Misogyny:
Jelly Roll Morton, inventor of Jazz sang “Winin Boy Blues” in the 20s and 30s [listen]
Every time the changin’ of the moon
the blood comes rushing from all the bitches womb…
I want about ten sweet bitches to myself
“The Lemon Song” by Led Zeppelin [listen]
Let me tell you baby,
You aint nothin but a two-bit, no-good jive.
Went to sleep last night, worked as hard as I can,
Bring home my money, you take my money, give it to another man;
I should have quit you, baby, such a long time ago,
I wouldnt be here with all my troubles
Down on this killing floor.
Squeeze me baby, till the juice runs down my leg, x2
The way you squeeze my lemon,
I..Im gonna fall right out of bed, yeah.
“Under My Thumb” by The Rolling Stones [listen]
Under my thumb
The squirmin dog whos just had her day
Under my thumb
A girl who has just changed her ways
Its down to me, yes it is
The way she does just what shes told
Down to me, the change has come
Shes under my thumb
Speaking of Mick and dad-snorting Keith, let’s remember that “Satisfaction” was not about Mick yearning for intellectual satisfaction through reality based commentary – he just wanted to get busy. This is probably the most famous example of objectifying women in popular music.
“Used to Love Her” by Guns n Roses [watch // fan video – song by GNR, video by someone else]
I used to love her,
but i had to kill her
I had to put her, six feet under
and I can still hear her complain
Drugs
“Cocaine” by Eric Clapton [listen]
If you got bad news, you wanna kick them blues; cocaine.
When your day is done and you wanna run; cocaine.
“Casey Jones” by The Greatful Dead [watch]
Driving that train, high on cocaine
“Lucy in the sky with Diamonds” by the Beatles [watch]
Picture yourself in a boat on a river,
With tangerine trees and marmalade skies
Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly,
A girl with kaleidoscope eyes.
“I Am the Walrus” by the Beatles [watch]
Smoke pot! Smoke pot! Everybody smoke pot! Everybody smoke pot!
——————————————————
**”Black girls just wanna get f___ed all night, I just don’t have that much jam”
So who was it that sang the lyric that is the title of the post? The Rolling Stones sang that in 1978’s “Some Girls”. Compare “Some Girls” with Jay-Z’s “Girls, Girls, Girls”
Listen to “Some Girls“
French girls they want cartier
Italian girls want cars
American girls want everything in the world
You can possibly imagine
English girls theyre so prissy
I cant stand them on the telephone
Sometimes I take the receiver off the hook
I dont want them to ever call at all
White girls theyre pretty funny
Sometimes they drive me mad
Black girls just wanna get fucked all night
I just dont have that much jam
Chinese girls are so gentle
Theyre really such a tease
You never know quite what theyre cookin
Inside those silky sleeves
Watch “Girls, Girls Girls“
I got this Spanish chica, she don’t like me to roam
So she call me cabron plus marricon
Said she likes to cook rice so she likes me home
I’m like, “Un momento” – mami, slow up your tempo
I got this black chick, she don’t know how to act
Always talkin out her neck, makin her fingers snap
She like, “Listen Jigga Man, I don’t care if you rap
You better – R-E-S-P-E-C-T me”
I got this French chick that love to french kiss
She thinks she’s Bo Derek, wear her hair in a twist
My, cherie amor, tu est belle
Merci, you fine as fuck but you givin me hell
I got this Indian squaw the day that I met her
Asked her what tribe she with, red dot or feather
She said all you need to know is I’m not a ho
And to get with me you better be Chief Lots-a-Dough
Now that’s Spanish chick, French chick, indian and black
That’s fried chicken, curry chicken, damn I’m gettin fat
Arroz con pollo, french fries and crepe
An appetitite for destruction but I scrape the plate.
So, who’s ready to throw out all their Rolling Stones albums?
But one tragic error in the “Drugs” songs. Ten bonus points if you spot it.
Should be fixed.
was about a Julian Lennon’s piece of artwork, not LSD.
If “Julian Lennon’s piece of artwork” is 60s street slang for acid, then you are correct, lol.
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Even if it was about Julian’s art, it is loaded with drug subtext only enhanced by the video.
Clapton may be god, but he didn’t write “Cocaine”. That would be JJ Cale.
But I don’t think I’m incorrect in saying that the most poular version of the song is Clapton’s.
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Which is in reference to the earlier listing of “Cocaine”, presumably because you believe it ‘glorifies’ drugs…
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The song, and the intent, are not at all about the glorification of drugs, but, in fact, quite the opposite: the song is a subversive anti-drug song that confronts the reality that drugs might have an initial, very powerful, element of fun and games, but that there is a real and terrible price to be paid. The song is, however, decidedly non-judgemental: if you want to do it, fine, just don’t say you weren’t warned. That’s how JJ Cale wrote it, and that’s how Clapton has always sung it. At times, in concert, Clapton has changed the refrain to ‘dirty cocaine’ for those who just don’t get it.
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She don’t lie. She tell the truth: “I’m here and for the short term I’m fun, then you gotta pay.”
This helps illustrate the point about context. I’ve been hearing that song for years and just assumed the sentiment was in favor of cocaine. I have actually known people who used cocaine and sung along as if it were a very positive thing.
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I hear Eric Clapton sing “Cocaine” and think he’s glorifying coke. Antother person hears Ghostface and think the same thing.
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Not everything is as it appears on its surface and artistic expression is highly subjective.
What man here, assuming women are your thing (I’d be interested in Laurel’s take on this comment) have come out of a relationship before and not been like “I seriously want to kill that bitch. Seriously. I need a drink.” Music is a good reflection of our society, of our culture. People write songs like that Guns n Roses song because, hell, I’ve felt like that before.
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I think the issue people have with rap is the ridiculous, disproportional amount of drug and sex related lyrics. If our music is a reflection of culture, which is most certainly is, one can infer that there is a problem with black culture.
example 1 Afroman — Colt 45.
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I myself have been known to enjoy a Colt 45 or two from time to time, but I’ve never seen a song that manages to go on and on about sex. Totally beats out Jay-Z.
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Don’t even get me started on Emo music. If rap is a bad reflection of black culture, Emo is going to be the self-destruction of white culture.
“Am I more than you bargained for yet?
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I’m just trying to tell you everything that you want to hear,
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Because that’s just who I am this week.”
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… I’m not really sure how this is evidence of our Caligula-stage decadence. But at least we’re going down swinging, Sugar.
And emo culture is the most God-awful annoying thing in the world. Seriously. I had emo friends in high school and they cut themselves just to upstage each-others emo-ness.
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ITS SOOOO WHINEY.
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Watch this and tell me you don’t wanna smack around all the kids in it.
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sorry, i hate emo. I’d rather be a democrat than emo.
…about rap – the “bad rap” is what the White record executives think is goning to sell and be easiest to market (to a White audience). The “bad rap” is what labels convince radio stations and BET to play ad nauseum. So that’s what you see, and that the dominant image of the Black community seen by many Americans.
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There is a problem with Black culture and masculine black culture , but again, this is just a “sub-problem” of American culture and masculine culture as a whole. Is rap the only place we see hyper-masculine images of men and misogyny? What about movies, TV, video games, and yes, classic rock? You say that there is a problem with black culture, but 80% of the buyers of hip-hop are white people (me, for example). If 80% of the buyers are white, why is it a problem exclusive to the black community?
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Joe, if you have a few minutes, I recommend checking out this documentary done by Northeastern grad Byron Hurt, here is a preview. Your college library may have a copy (if not, ask them to get it). It’s called “Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”.
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Also I recommend “Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity” by UMass Amherst grad Jackson Katz. This, too, maybe available at your library’s media center.
.. I mean, the Magic Flute is just drenched in misogyny — with racism as a side dish.
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— Marguerite, in Faust: Totally used and dumped by Faust. Goes to heaven in a treacly ascension scene.
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— Gilda, in Rigoletto: Raped, becomes obsessed with her rapist and killed by her dad.
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— Zerlina, in Don Giovanni: Made to sing “Beat me, beat me, dear Masetto” (her fiance)
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That’s just off the top of my head. It’s pretty awful all the way down the line.
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That being said, I do think there’s a place for a progressive cultural critique of pop culture. Should progressives have something to say about the most violent and misogynist rap, or the Stones, or whatever? Of course. We shouldn’t just cede that discussion to the right wing. If it’s sexist and violent, we should say so.
An old man trying to stay in the limelight. Time for him to go.
I wanted to discuss misogyny in opera and in Shakespeare (specifically, A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but those two topics are a little out of my league.
A midsummers nights dream?? Tame. For seething undercurrents of rage and tempestuous cultural melee and melange we’ve got to go to, at the least, “The Merchant of Venice” (“if you prick us, do we not bleed?”) or for the very very brave, Othello…
My bio, if you must know.
Gotta have the wink. đŸ˜‰ đŸ˜‰ đŸ˜‰
It’s sort of a “comparative religion” major, not pre-ministerial or anything like that. Great department @ Oberlin.
Taming of the Shrew. Poor Kate . . .
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Romeo and Juliette . . . the Duenna
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Antony and Cleopatra . . . probably a bit of a reversal, if one believes everything about her screwing the slaves, then having them strangled . . .
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Or Greek Tragedy – anyone from the “same-sex” group care to comment on that?
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Frankie and Johnny
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Julie London’s Torch songs.
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IT’s everywhere. All ya gotta do is look.
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Best,
Chuck
Bluegrass is loaded with lyrics along the lines of “I couldn’t have her so I killed her so no one else could neither”. Also popular was the theme “she was beautiful, I killed her my darlin beauty”, no explanation given. Example:
Down In The Willow Garden
Down in the willow garden where me and my love did meet
There we sat a-courting my love fell off to sleep
I had a bottle of burgundy wine which my true love did not know
And there I poisoned that dear little girl down by the banks below
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I drew my saber through her which was a bloody knife
I threw her in the river which was an awful sight
My father often told me that money would set me free
If I would murder that dear little miss whose name was Rose Connelly
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Now he sits by his old cabin door a wiping his tear-brimmed eyes
Mourning for his only son out on the scaffold high
My race is run beneath the sun the devil is waiting for me
For I did murder that dear little girl whose name was Rose Connelly
—
precious.
And the murder’s father is framed as the person who deserves the most sympathy. Ha!
Tom Dooley . . .
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Or nursury rymes . . “put her in a pumkin shell . . .”
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Face it, folks, we are constantl;y immersed in Bunyan’s “Slough of Despondency!
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Best,
Chuck
All of the examples you cite are all older than I am. Granted, I like all the music you have just listed, but couldn’t you come up with something a little more current than Jelly Roll Morton? Also, lets not forget the Dixie Chick’s “Goodbye, Earl.”
…at the older crowd who has never listened to rap. I put Jelly Roll in because many critics talk about how music is so salacious “nowadays”. But if any one actually listens to old Blues Jelly Roll (also see his “Murder Ballads), Bessie Smith, whomever were all singing explicit lyrics. Led Zeppelin used a lot of Robert Johnson – “squeeze my lemon”, etc.
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Want more recent (30? What about GNR? The Stones song was from1978!)
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NIN – “Closer”
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Motley Crew – “Girls, Girls, Girls”
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Korn – “Cameltosis”, “My Gift to You”, ADIDAS
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Kid Rock – “Wax the Booty”
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Buckcherry – “Crazy Bitch” and “Lit Up (I Love the Cocaine)”
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Yellow Card – “Powder”
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I’m not that up on newer rock/aternative, but this is just a quick list my friend and I came up with.
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I’d also like to ad to the list, Jimi Hendrix’s “Hey Joe”:
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lyrics to songs
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and
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this outrageous “joke” made at the expense of a group of young women – made at a time when they had achieved an impossible dream of playing in the national final game?
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These wonderful women should now be basking in their glory. Instead, they have to meet with the I-creep and put up with his attempts to justify stealing this moment from them.
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Going forward, instead of looking back at March 2007 with pride they will get to cringe. Instead of friends, or their children and grandchildren asking them what it was like to play in the final game when no one thought they would be there, they will get to spend their lives answering questions about the idiot I-man and how they felt about that.
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Believe it or not, it is possible to make jokes and make people laugh without doing it at the expense of someone else! This furor is not just about words.
…to lyrics. Others did in a different thread, claiming a “double standard”. I see no relation between Imus’s remarks and song lyrics.
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I wrote this post because people pick on rap lyrics as if that is the only place in music that glorifies misogyny and drugs.
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That’s all.
But all your post proves is that music and other cultural outlets have been misogynistic for a long time–probably since the very beginning of human interaction.
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What I’m hearing from you is that there are some venues that are “OK” for the perpetuation of hateful actions and words and there are clearly some that are not OK. Artistic expressions are fine, comic commentary is not OK.
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I just don’t buy it. Imus is finally getting his just due for lots of stereotypes he are perpetuated over the last 40 years. Good. But the notion that Jessie Jackson can still be a national figure after calling New York “Hymie Town” is wrong. And the notion that communicating hateful concepts via music is OK, but not OK on a morning radio station is just silly.
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Pretzel Logic.
Nothing in this post mentions Jackson or Hymie Town, so that is irrelevant.
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I have two points:
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1.) From the other thread – Just because bad words appear in a song [the usual suspects about race and gender] doesn’t automatically put it into the categoty of hate speech a la Imus. Yet, this is what people who are not hip-hop literate tend to do. They treat every rap song as if it is the main cause of the misogyny and drugs in society. The song you posted in the other thread was a poor example. “Hustle & Flow” did not objectify women and did not glorify pimping. You try to compare those out of context words written for a fictional character to the words of a real life radio host. There is a time and a place for criticism of that movie and its soundtrack – but it’s not in the context of the Imus fiasco. There is a huge difference between the artistic expression of young people representing parts of their life, culture, etc and an insensitive remark by Don Imus. Apples and Oranges.
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2.) People always pick on rap as if it is the only place that glorifies misogyny and drugs. As I stated above, this is not an appologia of rap. It’s context. If people want to bitch about horrible things in music, people should start by examining their own music collection. Why is rap always the first art form picked on when these topics come up? Why is it the end all be all? I bet many of the same people that bitch about rap sing along to “Hey Joe”, smile when “Used to Love Her” comes on the radio, wear Allman Brothers t-shirts with magic mushrooms on them, patronize the opera that “glorifies” wife beating, but never once stop to examine the influence these songs have in forming perception about women and drugs in our society. This is not an excuse for the ‘bad rap songs” – it is just an effort for people to turn a mirror on their own tastes and examine lyrics that are given a free pass by people who are outraged by rap but never actually listen to it.
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Again, if you want to dissect rap and the negative impact it has on society, write up a diary. Just don’t conflate Don Imus and the Three 6 Mafia.
…he got what he deserved. Nor am I attcking “rap” because I don’t relate to it. My point is we live in a society–and always have lived in a society that perpetuates certain stereotypes. You apparently can make distinctions betweens which are acceptable negative stereotypes and which ones are unacceptable. I can not.
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But based on your world view, it is very easy to spin Imus’s comments to make them perfectly acceptable by your logic. Imus uses comedy and social satire as his “context” of his artistic expression. A pretty lame defense, but one that you use to defend certain means to perpetuate racism and objectification of women.
I simply do not accept that every occurance of the word ho or bitch is used to subjugate women. I also do not accept that the song you cited before objectifies women.
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Yes, you can examin comedy through my criteria, even edgy comedy that comments on race and gender. Recognizing that, in the proper context, racially and sexually charged words can be funny (or artisitic) is useful when disececting the reasons why Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock are funny and Don Imus is an ass. Imus may have said what he said as “artistic expression”, but he expressed an unacceptable view point and rightfully paid the price.
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My main beef is this: why was the first thing that Imus, you, and countless columnists and bloggers went after was rap music? As if it is the only place that women are degraded. Even if rap was cleaned up tomorrow, it would be a small percentage of the misogyny in the totality of media today. I would say that media made for quote-unquote mainstreem audiences produce a higher volume of women denigrating images than all of the bad lyrics in rap.
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Examine the Sopranos, The Departed, Hollywood movies in general, Family Guy & American Dad, Rock and Roll, Maxim Magazine etc, commercials, porn, video games…the list goes on.
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Why is rap the first (and only) thing trotted out when we discuss objectification of women and racism? It is an easy target and, as a general rule in our society, we are blind to the bad elements in the media that we enjoy; it’s much easier to deamonify the media we are unfamilliar with.
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Frankly, porn is a far bigger detriment to society than rap. A multi-billion dollar indusrty that’s one google search away from any kid has spawned a side industry of therapy for porn addiction. People are paying good money to modify their behavior becuase they are compelled to look at so much porn it negatively impacts their lives and families. The same cannot be said about rap. Why did you mention rap instead of porn?
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Frank, if you were equally disgusted with the misgogynistic elements of The Sopranos, The Departed, Family Guy, The Rolling Stones, Maxim, Sports Illustrated, TV commercials, Jimi Hendrix, Opera, etc as you are disgusted with rap, I congratulate you. All I am saying is that the level of misogyny seen in rap is seen in so many other forms of popular media that we all enjoy and nobody says boo. The key is when we see these elements examining them in context and deriving the ultimate meaning behind the use of such language/images. Is there a larger picture, like in Hustle & Flow, deriding, subverting, and eviscerting these stereotypes, sending the message that it is not good to be a pimp or a hooker, but if you are, there is a chance at redemption? It’s about media literacy and understanding the whole message, not just using google to find songs with Imus like words and claiming double standard.
that misgogynistic elements are in all aspects of popular culture (and tough thing to dispute), you convinced me that Imus has how been singled out for unfair punishment.
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Now I’m sure you have a rationalization that will spell out how his behavior is so different from the thirty of so examples that you gave and are some how exempt from your critque, but it is just that…rationalization.
now you say he was unfairly singled out. are you that easily swayed, or are you just seeing how far you can take devil’s advocate?
Imus was a TV/Radio personality who specialized in political comentary, and some would argue comedy. It is not useful to compare apples and oranges, rappers and Imus. Compare apples to apples, i.e. other broadcasters. If Matt Lauer, Charles Gibson, Chet Curtis, Jim Brodie, etc said what Imus said, they would rightfully (hopefully face simillar punishment).
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The real injustice is not that Imus got all that attention compared to porn or rap or whatever. The real injustice is that Imus got all that attention and Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Michael Savage, et. al. say far worse and they are but a blip in the blogosphere. Imus deserved to get fired, but I doubt he would be in a “top 5” list of most vile, bigotted media personalities working today – couple that with the fact he is barely relevant compared to the more intentional rabid hate mongerers listed above. If life were fair, this type of media attention would be placed on the Rush and the others. I would gladdly give Imus his job back if Rush was taken off.
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Which 30 examples did I say are exempt from critique?
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If you put rap in the context of all media from Maxim to HBO to movies, it is hard to make the case that rap should be singled out for misogyny. Yet, thousands of bloggers, columnusts, and talking heads want to turn the Imus thing back on rap. All that I am asking is the people who drive home from work singing along to “Hey Joe”, turn on the Sopranos to see strippers and women get beaten and murdered, watch Family Guy to see women beaten and murderd (and laugh about it), watch the beer comercials with hot women, and then surf the net for a little porn before bed, is for those people to turn the lens on themselves before they single out rap.
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The criticism should focused on how masculinity and femininity are treated in the media as a whole rather than “Imus is only saying what rappers say, let’s go after rappers next!”
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Rap is not above criticism. Rap plays a role in the big picture, but its place is exaggerated. Rap is a strawman/boogey man typically trotted out by people because there is no defense for the Ying Tang Twins – its a valid, but easy target. And people don’t have to criticize the media that they enjoy.
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I’ll say what you have been implying — I think people are singling out rap music because it is of the Black community.
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In Springfield, a bunch of people started complaining about noise. How did they constantly describe it? As “booming stereos with loud rap music”.
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If I objectively listen for noise, I hear it in several categories:
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* booming stereos with rap music.
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* booming stereos with rock music.
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* motorcycles with modified exhausts (in my opinion, louder and more noticeable than booming stereos, except while idling).
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* cars with modified mufflers and exhausts.
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* cars or motorcycles with intentionally loud engines.
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* trucks with jake brakes.
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* landscaping trucks on which every piece of equipment rattles when they hit a bump.
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So why is everyone (mostly white) focused on the “booming stereos”? Perhaps because it is bad behavior of Blacks.
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Whites tend to overlook bad behavior of fellow whites. They tend to not notice when a white person pays with food stamps, and only see the Black person doing it. They tend to not care as much when a white pedestrian walks in front of their car, but get angry when a Black pedestrian does it. They tend to write off vandalism by whites as “kids being kids”, but vandalism by Black kids is tantamount to murder.
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Second example: In Springfield, a few Black kids vandalized one of the high schools. They knocked a piano off a stage, they tore down some curtains. The talk in the local blogs was about how bad these kids were, they were “animals”, they should be thrown in jail, etc.
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Half a year later, a white kid (maybe more than one) set fire to the locker room in a private Springfield high school. Caused far more damage than the vandalism of the Black kids. You could hear crickets in the blogs. No one complained, no one called for their arrest.
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Racism? Maybe, or maybe we’re just hard-wired to stick together by the group that we most identify with, and most people still see race as the biggest differentiator.
…unless you are a comedian đŸ˜‰
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Whites tend to overlook bad behavior of fellow whites.
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This white person (me) was positively outraged when, after some white kids in Wellesley (where we live when in the USofA) invaded and trashed the home of a white family while they were away, merely to have a party. And after the owners returned, and reported it to the Wellesley cops, the Wellesley cops said something to the effect that “boys will be boys”–although there were girls involved too. I was appalled at the cop’s statement, and I was also appalled at the fact that the owner of the house refused to press charges. They refused to press charges (I’m sure that there was money paid under the table) but I could not make them press charges.
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Listen up and listen well. I know what you are referring to. The sad fact is that–and I’m going to be harsh here–white people are given a pass, even in Massachusetts, but Negrahs aren’t. And I don’t like that one bit, but I don’t have the slightest idea what to do about it. I have my own battles to fight–the same-sex marriage issue. And I can’t fight all of the battles at once.
One thing that I try to put to the side–although it is difficult to do so–is the fact than more than a bit of homphobia, and resistence to same-sex marriage–comes from predominantly black churches.
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Message a metaphore. I’ll scratch your back, for a while. But, if you refuse to scratch my back, I won’t scratch your back for very long.