"Classic" songs - to which I can no longer listen

[intaglio]

Well lets start with a really rapey classic

Stalking and murder is next on the menu

Then the harmless Neil Sedaka

Gary Puckett and Union Gap totally are not celebrating pedophilia

Then a film that contains stuff I really like such as "Lonesome Polecat" and "Barn Raising Dance"
But it also has a plot that is about abduction and rape - like this song

Add your own folks

[gollygee]

1. I've always been a bit weirded out by Summer Nights from Grease

where one of the T-Birds says something like, "Did she put up a fight?"

[Dr Hobbitstein]

2. It's funny you mention "Baby It's Cold Outside"...

Key and Peele (comedy duo with a show on Comedy Central) did a send up of that song, and referred to it as "a bit rapey".

But here's my contributions:

The Beatles condoning the "if I can't have her, no one can" attitude.

Warrant and pedophilia.

The Police and the ultimate stalker song.

The Prodigy with a very catchy electronic beat, encouraging domestic abuse.

[el_bryanto]

9. In fairness Sting has always been clear that he's not celebrating that mindset

He finds it ("Every Breath you Take&quot to be a creepy song as well and is super uncomfortable with people telling him "Oh we played that song at our wedding. It's soo romantic."

And I love Smack My Bitch Up - but I feel bad about it. The lines are a quote from an older song - "Slip the Drummer One" by Kool Kieth - and the band claims they just mean doing any thing intensely.

Bryant

[Dr Hobbitstein]

11. Yeah, but the point of the thread was songs hit songs that are creepy...

I actually enjoy EBYT and SMBU as well.

[safeinOhio]

3. "I don't care if your just 13"

Classy Ted

[redqueen]

4. Fuck, where to start? Kind of a time-honored tradition, isn't it?

Neil Young - Down By The River

Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe

Rolling Stones - Brown Sugar

Rolling Stones - Under my Thumb

[redqueen]

5. More...

Not all classics, or stuff I would listen to even if it wasn't misogynistic, but ...



Lou Christie - Lighting strikes

Ted Nugent - Stranglehold

Motley Crue - You're All I Need

[intaglio]

6. Exactly, where to begin

The ones I selected are just the ones that occurred to me first

[Shivering Jemmy]

7. The question becomes for me

Is the writer creating a character and telling a story...or are they advocating and glorifying an abhorrent point of view.

Even then I can still like a given song. For example I think "The Rake's Song", about someone who brutally murders his unwanted children, bythe Decemberists does a bit of both.

Yet I still think it is a terrific song.

[redqueen]

16. True, there is that difference between, say, Down By The River and Stranglehold.

However even the mere existence of so many 'stories' of men murdering women is abhorrent.

Art can do more than just tell the story. It can put a socially responsible message behind it.

Pearl Jam did this brilliantly.

Jimi seemed to be celebrating.

You know I caught my old lady messin' 'round town
And I gave her the gun
And I shot her
Alright
Shoot her one more time again baby!

[Violet_Crumble]

8. I can outdo that with a really disturbing one from Husker Du...

Unlike the crap everyone else has been posting (with the exception of the mention of The Decemberists, who I really like), this song's amazing, but back when I was young and listening to it at first I was 'what sort of sick fucker writes a song like this one?' Then I realised it was the character of a rapist and murderer, and when the internet came into being I found out it was a true story.

&feature=kp

Here's a link to the lyrics for any poor souls who don't want to listen to Husker Du..

http://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3458764513820547396/

And I'm gonna throw in one more song I loved from that era and still love, even though this one's stretching it. I just want to post it coz it's an awesome live version. I still remember the heated argument I had with a fellow Smiths fan about whether it was about weight or boobs...

[ismnotwasm]

19. +1

[el_bryanto]

10. One other thought - Piece of my Heart

By Big Brother and the Holding Company.

&feature=kp

I like it (second favorite Janis Joplin track (after their cover of Summertime) but doesn't it sound like she's encouraging her lover to abuse her?

Bryant

[redqueen]

14. No. nt

[ismnotwasm]

18. No Janis was something else

The proverbial "white girl who could sing the blues" --/she rode a lot of pain in her life and died with it too. She didn't write the song, she just covered it.

An interesting piece of trivia--Janis Joplin was a great admirer of Bessie Smith, and found her grave with very little to mark it. She paid for a decent headstone for that awesome blues singer.

[el_bryanto]

20. Fair enough - thanks for the info. nt.

[ismnotwasm]

12. Interesting how rap music gets all the misogyny 'press' though

Last edited Wed Jun 25, 2014, 12:38 PM - Edit history (1)

Not that a lot a lot of it isn't, but it started out as social anger. Rarely do you hear these songs posted get criticized, so I believe there's more than a touch of racism.

It's one thing to publish a song that reflects ugly reality, quite another to accept it as "normal"or celebrate it.

[el_bryanto]

13. I wonder how much of that is the Eminem effect

But there were certainly misogynist songs before him. And of course there have always been more positive conscious rappers as well.

Bryant

[redqueen]

15. It's more in-your-face.

There's no denying that it's not hidden at all in rap music. No room for interpretation.

[ismnotwasm]

17. That's true

It's not more admirable but it is more honest.

Originally Black Rappers were trying to convey their own culture, their own anger, their own patois, and were not radio rappers. With the rise of ganta rap, the posers came out in force, some were, or course legit, and did become famous making everything worse. The rise of female rappers leveled off, at least in popular music.

I like rap-- but I have to find people who truly know about it to find stuff I can listen to. I still like Ice-T on the Tank Girl sound track.

Eminem is a very damaged, very talented person, who I hope grows up some day and quits blaming his mother for every damn thing.

His homophobia and misogyny sticks to him like dogshit on his shoe.