songs about underage girls

[TreacherousCretin]

@sweetie pea

Also, pretty much ANY Gary Puckett song.

Well, two or three of them anyway. I met his mother once (long uninteresting story), and found myself wishing I could ask her how she had raised such a creepy son.

[koeeoaddi]

@The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski

Friend of the Devil by The Grateful Dead, which has the line “…second one was prison bait, the sherriff’s on my tail, and if he catches up with me I’ll spend my life in jail”

I thought the line was:

“second one is prison, baby, the sheriff’s on my trail
and if he catches up with me, I’ll spend my life in jail.”

[squeegee]

I’d once mulled starting a thread titled, “songs about statutory rape”. Obviously there’d be some crossover from the songs in this thread.

I’ll add What’s your name by Lynyrd Skynard, which probably fits on both lists.

[Johnny_Q]

The first verse of “Good Morning Judge” by Wynonie Harris

Five foot two with eyes of blue
Pretty as a queen
I didn’t know her pop was a city cop
And she was just fifteen

[The_Other_Jeffrey_Lebowski]

@koeeoaddi

I thought the line was:

“second one is prison, baby, the sheriff’s on my trail
and if he catches up with me, I’ll spend my life in jail.”

:smack:

Ig’nance fought.

[irritant]

The entirety of Serge Gainsbourg’s brilliant Histoire de Melody Nelson album.

[cochrane]

@Mister_Rik

Not to mention that McCartney was only 18-19 himself when he wrote it.

More like 20-21. Macca conceived of the song while riding home from a Beatles concert in 1963.

@squeegee

I’d once mulled starting a thread titled, “songs about statutory rape”. Obviously there’d be some crossover from the songs in this thread.

I’ll add What’s your name by Lynyrd Skynard, which probably fits on both lists.

Other than the phrase “little girl” and “little queen,” where do the lyrics suggest the girl is underage?

[dropzone]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Playboy had a number of seventeen-year-old Playmates and the January 1958 issue featured a student named Elizabeth Ann Roberts who was still sixteen. Her mother accompanied her and signed permission.

But not without legal repercussions.Mom’s scary looking. Liz was cute and, er, youthful looking and her centerfold was still trotted out into the 70s. Spoiled for NSFW. [spoiler]http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_A7wB2gcr8lA/Sb0bbhFyE8I/AAAAAAAAEYY/tqJRtwCAdbE/s1600-h/centerfold-PM195801A1-01-lrg.jpg[/spoiler]

@phungi

A friend who is an English Professor is looking for background for an essay.

So we won’t do research for a kid’s homework, but we’ll help him get tenure?

[Suil_Dubh]

@TreacherousCretin

Frank Zappa’s “Magdalena” must be included on this list.

Speaking of Zappa, “Brown Shoes Don’t Make It” refers to a sexually-active 13 year old in some of the lyrics:

Do it again, and do it some more!
That does it, by golly, it’s nasty for sure!
Nasty-nasty-nasty! Nasty-nasty-nasty!
(Only thirteen, and she knows how to NASTY)

She’s a dirty young mind. Corrupted, corroded…
Well she’s thirteen today, And I hear she gets loaded.

“Jailbait” by Motörhead is also a song about underage girls.

American shock band “The Child Molesters” had a song whose title escapes me at the moment, but the lyrics were something like “I like babies who are only thirteen, 'cause thirteen is my lucky number”.

Umm… upon reflection I seem to know a little too much about songs about underage girls. Eeewww, me.

runs off

[Tim_R.Mortiss]

Janice Ian - “At Seventeen”

I don’t remember what it was about, but it might fit.

[squeegee]

@cochrane

Other than the phrase “little girl” and “little queen,” where do the lyrics suggest the girl is underage?

Hence the “probably”. It’s a song about fucking groupies, who tend to be teenagers. I agree it’s ambiguous.

[cochrane]

@Tim_R.Mortiss

Janice Ian - “At Seventeen”

I don’t remember what it was about, but it might fit.

Nope. Not even remotely. It’s about a teen age girl who is jealous of the popularity of her classmates and about her feelings of alienation. From Wikipedia: “It is told from the point of view of a woman who was an “ugly duckling” as a girl and ignored in high school while the popular girls got all of the attention.” There’s no getting some in that song.

[cochrane]

@squeegee

Hence the “probably”. It’s a song about fucking groupies, who tend to be teenagers. I agree it’s ambiguous.

Yeah. Ronnie Van Zant was 29 when the song came out (and the year he died). At that age, an 18 or 19 year old could conceivably be called “little girl.”

[Lamia]

Does he specifically want songs about girls under the age of consent or under the age of 18? The most common age of consent in the US today is 16, and only 12 states set it at 18 (Wikipedia). In the UK the age of consent is also 16. I can’t think of many songs where a girl under the age of 16 is described as an object of lust.

There is Iggy Pop’s “Dog Food” with the line “I’m hanging around that same old scene, my girlfriend Betsy she’s just 14.” This is followed by a shocked sounding “Fourteen?” from the backup singers.

The Who’s “5:15” opens with the lines “Girls of fifteen, sexually knowing”, followed a bit later by “Pretty girls, digging prettier women”, but these girls seem to be of only momentary interest to the song’s narrator – who is himself a teenager. (His age is not clear from the song alone, but the entire album *Quadrophenia *is about a young mod named Jimmy.)

[atlantic]

@interface2x

Depeche Mode - Question of Time, about a 15 year old.

As is Depeche Mode’s Little 15.

[rsat3acr]

“Don’t Stand So Close To Me” The Police

[Maserschmidt]

*Sweet Little Sixteen
She’s got the grown up blues
Tight dress and lipstick
She’s sportin’ high heel shoes
Oh, but tomorrow morning
She’ll have to change her trend
And be sweet sixteen
And back in class again *

Of course, the prostitute Chuck Berry was arrested for seeing was younger than that, but even he knew better than to sing about fourteen-year olds.

[Edward_The_Head]

Motorhead’s Jailbait
Jim Croce’s Five Short Minutes, for which he spends time in jail and when he gets out he remembers he likes to do it but can’t remember why.

[dropzone]

@cochrane

There’s no getting some in that song.

Rather pointedly so, I thought. Too bad, too, because she was very much my style, though it turns out I’m not hers.

Hmmm, at 17 she was a senior and I was a freshman. I would be invisible and it would never have worked out. I had to end up with a woman who, in '68, was a sophomore. That was as high as I could aspire.

[njtt]

@GreasyJack

One thing to consider is that when many of these songs were written, 18 was not the agreed on dividing line between child and adulthood it is now. Most states had and still have a mishmash of rules about ages of consent. 18 is the rule in California and has sort of spread via the entertainment industry to be the nationwide societal norm, but that might not have been the case back when these songs were written. Perhaps it makes them no less creepy to modern ears, but they might have seemed less so at the time they were written.

Creepy to modern USAian ears. Not all the world is as puritanical as America, even now.

The thing is, though, there are a whole bunch of different things going on these songs. Some of them were intended to be (and were taken to be at the time) perfectly innocent and sweet (e,g., “I Saw Her Standing There”). Frankly I think it is distinctly creepy that anyone should construe that song as creepy. If you think it is, there is something wrong with you. It is only remotely creepy according to the ludicrously rigid sexual standards of early 21st century America, where a woman on her 18th birthday suddenly goes from being a completely untouchable child to a potential sex vixen ready for any kink or perversion anyone might care to try and talk her into.

Others of these songs were intended to be shocking at the time (e.g., “Stray Cat Blues”). The Stones probably didn’t really think it was ok to fuck 13 year olds, but they wanted to burnish their profitable image as dangerous and very bad boys. Yet others are about a guy trying to discourage the attentions of a girl he knows is too young for him - he is tempted, but knows she is too young for a relationship to be appropriate, and he is doing his best to do the right thing (e.g., “Young Girl”, “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”). The male protagonist is trying his best not to be a creep (and mostly winning). Some, on the other hand, were downright creepy at the time they appeared (e.g., “My Sharona” - and frankly I always thought Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Claire” to be very creepy. Yes it is ostensibly about babysitting, but it does have a real pedo vibe to it IMHO.).

My contribution to the list is “Come Up the Years” by Jefferson Airplane, which I think is at least mildly creepy, although it is not very clear how old the girl is meant to be. He certainly thinks she is too young for him, but he really wants her, and in this case it is not clear that his conscience is winning, or which side the listener is expected to be on.

And what about “Born Too Late” by The Poni-Tails? This sung in the character of an apparently underage girl, wishing that an older man would take an interest in her. I think there is some ick factor here, even though the guy in question is not even thinking about the girl, let alone doing anything. Whoever wrote it, though, does seem to be having a somewhat creepy fantasy going on (and the listener is presumably supposed to to be titillated by it).