Kissing Willie by Jethro Tull (1989)

Kissing Willie opens Rock Island, the 1989 Jethro Tull album, with a hard riff, a flute and a lyric about a girl whose talent is in the title. The verses are a jealous man's account of her reputation; the chorus names the skill. Anderson has called it his Benny Hill spoof, and on the 1989 tour the band waved carrots and sausages during the song in case anyone in the arena had somehow missed the point, which, given the title, nobody had.

It reached number six on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart, and Rock Island went to number 18 in Britain and 56 in the United States. Anderson has since said he regrets the song's attitude, by which he means its leering, but not its meaning, which is the most precise apology on this list: sorry for the tone, not for the "willie".

Its afterlife is as the flute entry. It is the only song here with a flute solo, and the clearest link in a British chain that runs from George Formby's "stick of rock" in 1937 through Monty Python's synonym list in 1983 to a prog band in 1989 deciding that the word "willie" was overdue a hit.