Unskinny bop bop bop bop

Cafe Society
1

OK, I know this is technically my own fault for digging up my old Poison records, but what can I say? I love 1980s glam rock.

So, now that I’ve got this ditty forever stuck in my head, what the hell does “Unskinny bop” mean?

I surmise, perhaps incorrectly, that it’s a bop which is fat. But I still don’t know what a bop is.

The lyrics are borderline lewd and contain such romantic imagery as:

I am shocked (shocked!) that a respectable institution like a rock band would write such licentious similes.

2

If you like it, you need to hear the cover version by The New Morty Show, a swing/lounge band.

3

The band’s “official” version is that it doesn’t mean anything.

And, while it’s unlikely that a band like Poison would hide a story for reasons of modesty, I distinctly remember hearing at least one interview and being at at least one show where Bret said that “unskinny bop” had something, if not everything, to do with C.C.'s tendency to indulge himself in whatever was around, sometimes two at a time, and I remember the story having Bret walk in and be absolutely disgusted (in a “duuuuuuuuude, that’s pretty cool, but I’m glad you ain’t me” kinda way) by the antics of two women of less-than-stellar attributes aggressively having their way with his semi-incapacitated bandmate.

-Scrappy, who last saw Poison live summer '06.

4

“She-bop” (I bop and we bop) is supposedly about masturbation, if that adds anything to the mix.

5

The story at the time was about doing it with overweight girls, but like in the Wikipedia link, that wound up being the “cover story” – it really didn’t mean anything.

-Hal, who pulled C.C. off the stage and into the crowd at L’Amour East, August of 1987.

(and who just realized that we’re coming up on twenty fucking years since that night…Geez…)