My Top Ten Hot Pants Songs

So, while I was putting together My Top Ten Pants Songs last week, I came across quite a few songs about hot pants. The question was...


Would it be possible to find ten songs featuring hot pants... without too much misogynist bullshit?


And the answer is...


10. Princess Superstar - Trouble

If you're looking for sexy...

Fatal Attraction, boil a bunny while I breakdance
Fart in my hotpants in a crowded theatre at Sundance (must have been the hot ranch)

...here's Princess Superstar to kill the mood. I like my rappers with a wicked sense of humour, and PS flips more puns than Eminem. This is the same song where she confesses:

Ahh, enough of this, I killed Snuffalufagus
With pills and made a snuff film to prove to Big Bird he exists (See he is real!) 

Which is top quality rhyming, whichever way you cut it. 

9. Van Morrison - Moonshine Whiskey

Far be it from me to get on the wrong side of the notoriously grouchy Van The Man, but...

Come with me tonight
Gonna put on my hot pants
And promenade down funky broadway till the cows come home

Thanks. I think I'll pass on that, Van.

8. James Brown - Hot Pants (Part 1)

Saying this sounds like every other James Brown jam is kinda missing the point. I think for a large part of his career (and with a few obvious exceptions such as It's A Man's Man's Man's World), James Brown pretty much released the same record. When I saw him live about 20 years ago, the whole show felt like one long song (and The Godfather didn't even come on stage for the first half hour!). Still, it's funky in all the right places: that's what counts.

7. The Wedding Present - Hot Pants

Two minutes of titantic surf rock from the Weddoes: close your eyes and it could be Dick Dale.

6. The Dramatics - Hot Pants In The Summertime

Ah, the 70s. When such nonsense was acceptable...

Different times.

Back in 1964 when they formed, The Dramatics were originally called The Dynamics. There was a printing error on their third record though and I guess it was cheaper to change the name of the band than get all those labels reprinted...

5. Jarvis Cocker - Don't Let Him Waste Your Time

And the main lesson to be had here: even if you want his advice on hotpants, don't accept a ride in Jarvis Cocker's cab.

4. Prince - Peach

Uh-oh... here she comes with those gold hot pants on again... 

Sexist guff of the highest order, of course. And yet, because it was Prince, somehow he got  away with it...

The thing is, while even Prince was pushing it here, it's far less offensive than the majority of modern day r 'n' b which seems to have set objectification to eleven to the point that everyone takes it for granted. I joke about the 70s, but the way women are portrayed (or even choose to portray themselves) in mainstream pop these days is far worse than it was in the 70s... because we should know better by now.

So says an old stick in the mud who's been teaching media studies as a sideline for the last couple of years and can't get his head round what the kids take for granted these days. 

3. The B52s - Hot Pants Explosion

A rarity in pop music: a song that objectifies both women and men in equal measure. Gotta give Fred and Kate credit for that...

(Fred:) I'm in shippin', if you're receivin'
'Cause what I see I ain't believin'
The longest legs in the shortest pants
You got me doin' a matin' dance

(Kate:) Sap's up spring's on the rise
I'm bustin' out my tube top tonight
Workin' the night shift, I get off at three
Breakin' out of that factory
Thunder thighs-hangin' out!
Moon beams, dancin' about

(Both:) If you would be so kind
Put on those red hot pants and take a stroll through my mind 

2. The Donnas - Hot Pants

Don't wear hotpants around the Donnas, and certainly don't try it on with their blokes... just a friendly warning.

Hey little girl, you're tryin to get with my guy
I've got two words: hands off, or baby I'll make you cry
I don't pull hair and I don't fight dirty
But piss me off at 9 and you're lunchmeat by 9:30

1. Loretta Lynn - The Pill

If you want to find the toughest, sassiest, "girl power" recording artists of the last 50 years, country music would be a great place to start looking. Dolly, Tammy, Loretta... these ladies took no shit and told it like it was. The Pill is a 1975 hit by the Coal Miner's Daughter, although it was recorded three years earlier: the record company were just too chicken to put it out. Even when they did, half the country stations in America refused to play it.

The Pill tells of a wife who's sick of being pregnant over and over again (Loretta herself had 6 kids; three before she was 19!) so is proud to switch to birth control when it becomes widley available so she can enjoy a little of the freedom her husband's been relishing. If you thought this post was destined to end up sexist... here's to Loretta's hotpants!

All these years I've stayed at home while you had all your fun
And every years that's gone by, another baby's come
There's gonna be some changes made right here on nursery hill
You've set this chicken your last time cause now I've got the pill
This old maternity dress I've got is going in the garbage
The clothes I'm wearing from now on won't take up so much yardage
Miniskirts, hot pants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah, I'm making up for all those years since I've got the pill

Final word goes to the B52s this time...

Who says hot pants are dead and gone?
Wait'll they see what you've got on
Yeah, I never saw nothin' so doggone hot
You belong in Ripley's Believe It Or Not! 

Which one gets you screaming, "Supercalihalitosis, oooh that outfit's the absolute mostest!"