One I’m shocked hasn’t been mentioned yet is “My Sharona” by the Knack:
So he’s emphasizing youth here, obviously. No age is mentioned, but it seems more than iffy.
But the phrase “get it up” was pretty outrageous by itself. Why did this fly (everywhere, oh goddamn everywhere if you were alive then…) in 1979? I think people were just a bit more naive about sex then: “Oh he can’t mean that”. And there wasn’t social media to let one person point out these skeevy lyrics to all his/her friends.
Oh, and the Knack’s followup album was entitled, “…But the Little Girls Understand”. WTF?! So this wasn’t a one-off thing with this band.
**I Saw Her Standing There **wasn’t that controversial when it was written in 1962 and is pretty much old fashioned and quaint today.
The age of sexual consent in the UK had been 16 years of age for around 80 years previously when Paul McCartney wrote the song. So even if the lyrics about dancing all night and falling in love are euphemisms for sex there is no problem. After all, the opening line makes clear she was 17…
McCartney himself was 20 when he wrote it and his then girlfriend was… 17. Back in the early 60s it was completely normal for a boy to be a few years older than his girlfriend.
Way back in 1979 Elvis Costello (as Elvis Costello and the Attractions) released his biggest UK hit Oliver’s Army and there was no real issue over the line
All it takes is one itchy trigger
One more widow, one less white nigger
Thirty years after the release the BBC started censoring the word nigger.
Another song recorded by Jack Jones: “Girl Talk” (words and music by Bobby Troup):
…inconsequential things that men don’t really care to know
Become essential things that women find so ap-pro-pos –
But that’s a dame, they’re all the same it’s just a game they call it
Girl talk, girl talk
Shame too - great chord progression and melody.
And for a few more dBs of chauvinism, check out this video of Troup singing it in a women’s changing room.
How far would Quantum Jump get with their only hit single today? The hit single **The Lone Ranger **which famously used (Maori masquerading as Native American)
On it’s first release in 1976 it was initially made BBC record of the week before the BBC then banned it. Possibly because the lyrics implied Tonto was a cannibal:
*Me Tonto Kimosabi
Me go and catchee baddy
Deep within Apache forest
Find him, scalp him, eat him up for breakfast
*
Had drug references suggesting Tonto’s pipe of peace had intoxicating narcotics in it. Which Tonto shared with the Lone Ranger and also Silver the horse.
Plus also had the lyrics
Tonto know that Kimosabi
Never ever have a woman
Tonto sometime stop and wonder
What the trip with the great white brother Maybe masked man he a poofter
Try it on with surly Tonto
Let me say to mister lawman
Tonto doesn’t mind
The song having been squashed and no other song getting any interest Quantum Jump disbanded a year later but interest in the song was revived in 1979 after extensive play by (BBC DJ)** Kenny Everett** and it became a top 5 hit and a reassembled band appeared on top BBC pop show Top of the Pops to promote it.
This is a good point. I was surprised to see ‘Dancing Queen’ listed. It’s written from the perspective of the girl IMO and there’s nothing to suggest she’s not dancing with/ looking for 17 year old guys. That’s what I always thought anyway when we sang along as teenage girls.
Baby, It’s Cold Outside still gets played and redone though it is seemingly about a guy trying to pressure his girl into a little post date action while she protests the entire time.
While the subject of this song is icky, they acknowledge the relationship is wrong in the song. I can’t see any reason this song could not be made today.
Do you remember sweet Michelle
She was my high school romance
She was fun to talk to and nice to smell
So I took her to the homecoming dance
Then I tied her to a chair and I shaved off all her hair
And I left her in the desert all alone
Well sometimes in my dreams
I can still hear the screams
Oh I wonder if she ever made it home
(Bolding mine) I just read the lyrics with this in mind and dang that’s heartbreaking. And for people to interpret the song as pedo-y is extra heartbreaking.
