Before the school dance, the car-ride with the kids or the office party, people check. Across 195 Billboard No. 1s since 2004, US searches for "[song] clean" and "[song] clean version" add up to ~21,234 a month. "Not Like Us" (Kendrick Lamar) leads, followed by "The Box" and "California Gurls". Our curiosity-to-censor index divides clean-version searches by lyric searches. On that measure, "Mood" (18%), "Squabble Up" (10%) and "The Box" (9%) are the songs people most often look up specifically to avoid the explicit words.
Top 20 No. 1s by clean-version demand (US, monthly)
| # | Song | Artist | First No. 1 | "clean"/mo | "clean version"/mo | Lyrics/mo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 2024 | 1,021 | 308 | 18,117 |
| 2 | The Box | Roddy Ricch | 2020 | 1,070 | 234 | 13,858 |
| 3 | California Gurls | Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg | 2010 | 792 | 85 | 17,142 |
| 4 | Thrift Shop | Macklemore & Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz | 2013 | 353 | 317 | 15,650 |
| 5 | Sicko Mode | Travis Scott | 2018 | 628 | 26 | 13,675 |
| 6 | Vampire | Olivia Rodrigo | 2023 | 421 | 222 | 20,967 |
| 7 | Humble | Kendrick Lamar | 2017 | 426 | 119 | 10,400 |
| 8 | DTMF | Bad Bunny | 2026 | 301 | 164 | 91,583 |
| 9 | Uptown Funk | Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars | 2015 | 279 | 178 | 23,308 |
| 10 | Squabble Up | Kendrick Lamar | 2024 | 333 | 107 | 4,367 |
| 11 | Black and Yellow | Wiz Khalifa | 2011 | 268 | 152 | 5,325 |
| 12 | 7 Rings | Ariana Grande | 2019 | 300 | 87 | 19,392 |
| 13 | Manchild | Sabrina Carpenter | 2025 | 269 | 98 | 35,842 |
| 14 | Drop It Like It's Hot | Snoop Dogg featuring Pharrell | 2004 | 259 | 94 | 9,258 |
| 15 | Paint the Town Red | Doja Cat | 2023 | 218 | 104 | 8,908 |
| 16 | Empire State of Mind | Jay-Z and Alicia Keys | 2009 | 247 | 65 | 27,017 |
| 17 | Mood | 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior | 2020 | 208 | 99 | 1,742 |
| 18 | Please Please Please | Sabrina Carpenter | 2024 | 226 | 79 | 9,925 |
| 19 | Good 4 U | Olivia Rodrigo | 2021 | 242 | 31 | 10,525 |
| 20 | Rockstar | Post Malone featuring 21 Savage | 2017 | 217 | 55 | 8,000 |
Curiosity-to-censor index (clean searches as % of lyric searches; songs with ≥500 lyric searches/mo)
| # | Song | Artist | Index |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mood | 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior | 17.6% |
| 2 | Squabble Up | Kendrick Lamar | 10.1% |
| 3 | The Box | Roddy Ricch | 9.4% |
| 4 | Black and Yellow | Wiz Khalifa | 7.9% |
| 5 | Not Like Us | Kendrick Lamar | 7.3% |
| 6 | London Bridge | Fergie | 6.0% |
| 7 | Highest in the Room | Travis Scott | 5.6% |
| 8 | Humble | Kendrick Lamar | 5.2% |
| 9 | Imma Be | The Black Eyed Peas | 5.2% |
| 10 | Not Afraid | Eminem | 5.2% |
| 11 | Toosie Slide | Drake | 5.2% |
| 12 | Crank That (Soulja Boy) | Soulja Boy Tell 'Em | 5.1% |
| 13 | California Gurls | Katy Perry featuring Snoop Dogg | 5.1% |
| 14 | Sicko Mode | Travis Scott | 4.8% |
| 15 | Savage Love (Laxed – Siren Beat) | Jawsh 685, Jason Derulo and BTS | 4.7% |
What it means
Lyrics are the part of a song fans quote, argue over and get wrong. Anyone who would rather write lines fans quote for the right reasons can start a first draft with a song lyrics generator. And if the words are the hard part, an AI song writer can help shape a verse and chorus before anything is recorded.
Method
- US Google search volume (English), monthly, Oct 2022–Sep 2026. 'Avg/mo' = mean of the latest 12 months (Oct 2025–Sep 2026); '3-yr change' = latest 12 months vs Oct 2022–Sep 2023.
- Universe: the 295 distinct Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 songs, Jan 2004–2026 (Billboard list), cleaned title.
- Ambiguous titles (common words or titles that collide with products/brands, e.g. "Umbrella cover", "Happy karaoke") were excluded per query type.
Cite and download
Free to use and cite with a link back to this page.
aisong.lol Research. (2026). Did they really say that? The hits people Google to check the swear. aisong.lol. https://aisong.lol/research/did-they-really-say-that-the-hits-people-google-to-check-the-swear
Use this data. Every table in this study as one spreadsheet-ready file.
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