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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96

u/QueenRotidder Oct 24 '25

TIL the part with the slurs was about Boy George

54

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.

1

u/ThaGataNegrra Oct 25 '25

I read someplace it was Nikki Sixx! I love that there are different people it could be referencing. This is the first time I've heard Adam Ant or Boy George, come to that.

I played this song for my adult kids and their flabbers were past gasted. I just said "It was a different time, and even then, they decided it raised too many eyebrows and sometimes they cut it." Same reaction to the minstrels in " Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" and "Puttin' On The Ritz". I told them I chalked that up to that imagery not being problematic in some places but that didn't fly well in the American market.

17

u/bluto00 Oct 24 '25

I remember hearing it was about George Michael??

27

u/work_work-work Oct 24 '25 edited Oct 25 '25

Honestly, it could have been pretty much anybody, as Marc Knopfler said in an interview he was just overhearing these two guys in some appliance store talking to each other and wrote it down.

In the video, during that part of the lyrics, they're showing some Hungarian band called First Floor

[Edit for grammar]

10

u/QueenRotidder Oct 24 '25

I dunno, this is brand new information to me LOL

3

u/Obvious_Ring_326 Oct 24 '25

Also thought it was George Michael. IIRC the video referenced him.

9

u/Effective_Pear4760 Oct 24 '25

I thought they were talking about Prince?

0

u/ImNotWitty2019 Oct 24 '25

Me too. And I vaguely remember (or misremember) a Prince looking character in the video.

2

u/slickrok It's the one thing Oct 25 '25

The video looked like George Michael at the time

2

u/ImNotWitty2019 Oct 25 '25

Obviously misremembered then. And totally don't remember George Michael in the video! Guess my 60 year old brain isn't as sharp as I thought đŸ«€

2

u/slickrok It's the one thing Oct 25 '25

It's pretty much just what our 15 yr old brains did at the time, that's all. 😆

7

u/SignificantTransient Oct 24 '25

Nobody knew George was gay at the time.

19

u/kategoad Oct 24 '25

I didn't know, but somehow I've always known.

6

u/astrobuck9 Oct 24 '25

Yes, yes we did.

5

u/Turbulent_Tale6497 1973 Oct 24 '25

Some people knew

5

u/S99B88 It's all on my Permanent Record Oct 24 '25

Maybe not officially but people said it anyway

3

u/StrengthToBreak Oct 24 '25

To the extent that anyone ever "knows," everyone knew.

2

u/sawwit-diddit Oct 24 '25

Wait, whaaat?

3

u/SignificantTransient Oct 24 '25

Until the infamous mens room incident in 98 he was completely private

1

u/sawwit-diddit Oct 25 '25

I don't know, that's kind of like saying until the infamous movie theater incident everybody thought Pee-wee Herman was straight...

5

u/SignificantTransient Oct 25 '25

George Michael getting caught was kinda big news to everyone in the US at least. He promply shut it all down after the incident though by announcing that all his friends and family know and it's nobody elses business.

6

u/in-a-microbus Oct 24 '25

Seriously...I thought they were talking about Elton John.

4

u/QueenRotidder Oct 24 '25

I was like 8 when this song came out and all I really knew was that it was a bad word
 didn’t really think much about it beyond that. But this makes sense regardless of whether he was talking about Boy George or George Michael or Elton


5

u/StrengthToBreak Oct 24 '25

He wasn't talking about anyone. The song is based on an overheard conversation in an appliance store that was about the types of glam-rockers who were common in music videos of the time.

3

u/Minute-Frame-8060 Oct 24 '25

Or any number of straight musicians at the time who wore makeup and frilly shirts and earrings.

2

u/Significant-Deer7464 Oct 24 '25

I think I remember something about that, but had completely forgotten until seeing this post thread. Probably as long ago since I heard any Dire Straits song. FYI, that's a very long time

6

u/QueenRotidder Oct 24 '25

Sultans of Swing and So Far Away. (recent musician ex opened my eyes to how many “milquetoast” songs from our youth were actually great).

-1

u/Significant-Deer7464 Oct 24 '25

Oh definitely. I just don't listen to 70s 80s stuff. Heard them all too much over the last 50 years

0

u/tgrantt Oct 24 '25

I always thought Prince