Standing On The Corner is kind of creepy if you listen to it nowadays.
*Standing on the corner giving all the girls the eye
Brother, if you’ve got a rich imagination
Give it a whirl, give it a try…
Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking
Or for the woo look in your eye
You’re only standing on the corner watching all the girls
Watching all the girls, watching all the girls…*
So you’ve got this guy hanging out on a corner leering at women, imagining what he’d like to do with them. And if he’s confronted? ‘Hey, I’m just standing here! You can’t arrest me for what I’m thinking! Huminahuminahumina.’ Today they might find a reason to arrest someone who’s ‘eyeing little girls with bad intent’ (to lift from another song). I don’t know if a creepy guy leering at grown women would be arrested for anything (loitering?), but I think he’d probably get some unwanted attention.
In the 1940’s, it was considered the natural male thing to do.
In the 2010’s, it is stalking.
The times they are a-changin’.
You know it’s from a musical, right? The Most Happy Fella. It’s just supposed to be a lighthearted tune sung by guys who are jealous of their friend, who just found a beautiful woman to love.
And “The Rape Ballet” is from a lighthearted musical, too, but the times have changed around it, and the term “rape” became, for the movie version, “abduction.”
Uh, okay. I was actually responding to the OP. And just for the record, the musical came out in 1956 and was set in 1927. It had nothing to do with the '40s.
It’s not even stalking by today’s standards. It’s not like they’re following the girls home, or setting up high-power binoculars across the street. They’re just watching the girls walking by. Or have we gotten to the point where even looking at someone is considered stalking?
And the bigger question is why you believe that the thoughts of the men are about rape. Consensual sex is not rape, and isn’t evil by any standards other than the Moral Majority’s. Men think about women every minute of the day and women think about men every minute of the day.
Lots of things have changed about society since the 1950s. Wife beating is now an acknowledged crime. The “unwritten law” that husbands were allowed to kill their wives’ lover with impunity has been abandoned. Date rape now has a name and a stigma.
Looking and thinking was legitimate then and legitimate now. The OP, though, I have to wonder seriously about.
Yeah, I don’t see it as at all creepy, either. What’s wrong with looking at pretty ladies?
Maybe creepy if it’s some ole granddad but typically I think these sentiments are universally accepted as normal for younger dudes.
By some people’s standards (not mine), yes.
Average of 1927 & 1956 = 1942. It was a very average year.
Actually, I first heard the song in the late 50’s, but it certainly didn’t fit with the burgeoning rock N Roll era that I identified with, and seemed like a reflection of a much earlier time. '40s is close enough. And then, last year, our local high school used it in a spring concert, and I thought, “What an out-of-place, archaic song.”
There’s a difference between seeing a girl and thinking, ‘Yeah, I’d do her,’ and hanging out making a day of having fantasies about every girl that walks by.
Even assuming that it’s literally every girl that walks by, the only thing that changes is that the singer either apparently has relatively low standards, or lives in a place blessed with an abundance of beautiful women.
When standing on the corner watching all the girls go by is outlawed, I’m going to be in big, big trouble.