When Corey Taylor Had to Tell a Judge That ‘Purity’ Was About Abducting & Enslaving a Woman

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Slipknot always had unsettling lyrics in their songs, but not many landed them in court.

When the band was first putting their debut self-titled together, Corey Taylor mentioned taking off the song ‘Purity’ because of legal trouble they had with a short story that had the same premise as the song.

Once it came time for Corey to testify in court about the song over the phone, he mentioned the judge not exactly understanding what the whole thing was about saying (2:54),

“I can’t see him and he says ‘Now Mr. Taylor, what are you trying to say in that song?’ And I say ‘well, your honor, I’m basically saying that we’re trying to keep a woman in a box and we don’t feed her and she’s not very happy about that.’”

Before Corey could even finish his testimony, he mentions that judge having a coughing fit, saying,

“I’m trying to explain this to the judge and every time I’m getting a little further into it, I hear this bodiless cough out of nowhere. I’m like ‘Jesus, is he alright?’ What I learned later that he was writing down my answers and was coughing to try to keep himself from laughing.”

Granted, the humor of the situation wasn’t lost on Corey saying,

“It’s just as weird for him as it is for me. He’s sitting on a speakerphone listening to some weird singer talking about keeping a chick in a box and that we had stolen that idea from other people.”

The case was eventually settled out of court and Slipknot decided to take the song off of their debut to not overshadow the other bangers on the record. The band did retain the rights to use their song, and when the 10th anniversary of the record came out, ‘Purity’ was included on the tracklist where it was supposed to be. 

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