I was at the gym yesterday listening to Pandora on my headphones and “I Saw Her Again” by the Mommas and the Pappas came on. I’d never really paid attention to the lyrics before but, wow, what a selfish asshole!
And he knows his behavior is bad but keeps doing it anyway.
“Run For Your Life” by The Beatles (which begins “I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man,” quoted from the Elvis Presley song “Baby Let’s Play House”)
Rob Paravonian did a bit in his stand-up act about how Sugar Ray’s “Every Morning” is a little disturbing if you start to think about it, and a lot disturbing if you keep going.
Every Breath You Take - The Police (damn, ninja’d !!!)
Are we making a sub-distinction between songs where the protagonist is overtly asserting his badness/villainy like that and “Under My Thumb” or “Run for your Life”, fully aware of it, or where he’s making excuses for his behavior as in “I Saw Her Again” or taking it casually as in “Escape”?
Can’t get much more dickish than the character in Warren Zevon’s Mr. Bad Example:
I started as an altar boy, working at the church
Learning all my holy moves, doing some research
Which led me to a cash box, labeled “Children’s Fund”
I’d leave the change, and tuck the bills inside my cummerbund
My favorite line comes a bit later:
Of course I went to law school and took a law degree…
mmm