorifying violence against women, “they’re pretty brainless”.

Earlier this year, Howlett and Maxim revealed that The Prodigy would continue after “highly emotional and very special” shows dedicated to Keith Flint.

Howlett explained to NME, “As for the future, The Prodigy is bigger than just the band: it stands for something, the people know this, we know this... even more after playing live again.”