Problematic

I read what was initially an interesting but ultimately oranges and kumquats kind of a post the other day. The writer took two country tunes—both about cheating spouses:

Song one—spouse finds out and totally trashes and destroys the partner’s car.

Song two—the cheating spouse’s paramour had no idea the person was married until confronted by the lover’s mate. They hatch a plot to kill the cheater. They do it and everyone (almost) lives happily ever after.

The writer framed it, first that the car destroyer and spouse killers were male and wouldn’t that just freak us all out. Then he does the big reveal—the songs’ protagonists are female. So it’s women doing the dirt and cheating men who are the victims of violence. The Facebook poster makes it clear that he feels violence against women is bad  (mighty white of ya, pal) but leaves out the long misogynistic history of popular music.

Fer instance, in 1965 the Beatles, came out with Run for Your Life—a catchy little pop tune.

… You better run for your life if you can, little girl
Hide your head in the sand, little girl
Catch you with another man
That's the end, little girl…

Lennon based the tune on a 1955 Elvis song which, in turn, was a cover of a 1954 Eddy Arnold hit. The lyrics are scary similar to John Lennon’s.

Now listen to me baby
Try to understand
I’d rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man
Now baby

Come back, baby
 I wanna play house with you

In 1970 Lennon said:

I never liked ‘Run For Your Life’, because it was a song I just knocked off. It was inspired from – this is a very vague connection – from ‘Baby, Let’s Play House.’  There was a line on it – I used to like specific lines from songs – ‘I’d rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man’ – so I wrote it around that but I didn’t think it was that important. (source)

Not that important?! Fer fuck’ sake!

In 1973, he allowed that it was his “least favourite Beatles song.” No mention of disliking it because…oh…the lyrics are a celebration of control freaking, domestic violence and entitlement all set to a catchy tune.

This NOT-safe-for-impressionable-kids tune was featured on the Beatles cartoon show (which aired from '65 to '67)—a show made for kids. Sure, sure Bugs and Daffy, Rocky and Bullwinkle had some adult type themes—commentary about society and politics—but the references weren’t obvious to kids. Also, they weren’t about killing or threatening to kill your girlfriend.

There was also Neil Young’s Down by the River and Hendrix’s Hey Joe. Hell’s bells, I liked Young and Hendrix (and those songs) a LOT (and didn’t know the lyrics until…emmm…now).

I guess all I’ve got to say to this Facebook poster who’s upset about his son hearing songs about violence, by women against men—welcome to popular music. You probably never noticed the violence before since much of it was against women, not men.