# songs that were popular, but today the singer would be arrested **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 18, 2007, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464 "2007-03-18T18:19:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2016, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/101 "2016-09-26T22:37:16Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > I still don’t get it. Post #81 was made on 7-25-2010. Post #82 was made on 9-22-2016, over 6 years later. People on here like to call that a “zombie” since the thread has been “raised from the dead”. Hence, the posting of the song “Zombie” by The Cranberries was an attempt to make the “zombie joke” that some posters are fond of doing. ---
**Author:** ![TBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@TBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBG)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/102 "2016-09-27T00:09:12Z")
I imagine Love Potion #9 would be very problematic to certain types in 2016, even if in the song the titular potion backfires on the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/103 "2016-09-27T00:43:15Z")
I started thinking recently that Roy Orbison’s _Pretty Woman_ wouldn’t go over as well today. It’s basically about accosting a woman on the street (the kind of “unwanted attention” that has made the news in recent years) … and the end of the song seems to indicate that it actually _works_. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/104 "2016-09-27T01:50:29Z")
> [@Accidental\_Martyr](#): > > Post #81 was made on 7-25-2010. Post #82 was made on 9-22-2016, over 6 years later. People on here like to call that a “zombie” since the thread has been “raised from the dead”. Hence, the posting of the song “Zombie” by The Cranberries was an attempt to make the “zombie joke” that some posters are fond of doing. But what does that have to do about the singer, or the poster, or anybody else for that matter, being arrested? ---
**Author:** ![Accidental\_Martyr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ce7236/32.png) [@Accidental\_Martyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Accidental_Martyr)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/105 "2016-09-27T02:21:16Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > But what does that have to do about the singer, or the poster, or anybody else for that matter, being arrested? Nothing. The entire premise of anyone being arrested for any of these songs is a big overstatement. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/106 "2016-09-27T02:50:11Z")
Among songs which – “arrested”, or not – definitely would not “fly” today: the British music-hall song from about a hundred years ago, _Old Johnny Bigger_ – the chorus of which runs: “Old Johnny Bigger was a gay old n\*\*\*\*\*, And a gay old n\*\*\*\*\* was he.” Racism, homophobia and ageism, all in one… Oddly enough, the song itself is quite innocuous: just recounting rather tame antics on the part of Mr. Bigger and his lady wife, such as could very well have been enacted by anyone of any race. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/107 "2016-09-27T03:12:04Z")
If Body Count’s “Cop Killer” was released today, it would result in death threats from law enforcement officers, the President himself would call the record “obscene”, and…oh, wait. > [@Osip](#): > > The most wrong song I have heard on the radio lately was “I love Little Girls” by Oingo Boingo. “Edge of the World” by Faith No More is more of the same. ---
**Author:** ![ricksummon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ricksummon/32/3333_2.png) [@ricksummon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ricksummon)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/108 "2016-09-27T03:25:08Z")
In 1985, Falco’s _Rock Me Amadeus_ was well-known, but another song from the same album was [Jeanny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanny_(song)), about a stalker who kidnaps a 19-year-old girl and is thrown into an insane asylum when caught. _Sie kommen… sie kommen, dich zu holen. Aber sie werden dich nicht finden! NIEMAND wird dich finden! **DU BIST BEI MIR!** _ They’re coming… they’re coming to get you. But they won’t find you! NO ONE will find you! YOU ARE WITH ME! ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/109 "2016-09-27T14:26:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > They wouldn’t get arrested, but it would certainly be beyond the current bounds of taste. > > In his Book of Bad Songs, Dave Barry wrote about a sing with the line or title “He Hit Me , and it Felt Like a Kiss”. I suspect the group would feel like it was being kissed a lot, these days. _He hit me and it felt like a kiss_ is a line from the 1909 play _Liliom_ by Ferenc Molnár, made into a Hollywood movie in 1930 and again in 1956 as the musical _Carousel_. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464/110 "2016-09-27T19:18:20Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > _He hit me and it felt like a kiss_ is a line from the 1909 play _Liliom_ by Ferenc Molnár, made into a Hollywood movie in 1930 and again in 1956 as the musical _Carousel_. And that line is used in the play. > [@](#): > > there was a strange man here, and he hit me hard. I heard the sound of it, Mother, but it didn’t hurt. It didn’t hurt at all. It was just as if he kissed my hand. > [@](#): > > It is possible dear, for someone to hit you, hit you hard, and it not hurt at all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/songs-that-were-popular-but-today-the-singer-would-be-arrested/396464.md?page=5)