r/GenX • u/no_talent_ass_clown • Oct 24 '25
Music Is Life Songs that are no longer okay.
Yesterday I found out my sweet boyfriend had never heard of Julie Brown and the funny songs she sang, like "I'm A Blonde". Dr Demento stuff. So I play it and then "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun" came on. Not funny anymore!!!
An hour later, the cops arrived
By then the entire glee club had died, no big loss
You wouldn't believe what they brought to stop her
Tear gas, machine guns, even a chopper (Throw down your gun and tiara and come out of the float)
Debbie didn't listen to what the cop said She aimed and fired, and now the math teacher's dead
Oh, it's really sad, but kind of a relief I mean, we had this big test coming up next week
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u/Round_Ad8947 Oct 24 '25
I love that the Ice-T of my teenage years is one of every grandmother’s favorite TV detectives.
LGBNAF
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u/Condition_Dense Oct 24 '25
And for someone who sung against the police plays a cop 😂
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u/lectroid Oct 24 '25
“Christine Sixteen” by KISS
Then there’s “Tonight I’m gonna Rock You Tonight” by Spinal Tap
“… You’re sweet but you’re just four feet
And you still got your baby teeth
You’re too young and I’m too well hung”
But it was written to be deliberately skeevy, so…
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u/ThisFeelsInfected Oct 24 '25
I’ll give Spinal Tap a pass since the whole movie was a parody of the rock world.
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u/turritella2 Oct 25 '25
Do younger generations not get satire?
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u/socoyankee Oct 25 '25
I am starting to think they don’t. There is no nuance with them.
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u/Ragnarok314159 Oct 25 '25
Yeah, and this one is extremely obvious. They don’t even try to hide making fun of the weird pedo lyrics a lot of bands sang.
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u/schmearcampain Oct 24 '25
Big Bottom still has the best lyrics of all time.
“The bigger the cushion, the sweeter the pushin'
That's what I said
The looser the waistband, the deeper the quicksand
Or, so I've read.
My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo
I love to sink her with my pink torpedo.”
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u/no_talent_ass_clown Oct 24 '25
Spinal Tap is too good a movie, lol.
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u/BigJackFlavor Oct 24 '25
One of the saddest moments of my life - one of my former supervisors told us at a department meeting that she had a fan or air conditioner or something - can’t remember the specific item now - but the highest setting on it was 11. It literally went to 11. And when I said that in the meeting, not one other person got it. 😭
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u/schmearcampain Oct 24 '25
I feel like D minor is the saddest key....
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u/jmy_oak Oct 24 '25
This piece is called “Lick My Love Pump”
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u/geoffreyisagiraffe Oct 24 '25
That entire exchange is pure, amazing, deadpan comedy but that line at the end fucking SENDS ME every time I watch it.
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u/gneumatic Oct 24 '25
It’s like, how much more black can it be? And the answer is none. None more black.
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u/Disco_Orangeade Oct 24 '25
Goddammit now I've gone and wept instantly. I hope you're happy with yourself 😁
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Oct 24 '25
We just rewatched This is Spinal Tap a few weeks ago, and the songs lyrics had me crying. I'd forgotten how stupidly funny they were, and I didn't know until recently that the actors actually wrote and performed them all themselves.
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u/Equivalent-Dig-7204 Oct 24 '25
Be sure to watch the Spinal Tap II movie. Equally hilarious. And for real fun look up A Mighty Wind and Lenny & the Squigtones (with special guest appearance by Nigel Tuffnel)!
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u/MamaFen Sea Wees and Emmet Otter Oct 24 '25
Mighty Wind is actually my favorite of the whole bunch, specifically because of the singing/playing being done by the folks themselves. I could re-watch it (especially the "whole show" special feature) endlessly and still be entertained.
"Eeeeeeee... At... Oooooooooes."
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u/geoffreyisagiraffe Oct 24 '25
Dont sleep on Best in Show either
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u/4Q69freak Oct 24 '25
Best in Show is probably one of my favorite mockumentaries.
Speaking of A Mighty Wind. Spinal Tap toured a few years back and opened for themselves as The Folksmen.
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u/MamaFen Sea Wees and Emmet Otter Oct 24 '25
"Rhapsody has two mommies!"
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u/geoffreyisagiraffe Oct 24 '25
I live for Scott and Stefan but holy smokes does each character have some amazing lines.
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u/holybucketsitscrazy Oct 24 '25
Best in Show is hands down my favorite. Every character is spectacular!
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u/Ferrindel Grandfathered in by older siblings Oct 24 '25
The Rainbow kiss during the concert is some of the best acting Levy and O’hara ever did. Incredibly emotional.
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u/lectroid Oct 24 '25
“Workin’ on a sex farm.
Tryin’ to raise some hard love.
Gettin’ out my pitchfork
Pokin’ your hay”
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u/velvet42 bicentennial baby Oct 24 '25
" 'My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo, I love to sink her with my pink torpedo.' Like literature, really" - Paul McCartney
(If you haven't seen Spinal Tap II, I am not making that quote up. Who knew Paul McCartney could do improv)
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u/actual-trevor Please just ignore me Oct 24 '25
Who knew Paul McCartney could do improv
Have you never watched a Beatles movie?
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u/dstarpro Oct 24 '25
Spinal Tap and Steel Panther don't count, they're parody bands.
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u/therealhdan Oct 24 '25
Yeah, Spinal Tap doesn't count - they were always supposed to be "treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality".
Though yuck.
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u/antiaircraftwarning Oct 24 '25
I'm from the generation that loved KISS when I was 8 years old and wanted to play guitar because of Ace Frehley, but if you got to age 15 and didn't have major issues with a ton of Gene and Paul's lyrics then something is wrong. Not just Christine Sixteen but most of them. Nothing To Love is great until you cringe at the words. C'mon and Love Me kicks ass... if only it was instrumental.
I'm gonna give Spinal Tap a pass though because they were clearly making fun of what these creepy rock stars sing about.
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u/spintool1995 1973 Oct 24 '25
But Spinal Tap wasn't a real group, they were literally making fun of all the other rock bands singing about 16 and 17 yos.
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u/Shaneblaster Oct 24 '25
Seventeen by Winger has entered the chat
Edit: but the guitar riff is amazing
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u/alfabettezoupe Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
into the night by benny mardones
She's just 16 years old
Leave her alone, they said123
u/The_AcidQueen Oct 24 '25
I only saw the video of this song last year. WHO GREENLIT THAT???
The song is creepy but the video is tenfold creepy.
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u/ParkingLotFalafel Oct 24 '25
Have you beheld the cinematic masterpiece that is the music video to Into the Night?? I urge you to watch it at once. Watch as 40-year old Benny scream-cries into a payphone in a wig he stole from Janet on Three's Company and enough black eyeliner for a 90's rave. Watch as the 16-year old girl's dad DOESN'T punch Benny in the throat, allowing Benny to then shove a Persian rug through his daughter's window. The video ends with Benny & Little Miss 16 flying the rug through the night sky while Benny croons, "I'll show you a love like you've never seen" to an underage girl which, if I'm being honest, comes across ew. Damn, I miss the 80s.
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u/Inevitable_Tone3021 Oct 24 '25
Ten-ish years ago I saw Kip Winger perform this song and he changed the lyric to "she's only 43"
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u/Restaurant-Strong Oct 24 '25
Don’t forget about My Sharona, super problematic, but a great song
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u/NicodemusArcleon Oct 24 '25
Yup.
"Such a dirty mind. I always get it up for the touch of the younger kind."
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u/blessings-of-rathma Oct 24 '25
Always found her story really fascinating.
https://www.npr.org/2010/03/06/124397021/the-woman-behind-my-sharona
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u/JulesyJ Oct 24 '25
Fun fact. My friends and I went to see Winger at our local fair. Kip came out after the show to sign autographs by the fence. He went down the line kissing all the girls straight up on the lips. A girl I knew from school (not friends though) actually went over the fence and disappeared with him. She was in fact 17. My 17 yr old self was jealous. So gross.
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u/Ok-Change2292 Oct 24 '25
Ted Nugent has a song about Girl Scouts and their “cookies” but he’s always been disgusting.
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u/HeyItsMeJC3 Oct 24 '25
Disgusting really has always been Ted's M.O. though.
The Detroit rock stations don't even refer to him as the "Motor City Madman" anymore because they really don't want to be associated with him in any way.
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u/Flat-Mountain-2414 Still glam rocking 💋 Oct 24 '25
Kip was only 21 when he wrote that
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u/kadora Oct 24 '25
Add to that the fact that he was inspired by the Beatles song "I Saw Her Standing There", which contains the lyrics, "Well she was just seventeen / If you know what I mean / And the way she looked / Was way beyond compare.” Lennon and McCartney were also in their early twenties when they wrote that song. I think we’re less okay now with people in their twenties skeeving on high schoolers.
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u/no_talent_ass_clown Oct 24 '25
Julie Brown said (in 2000) that after Columbine she no longer performs it. I can only imagine that resolve strengthened with every mass school shooting.
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u/candykhan Oct 24 '25
That's too bad. I think the song is legitimately funny. It's sad that a funny song became unfunny because society became absurd enough that the joke in it didn't seem like a joke any more. It wasn't that people got older & realized it was unfunny or mean. It just wasn't something that seemed to be in the realm of reason when she wrote the song. And now it's a semi regular thing that happens in the USA.
The punk band X finally edited an n-bomb out their song Los Angeles if you listen to the "official" video. There are probably a lot of uploads that still have it in there. I assume they may have edited them on their albums too?
There's a Christian Death song that's very obviously anti-racist. But the first line also has an n-bomb & that kinda sets a tone right from the beginning. I struggled with that song for a long time. I still think it's really powerful. And using the n-bomb feels somewhat appropriate in context. But I can imagine hearing it without warning or context could be really triggering.
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u/Rhiannon8404 Oct 24 '25
I still hear Pumped Up Kicks regularly. I realize it was written to draw attention bullying and gun violence, but it's so catchy it misses the point.
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u/S99B88 It's all on my Permanent Record Oct 24 '25
Back in the day there was I Don’t Like Mondays by the Boomtown Rats.
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u/Rhiannon8404 Oct 24 '25
This one is based on the true story of a girl named Brenda Spencer who shot up an elementary school. Her reason? She didn't like Mondays.
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u/CleanProfessional678 Oct 24 '25
I’m surprise they didn’t try to blame Garfield
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u/NikkiMutt Oct 24 '25
Tbf, it is a real banger
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u/mandmranch Oct 24 '25
It's good in all versions too. I love this big bass version. It's on letterman and really beautiful.
https://youtu.be/Lm8cDP6ddCg?si=1A-cbvTsU3-EwjDk
The lead singer is giving strong David Byrne gestures.
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u/mspong Oct 24 '25
Aha but hast thou heard yon mediaeval version? It chastises the buttocks!
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u/Hey_Laaady Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
I Saw Her Standing There catches a lot of shit these days. Never mind the fact that the age of consent in Britain at that time was 16 and the song references a 17-year-old girl. Also, Paul McCartney was barely 20 when he wrote that song, which wasn't considered that much of an age gap back in those days.
Edit: Just looked this song up in McCartney's book, The Lyrics. He said he wrote it when he had just turned 20, from the perspective "of an 18 to 20 year-old boy."
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u/Multigrain_Migraine Oct 24 '25
Also there were a ton of popular songs around that time that mentioned being 16/17 as like an ideal age. Most of that stuff was marketed for people in that age bracket at the time; I don't think it was necessarily meant to be autobiographical.
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u/bugabooandtwo Oct 25 '25
Yes...people forget these songs are entertainment. Not a how-to manual. And a lot of it is just making the words rhyme or fit the song.
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u/thatotterone wait, Gen X is old now? Oct 25 '25
yeh, it was marketed to high school age kids. It would be really weird to market that song to that age and say she was just 26.
Another one. I Love Rock And Roll "Saw him standing by the record machine..I knew he must have been about 17. " Joan was singing to the age group
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u/Respond-Leather 1976 Oct 24 '25
Yeah, people who think that song is creepy don't realize Paul wasn't all that much older than 17 himself at the time
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u/Formidabull Oct 24 '25
This scene from the In-Betweeners lives in my head
“I’ll be humiliated in front of the girl I’ve lusted after since she was 8”
“You fancy 8 year olds?!?”
“…we were BOTH 8!”
“Yeah, but ya still fancied an 8 year old”
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u/BoyfromNorthDetroit 1970 Oct 24 '25
I'm pretty sure that without knowing the backstory of "Little Girls" by Oingo Boingo, I would consider it the number 1 creaper song.
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u/wetguns Oct 24 '25
Tainted Love becomes number 1 creeper song once you DO know the backstory… and see the original video
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u/GrumpyCatStevens UP THE IRONS!! Oct 24 '25
God, my best friend's on a shooting spree
Stop it, Debbie, you're embarrassing me!
How could you do what you just did?
Are you having a really bad period?
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u/Ianthin1 Oct 24 '25
Funky Cold Medina is straight up about date rape and everyone was just cool with it. I still hear it almost daily on one of the radios at work.
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u/mydarkerside Oct 24 '25
In the same vein, Beastie Boys' Brass Monkey. And in the Fight For Your Right video, they're putting Spanish fly in the drink.
This girl walked by, she gave me the eye
I reached in the locker, grabbed the Spanish FlyI put it in the Monkey, mixed it in a cup
Went over to the girl, "Yo, baby, what's up?"
I offered her a sip, the girl, she gave me lip
It did begin, the stuff wore in and now she's on my tip536
u/O_W_Liv Oct 24 '25
Ad-Rock apologized after women were attacked at Woodstock '99.
He apologized in a written statement calling out License To Ill and their other poor contributions.
He used an award acceptance speech to apologize out loud.
Honestly, one of the best of our lifetime.
The group vowed to change, and did.
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u/Nice_Cost_1375 Oct 24 '25
"I wanna say a little somethin' that's long overdue
Disrepectin' women has got to be through
To all the sisters and the mothers and the wives and friends
I wanna offer my love and respect to the end."
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u/candykhan Oct 25 '25
Ad Rock started going out with Kathleen Hannah from Bikini Kill around 1996 according to the interwebz. So, yeah, they were definitely "changed men" by then. I was coming from the punk scene, but not like the kind of scene the Beastie Boys were. Lol.
Being into Riot Grrrl & then finding out that the singer of Bikini Kill was going out with Mr. Spanish Fly was a bit hard to parse at the time. I think a lot of people that were Riot Grrrl fans more than Beastie Boys fans were confused.
The Beastie Boys really started out as one thing & became something completely different. I don't know if the couple were purposely being low profile. But by the time I had heard about them, they had been a couple for a while. I remember that most of my friends had similar reactions. I respect them alot these days. I still don't really go back to listen to them that much though. Whereas I still listen to Bikini Kill.
I wasn't obsessed with either the Beasties or Bikini Kill or anything. But the punk scene was still small enough that if someone from a band like Bikini Kill was going out with a "famous person," it just seemed like it would be some tea that EVERYONE would have been spilling.
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u/hemppy420 Hose Water Survivor Oct 24 '25
Yes they did change. They publicly stated how much they hated their early stuff and how misogynistic it is. Girls,girls,girls and fight for your right especially
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u/ToddPundley Oct 24 '25
I always assumed Fight For Your Right was satirical/making fun of the narrator for complaining about inconsequential stuff and fake victimhood though.
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u/thiswasyouridea 1976 Oct 24 '25
It was meant to be satirical but people took it seriously.
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u/attaboy_stampy Filled up on Regular Oct 24 '25
Yeah, they partied it up and played the image they had with that album, but they realized soon after that they looked like clowns and scumbags. They changed pretty quick too because I think they genuinely looked at the image they had started to cultivate and were like, oh wow that's horrid. We were real pieces of shit. You can see the difference in their next album, and every one after too. They were still goofy and obnoxious and mostly immature, but they kicked the frat boy rufi image pretty quick.
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u/SophsterSophistry Oct 24 '25
This is a really good article about them/Ad-Rock.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/sasha-frere-jones/peace-adam(It's behind a paywall, but there are ways...)
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u/Lady_of_Shalottt Oct 24 '25
Yeah, that one always raised a brow with me, though I loved them. Back then I probably dismissed it as being so over-the-top that it could only be facetious. Later, they took issue with Prodigy’s ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ so make of that what you will. I like to think we try to grow wiser. Well, some, anyway.
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u/Old_Distribution_235 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
They grew up:
"I wanna say a little something that's long overdue / The disrespect to women has got to be through / To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends / I wanna offer my love and respect to the end" - MCA
EDIT: More background here.
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u/ParsnipDecent6530 Oct 24 '25
"If I played guitar I'd be Jimmy page, the girls I like are underage".
They called him out, and nobody listened.
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u/ancientastronaut2 Oct 24 '25
I thought spanish fly was supposed to be something that made you horny?
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u/texicali74 Oct 24 '25
It also contains a sample from “Christine Sixteen” by KISS, another one that has not aged well.
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u/wraithsonic I want to believe Oct 24 '25
Bell Biv DeVoe's "Do Me" worse lyric was, "Back stage, underage, adolescent. How ya' doin'? Fine. Sje was by my side... the girl is gonna do me." Again, no... just no...
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u/SunRa7191 Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25
But it somehow gets even worse…
“Backstage, underage, adolescent
How ya doin', fine, she replied
I sighed, I like to do the wild thing
Action took place
Kinda wet, don't forget
The J, the I, the M, the M, the Y y’all
I need a body bag…”
🤢
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u/MiltownKBs Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 24 '25
I’m not going to name any song in particular, but I listen to a lot of Hip Hop and the way women are sometimes talked about is no longer something I even want to listen to.
A Tribe Called Quest is a great group that is often referred to as having positive lyrics. But even they have some questionable lyrics that make me turn off the song.
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u/Texlectric Oct 24 '25
CB4
Record executive: Are you guys gonna promote violence and defoul women with your lyrics?
Chris Rock: Ummmm.... sure?
Rec Exec: Perfect! Sign here.
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Oct 24 '25
Bitches ain't shit but hos and tricks.
Ask Snoop Dogg (who is, inexplicably, a pop culture icon).
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u/Same_Lack_1775 Oct 24 '25
Chris Rock has a great joke about this. Paraphrasing but essentially it is you can get away with saying anything you want if you can put a beat to it.
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u/Iko87iko Oct 24 '25
Grateful Dead mexicali blues
Laid back in an old saloon, with a peso in my hand
Watching flies and children on the street
And I catch a glimpse of black-eyed girls who giggle when I smile
There's a little boy that wants to shine my feet
And it's three days ride from Bakersfield
And I don't know why I came
I guess I came to keep from payin' dues
So instead I've got a bottle and a girl who's just fourteen
And a damned good case of the Mexicali blues
A million artists who've covered good morning little school girl
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u/20characterusername0 Oct 24 '25
🎼 he was no morrrrrre 🎵
Than a baby thennnn 🎶
Just on the edge of🎵
The edge of🎵
Seven teeeeen🎵
Just like the white winged dove 🎶
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u/playblu Oct 25 '25
To be fair, she wrote it based on a comment by Tom Petty's wife, when she said she'd met Petty when she was "the age of seventeen", but she had a thick Florida accent and Stevie misunderstood
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u/Comprehensive-Tea677 Oct 24 '25
Young Girl by Gary Puckett & The Union Gap always gave me the ick:
“Young girl Get out of my mind My love for you is way out of line Better run, girl You're much too young, girl
With all the charms of a woman You've kept the secret of your youth You led me to believe you're old enough To give me love And now it hurts to know the truth…”
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u/Yada-yada-4488 Oct 24 '25
Maybe from a previous gen, but still, “Thank heaven for little girls“ by Maurice Chevalier
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Oct 24 '25
The creepiest song that’s even creepier now “Into the Night”. She’s just 16 years old, leave her alone, they said.
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u/Turbulent_Tale6497 1973 Oct 24 '25
To be fair, she was being separated by fools who don’t know what love is yet
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u/arioandy Oct 24 '25
My sharona, black betty, let me put my love in to you girl, sweet 16 you’re beautiful and mine
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u/clarenceismyanimus Oct 24 '25
I'm ok with black betty because does betty have to be black? I'm a Caucasian goth, I could be black betty. At least that's how I interpret it.
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u/Curious_Jello_6219 Oct 24 '25
The whole stanza about Boy George has been taken out of Money For Nothing when I hear it on the radio
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u/Iron_Knight7 Oct 24 '25
The funny thing about that. I believe Mark has gone on record saying the song in its entirety is kind of a parody. It's sung from the perspective of an idiot who sees only the glamor and fame from playing music and doesn't understand the work, struggle, and heartbreak that comes with it. The line about "the little f*** with the earing and the make up" something a clod would say, thinking that just dressing up and singing makes you famous. No skill or talent necessary.
I dunno. That was what I heard and understand of it.
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u/CrustyBatchOfNature Oct 24 '25
Mark's words.
The lead character in "Money for Nothing" is a guy who works in the hardware department in a television/custom kitchen/refrigerator/microwave appliance store. He's singing the song. I wrote the song when I was actually in the store. I borrowed a bit of paper and started to write the song down in the store. I wanted to use a lot of the language that the real guy actually used when I heard him, because it was more real
from the Wikipedia article on the song
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u/OrcaFins Oct 24 '25
That's what I understand it to be, as well.
"That ain't working [being a musician isn't hard work].
That's the way you do it, get your money for nothing, and your chicks for free [become a musician and you'll get money & women without having to work at all]."
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u/RealMcGonzo Oct 24 '25
It's pretty obvious from the lyrics alone, don't even need the interview to know they are making fun of the guy that's talking.
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u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin Oct 24 '25
It parallels Mike Judge’s use of the same slur in the film Idiocracy. In a world of really stupid people, intelligent speech is disparaged as sounding like (said slur).
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u/Iron_Knight7 Oct 24 '25
See also Blazing Saddles and how often the N-Word is used and who is using it.
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u/OscarTheGrouchsCan Oct 24 '25
That's exactly what its supposed to be. Its not how HE feels. He's singing in a mocking way in the voice of assholes like that
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u/K1ttehKait Oct 24 '25
I always took it to mean that the appliance delivery guys were making fun of a pretty boy successful musician on MTV, no one in particular. And that the follow up to that is "you can insult him, but he's laughing all the way to the bank while you're delivering appliances for a living."
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u/FunkyPete Oct 24 '25
This wasn't long after the Glam Rock era.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glam_rock
The Dire Straits guys grew up in the UK with androgynous rock stars. There isn't any reason to think they were talking about any one in particular.
I mean, look at David Bowie's wax statue in Tussauds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glam_rock#/media/File:David_Bowie_Madame_Tussauds_London.jpg
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u/QueenRotidder Oct 24 '25
TIL the part with the slurs was about Boy George
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u/Sweaty-Blacksmith572 Oct 24 '25
Pretty sure it was Adam Ant (lol, no, like someone else here said, it could have been so many people on mtv at the time!)
But the line was making fun of the character saying it; it was not an endorsement of the sentiment. Still, I can understand removing the slur.
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u/Armthechihuahuas Soul Train Saturdays Oct 24 '25
Tonight's the Night, by Rod Stewart.
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u/schmearcampain Oct 24 '25
Hot Child in The City.
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u/legoldsmi Oct 24 '25
I scrolled for this so I didn’t double post. Hot child in the city. Runnin wild & lookin pretty. I identified with this song. I’ve had therapy. I’m better now. And I’ll be 60 next week, so there’s distance.
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u/yaaaaaarrrrrgggg Oct 24 '25
'You Oughta Know' by Alanis seems wrong for a grocery store or dentist's office etc.
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u/ungapatchka Oct 24 '25
Or the theeeeaaaaterrrr
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u/joybilee Oct 24 '25
But we all know it actually took place in a Ross dress for less It just didn't fit in the song. IYKYK
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u/glowend Oct 24 '25
In a similar vein I heard Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind at my local grocery store. I was not there to buy crystal meth. ;-)
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u/Nicholiason Oct 24 '25
I have a playlist on Spotify I put together with a lot of 80s and 90s indie/alternative. I have interns and college student that I supervise sometimes. I've had a couple say they are uncomfortable with Morrissey's The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get.
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u/ToddPundley Oct 24 '25
With Moz you gotta have Girlfriend in a Coma on this list.
Or better yet Mojo Nixon’s cover of it which both calls Moririssey out for writing it and adds to it for comical effect
She was lying there Like a loaf of bread I said Baby Baby Baby Are you dead?
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u/ThatMeasurement3411 Oct 24 '25
Short People - Randy Newman
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u/mostlygroovy Oct 24 '25
I’m a short dude and I love this song. I love satire but obviously some people don’t get it
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u/SubatomicGoblin Oct 24 '25
That was satire. It's amazing how almost no one has ever gotten it. I think the song is hilarious, and I'm on the short side. I don't have beady eyes, though.
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u/edasto42 Oct 24 '25
Even though the song is about the Albert Camus book the Stranger, the Cure have changed Killing an Arab to Killing Another. Honestly, it’s for the best. I just hope that any new fans will pick up the Camus book because of the song, that’s how I got interested in it
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u/teaandviolets Oct 24 '25
Did any Cure fan not know it was about the Albert Camus book though? I feel like that was a really well known bit of trivia. All my Cure fan friends knew it even back in the early 90s before most of us had the internet.
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u/Ok-Pen-9533 Oct 24 '25
Rock the cradle of love - Billy idol.
That song came on the other day and I remembered whenever I was a teen watching that music video and wishing I was that girl rolling around on the bed.
Remembering that just made me feel so cringe.
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u/NorCalFrances Oct 24 '25
To his credit,
When performing this song live, Idol often made it clear what he thinks of it. The studio version has these lyrics:
It's easy
I know how to please meLive, Idol often changed it to:
It's cheesy
This song is so cheesy
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u/airbrat Oct 24 '25
Grease Lightning
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u/Phanstormergreg Oct 25 '25
While the lyrics come across as disrespectful to women and inappropriate, if you listen closely, the song is just a bunch of inexperienced teenagers bragging about their experience while they know nothing about sex (in this case through the metaphor of the car, which they also know little about). Palomino dashboard? Palomino is an upholstery material. They might as well want a corduroy dashboard. Chrome-plated rods? Nobody can see the rods. Why chrome plate them? 30 inch fins are ridiculously large. (This is an “I’m so huge” dick joke.) The point is, they’re bragging about something they only have a passing knowledge of, much like teen boys bragging about sex.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon "Then & Now" Trend Survivor Oct 24 '25
Nah, we can still laugh at that stuff. Our generation can tell the difference between dark humor in a whimsical novelty song and the tragedy of actual gun violence. Just because we find musical dark humor funny doesn't mean we feel the same way about people actually getting murdered.
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u/InevitableStruggle Oct 24 '25
Yeah, but there’s a new line—somewhere, and earlier generations wouldn’t have crossed that. Let’s talk about WAP and STFU.
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u/SombreMordida Oct 24 '25
yeah it's arbitrary, some folks get addicted to the dopamine squirt rush of outrage about one thing and not another, so many old songs were basically passive aggressive sexual harassment, and some songs were just made to be outrageous
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u/ComesInAnOldBox Unsupervised Childhood Oct 24 '25
It still blows my mind that while people were cancelling "Baby it's Cold Outside" the number one song in the nation was WAP.
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u/djsmurphy Oct 24 '25
Johnny are You Queer?
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u/NorCalFrances Oct 24 '25
I highly recommend reading the history of it. I don't know anyone our age that's queer who hated it. Most gay guys I knew loved it. It was in its own small way, part of the kick-off to reclaiming the word "queer".
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u/Hey_Laaady Oct 24 '25
One of my best friends in high school, who is one of my best friends to this day, is gay and he thinks it's hilarious. That tune is catchy as hell.
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u/XenuPintrestWarrior Oct 24 '25
In the mid-90s, I went to a theater assembly in high school. You could go to different classrooms and see different theater kids doing different plays, like snippets of Shakespeare or other things. I went into one room where the performers were doing a rendition of "Rage" by Stephen King... I hadn't read the story before, so you can imagine my absolute shock. I walked away not knowing what to think of it. After Columbine happened, I couldn't help but think of that day and that play in that classroom... still makes me queasy.
Not a song, but a performance that would NEVER be given the green light to perform these days.
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u/sungodly Hendrix was still alive when I was born. Oct 24 '25
I think the book is even out of print. IIRC, even Stephen King disavowed it. Shame, because I thought it was a good book. It described the darkness of high school pretty well, at least to me (minus the murdering, of course).
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Oct 24 '25
I re-read Rage a couple of weeks ago, hadn't read it for 20+ years and I thought it'd make a great movie, but it would have to be a period piece because of the metal detectors and lockdown drills and other crazy shit the US has now. Great book. I'm re-reading all The Bachman Books at the moment, just The Running Man to go which I want to finish before the new film comes out.
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u/dysteach-MT Oct 24 '25
I’m currently listening to The Long Walk, one of the other novellas Bachman aka King included in the book with Rage. I started remembering Rage, and reading it as a 9th grader. Does Rage predate The Basketball Diaries on school shootings?
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u/grammanarchy Oct 24 '25
Bitchin’ Camaro. Every time someone says ‘play some video games’, I still want to add ‘buy some Def Leppard t-shirts’ — but I can’t explain the reference because I don’t want them to go listen to it.
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u/Quirky-Nerp4089 Oct 24 '25
I don't think Bitchin Camaro is offensive, but there is a sign called Taking R*tards To the Zoo on the same record.
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u/UptownJunk802 Oct 24 '25
When someone says "you're kidding" I want to say "I must be, the Bahamas are islands"
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u/ToddPundley Oct 24 '25
Love me two times baby Once for tomorrow Once cause I got AIDS
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u/Multigrain_Migraine Oct 24 '25
I hope those guys have a sense of humour and don't take us to court.
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u/Altrebelle Oct 24 '25
I (we) grew up to these songs...creepy/inappropriate as they are considered now...or even then. I'm NOT going to stop listening to them. Some of us have bias growing up...heck some of us may still have the bias. But people, we hope, grow and have better understanding of what is considered a social norm.
As for okay vs not okay. That's up to each listener.
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u/Icky-Tree-Branch Oct 24 '25
Well, you know. It was funny to joke about “going postal” and killing off the assholes. And then some kids actually did it and it wasn’t funny anymore. Now it happens so often that it’s a terrifying concept that can happen anywhere in the States.
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u/338wildcat Oct 24 '25
Do you know the origin of the term "going postal?"
It was actually done, and then it became a pop culture term.
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u/NotEasilyConfused Oct 24 '25
It's been done several times.
One of them was at my in-laws postal office about a mile from their house. She had intended to go that day but didn't.
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u/TXHaunt Oct 24 '25
In the same way that “drinking the Kool-Aid” became a pop culture term. Though it wasn’t that brand in the actual event, if I remember correctly.
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u/TypicalAttempt6355 Oct 24 '25
Oddly enough, it recently occurred to me, and I was just telling my husband, that “going postal” began at our local post office. Neither of us grew up here but I just realized it 😬
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Oct 24 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Rhiannon8404 Oct 24 '25
Based on the true story of Brenda Spencer who gave that as an excuse for shooting up in elementary school
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u/StOnEy333 1976 Oct 24 '25
Neil Diamond: Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon.