I was talking to a friend of mine last week about the lyrics of some of today’s hit songs. There are no coy disguises, no double entendres … what you hear is what you get.
And, if for whatever reason you aren’t interpreting what they’re putting down, you just have to witness a live performance and you’re suddenly all the wiser.
I re-read the above and I wonder if my choice of subject has something to do with catching an article this week about the ‘Golden Girls’. I learned that Bea Arthur was two years younger than I am now when the series began. Blanche, get me some cheesecake, stat!
The fact is, songs, commercials and words in general haven’t changed as much as we think; they just no longer hide behind verbal airbrushing.
When I was about 10 or 11 years old, ‘Hot Child in the City’ by Nick Gilder (Seriously? A guy sang that?? I always thought it was a woman … ) was playing on the radio all the time. My friends at school and I danced to it and sang along. I can’t recall whether it was a school talent show or just something our class put together, but I told our teacher that three of us girls could dress up and perform to it … and she agreed! I think I chose it because I was sure boots would be involved, and I loved boots. Boots was the goal.
As soon as my mother heard about the cunning plan, she shut it down. For some reason, having her young daughter dancing to a song that was inspired by young prostitutes on the street wasn’t happening while there was still breath left in her body. The teacher saw sense pretty quickly as well, nodding in agreement with my mother’s opinion.
Of course, I thought Mum was a right spoilsport, but years later I saw the wisdom of it.
Another song with a questionable message for anyone under the age of 20 was that ghastly number ‘I’ve Never Been to Me’ – a huge hit on the US charts in 1982 and sung by Charlene. At the time, I adored it; it was so soulful. The only part I really couldn’t stomach – then and now – is the part when she starts wittering on in spoken words. So uncomfortable. But, apart from that, it was in my top five favourites when I was the tender age of 13.
There was no mention of a school performance this time around, but having me tootling “ … I’ve been undressed by kings, and I’ve seen some things, that a woman ain’t supposed to see … ” around the house didn’t sit well at all. Thing is, I didn’t know the meaning of what I was singing. I just liked the song and those were the lyrics.
‘Paradise by the Dashboard Light’? ‘Greased Lightnin’? ‘Afternoon Delight’?? “Keep turning that radio dial until you find ‘Desiderata’ and let’s all take a breath!”
(If ANYONE grew up here in the ‘70s and ‘80s as we did, you’ll remember Radio Cayman sending out that number a goodly few times a day.)
Just like misheard lyrics, it can be so interesting to listen to songs we haven’t heard in decades, and suddenly realise what they were really saying. “Ohhh … NOW I get it!”
Of course, you then have the zealots who could find double meaning in anything. Miss Muffet sitting on a tuffet?? Quick! Gather the children!
Just as with songs, advertisements a few decades back kind of masked the subject of what they were promoting. Mentioning feminine hygiene products was like talking about your shady uncle who had bilked family friends of all their money and fled the country – you just didn’t do it. Did you know that such commercials were banned on TV and radio in the US until 1972? I don’t know when I heard the word ‘tampon’ on TV, but the first time ‘period’ was said in a commercial was in 1985 by none other than ‘Friends’ alum Courteney Cox. And she said it a buncha times – swinging for the fences; go big or go home! It’s kind of bonkers how normal it is now, but back then it was groundbreaking stuff. She was 21 years old and who knows what it might have done to her career – spouting such profanity across the airwaves. Nine years later, she won the role of Monica Geller, so clearly she and Tampax survived.
Companies didn’t exactly explain what douches were all about either. A daughter asking her mother advice as they walk down the beach together – seen through such a soft filter, you could barely make out their faces – certainly didn’t get into the nitty gritty of it all. In fact, as a young teenager, I was so in the dark that I gifted a friend of mine a box of red, heart-shaped douche sachets from the Cayman Foods supermarket (where the Lighthouse School/Prospect Playhouse theatre now reside). I saved up my pocket money to get them for her birthday because they looked pretty and I thought they were perfume. I bet her mother was impressed.
“Well, I’ve been to Georgia, and California, and … anywhere I could run … ”
That kind of (adorable) ignorance doesn’t happen as much these days. There is endless in-your-face programming and everything you can pick up from the internet, so barely any room for subtlety or misinterpretation.
In some ways, that’s a good thing, although I do love me a bit of Barry Manilow from time to time. I highly doubt ‘Copacabana’ had anything subliminal going on. Reminds me of when I had a crush on the Village People; wholesome, working lads who could really rock a tune. No mystery, no games … just six men looking for six ladies to love. Simple.
Related Videos
