Denis Leary Updates His ‘A**hole’ Song for 2025
On Denis Leary’s No Cure for Cancer album, released in 1993, the first track was a dirty musical ditty called “Asshole.” Given the profane title and lyrics, the song was unexpectedly popular, getting regular play on MTV and reaching number two on the Australian music charts.
The song was Leary’s ode to the everyman, “just a regular Joe with a regular job … your average, white suburbanite slob.” The song’s protagonist likes football and porn and books about war — and when he’s bored, he gets his kicks by being an asshole just to piss people off. Among his offenses:
I drive really slow in the ultra-fast lane
While people behind me are going insane
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I use public toilets and I piss on the seat
I walk around in the summer time, saying, “How about this heat?”
Sometimes, I park in handicapped spaces
While handicapped people make handicapped faces
You get the idea, but those lyrics aren’t the main reason why the song was controversial. Comic Louis C.K. went on The Opie and Anthony Show in 2008 to accuse Leary of swiping his “I’m an asshole” routine. Leary denied the joke theft, going on the same show a few months later to claim he’d written the song with musician Chris Phillips.
Leary’s protests might have been more credible had he not allegedly ripped off several jokes from comedian Bill Hicks. Hicks knew all about parallel thinking and the occasional borrowing of a punchline. But according to American Scream: The Bill Hicks Story, the comedian thought Leary went way beyond those norms with his No Cure for Cancer album. “This was different,” the book explains in explaining Hicks’ fury. “Leary had, practically line for line, taken huge chunks of Bill’s act and recorded it.”
Who was the asshole now?
All of the controversy surrounding No Cure for Cancer and “Asshole” didn’t stop Leary from showing up on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon this week to reprise his old song. Somehow getting away with singing the word “asshole” multiple times without bleeps — at least on the show’s YouTube channel version — Leary and Fallon updated the ways in which an average, white suburbanite slob might anger his neighbors in 2025.
I log onto Amazon and leave one-star reviews
I fly on Boeing and remove all the screws
I’m an asshole!
I go to Taylor Swift concerts totally lit
I stand in the front and start a mosh pit
I’m an asshole!
I show up to AA and pass around a flask
I know I have COVID but I don’t wear a mask
I might mess up and get every word wrong
But I go to see Wicked and I scream every song
Need handicapped parking? Well, you’re out of luck
Because I took up two spaces with my Cybertruck
I’m an asshole!
Not bad — but wouldn’t a lyric or two about borrowing jokes have been more appropriate?
