Cream - NSU
Cream - Sweet Wine
Written during their very first rehearsal and indeed making it as the opener to their debut album Fresh Cream in 1966, the song ‘NSU’ is deceptively less innocuous than you might think. Lyrically, it’s pretty safe, made up of simple rhymes like “Driving in my car, smoking my cigar/ The only time I’m happy’s when I play my guitar,” but it’s in the title of the track itself that a smutty reference can be found hiding in plain sight.
According to Bruce, who wrote the song as well as much of Cream’s complete discography, the acronym of ‘NSU’, in fact, had a very different meaning. He said: “It was like an early punk song… the title meant non-specific urethritis. It didn’t mean an NSU Quickly – which was one of those little 1960s mopeds. I used to say it was about a member of the band who had this venereal disease. I can’t tell you which one… except he played guitar.”
Throwing Clapton well and truly under the bus, the ruse of a sweet little moped song was soon up, and his run-in with an STI was more glaringly out in the open than perhaps he ever wanted it to be. But frankly, the guitarist had no choice but to suck up his embarrassment as he had a rock world to dominate, and though his intimate issue had been exposed in the first taste anyone had of his new outfit, it was ultimately the song that led on to the gateway of Cream’s stratospheric heights over their four-year tenure. From: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/nsu-gross-cream-song-exposed-eric-clapton/
According to Bruce, who wrote the song as well as much of Cream’s complete discography, the acronym of ‘NSU’, in fact, had a very different meaning. He said: “It was like an early punk song… the title meant non-specific urethritis. It didn’t mean an NSU Quickly – which was one of those little 1960s mopeds. I used to say it was about a member of the band who had this venereal disease. I can’t tell you which one… except he played guitar.”
Throwing Clapton well and truly under the bus, the ruse of a sweet little moped song was soon up, and his run-in with an STI was more glaringly out in the open than perhaps he ever wanted it to be. But frankly, the guitarist had no choice but to suck up his embarrassment as he had a rock world to dominate, and though his intimate issue had been exposed in the first taste anyone had of his new outfit, it was ultimately the song that led on to the gateway of Cream’s stratospheric heights over their four-year tenure. From: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/nsu-gross-cream-song-exposed-eric-clapton/
