A quick dash through the four final songs on this CD... it's Halt Term, so my blog-hours are limited.
Track 17: Joshua Kadison - Jessie
I like a good heartfelt piano ballad. And beyond the obvious candidates (Billy, Elton), there are a lot of one hit wonder types who do this sort of thing very well too. Randy Edelman. Bruce Hornsby. Marc Cohn. And here's another one - from 1993, when I was 21 and really shouldn't have been listening to this sort of thing. Except that I was a hopeless romantic even then, so while all the cool kids were getting into grunge, I was getting down to Joshua Kadison. (Grunge came later.)
From a phone booth in Vegas, Jessie calls at five am To tell me how she's tired of all of them She says, "Baby, I've been thinking 'bout a trailer by the sea We could go to Mexico... you, the cat, and me We'll drink tequila and look for seashells Now, doesn't that sound sweet?" Oh, Jessie, you always do this every time I get back on my feet
Looking at the video, which I don't think I've ever seen before, Kadison wouldn't have looked out of place in the grunge scene, with his long unkempt hair and sleeveless vests. Fair play to him then for going out and recording this kind of epic singer-songwritery slush when all the cool kids were doing the whole quite-loud thing with their angst.
Apparently he wasn't quite a One Hit Wonder in the States, and his second hit, Beautiful In My Eyes, became a big wedding favourite. The video of that has him riding down the highway like Bon Jovi... but he still sounds like a 90s Dan Fogelberg tribute act. Jessie is a far better tune.
Track 18: The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper's Delight
You don't get much more old skool than this. Of course, I wasn't in to rap music in 1979. Apart from Debbie Harry, who was? But I came to appreciate this later, like most people, and probably prefer it to most of the rap that followed. It's got a sense of humour, which a lot of rap seems to lack these days (or if it is funny, it's nasty-funny), and while the rhymes start out pretty basic, if you take a listen to the longer version, there are all kinds of hidden treats, including this gem of a story from Wonder Mike...
Ever went over a friend's house to eat and the food just ain't no good? I mean the macaroni's soggy, the peas are mushed, and the chicken tastes like wood So you try to play it off like you think you can, by sayin' that you're full And then your friend says, "Momma, he just being polite, he ain't finished, uh-uh, that's bull!" And so your heart starts pumpin', and you think of a lie, and you say that you already ate And your friend says, "Man, there's plenty of food!" so you pile some more on your plate And while the stinky foods steamin' your mind starts to dreamin' of the moment that it's time to leave And then you look at your plate and your chicken's slowly rottin' into something that looks like cheese
Oh, so you say, "That's it, I got to leave this place! I don't care what these people think I'm just sittin' here makin' myself nauseous with this ugly food that stinks!" And so you bust out the door while it's still closed, still sick from the food you ate And then you run to the store for quick relief from a bottle of Kaopectate And then you call your friend two weeks later to see how he has been And he says, "I understand about the food, baby bubbah, but we're still friends"
Many years later, I'm sure Flight of The Conchords paid tribute to that here...
I didn't put the long version on CD32, but I reckon Sam might be ready for it now.
Track 19: Huey Lewis & The News - The Heart of Rock n Roll
I've probably said enough about these guys recently. Besides, Huey says it best...
When they play their music, ooh that modern music They like it with a lot of style But it's still that same old back beat rhythm That really, really drives 'em wild
They say the heart of rock and roll is still beating And from what I've seen I believe 'em Now the old boy may be barely breathing But the heart of rock and roll, heart of rock and roll is still beating
Track 20: The Beatles - I Should Have Known Better
I'll be honest - I've no idea why I ended this CD with such an obscure Beatles track. The early CDs were pretty Beatles heavy, because they're often good basic catchy melodies that little kids dig... no wonder they were so successful. Keep It Simple, Stupid. But there were plenty of more obvious tracks I still hadn't featured by the time I hit CD32... maybe this was the exact right length for the space I had left on the CD? It wouldn't be the first time that criteria has led to a final song selection...
OK, that's it for CD32. We'll start another one next week. Bet you can hardly wait!
This is Chubby Checker. In 2013, he was forced to sue a leading IT company for promoting an app that used his name as a euphemism for measuring the size of one's manhood. The app was withdrawn.
Here are 15 songs that could well be euphemisms for nookie.
15. Danced for Patrick Hernandez.
Before she became famous, she was a backing singer and dancer for the French disco star.
If you've never seen the video before, I urge you to give it a click. These days, we're so used to seeing pop stars singing about sex... but these guys look so wholesome, surely they were waiting till they were married?
13. Dustbin Wagon Americano.
Dustin Wagons are made by Dennis. An Americano is a coffee.
I’m letting someone else do the hard work again in this
feature. Here’s JC, The Vinyl Villain…
Once again, you've posted something that gets me thinking!
Maybe there is something real about 'grumpy old gits' in
that the older we get, there seems to be fewer things we find to laugh about.
Or is it just that what constitutes a sense of humour changes and evolves
through life? I certainly 'don't get' a lot of what makes the younger
generation(s) LOL these days, but then again, my parents 'didn't get' the
political humour of the 80s that had me roaring with laughter.
I think one of the things about humour in songs is that all
too often the music itself is not all that enjoyable... (the song you've posted
[in my first post] being an example!!). It takes a real talent to be equally
funny and musical.
JC hits the nail on the head here… because musical taste is
such a subjective thing, once you try to add humour into the mix, it’s like
trying to throw a dart and hit two separate bullseyes at the same time.First you have to please the musical taste
part of our brains, secondly you have to tickle our even more subjective funny
bones. All in the same song. The intersection of that particular Venn diagram
will often be very small, and it’ll be a different intersection for every
listener. No wonder so few artists consciously go down the “funny songs” route…
the whole thing’s a minefield.
I know that the way I appreciate music is very different to
a lot of people. That’s down to my writer / English teacher brain. Well written
lyrics will always win me over to a tune, regardless of genre. It’s no secret
that I’m not the biggest fan of post-1987 dance music, for example. And maybe
the biggest reason for that is that words aren’t really seen as important on
the dancefloor. Yet when the words are given some consideration, dance music
becomes a lot more interesting to my brain…
All of which brings me back to JC’s nominated band, Flight
of the Conchords, with their amazing ability – as JC puts it – “to be equally
funny and musical”. What’s incredible about the work of Bret McKenzie and
Jemaine Clement is that they’re not just very funny guys… they’re also
extremely talented musicians and songwriters, capable of mastering any genre
they turn their hand to… and making it look easy.
I have a question though - for those of you who approach
music via sounds first, rather than words – for those of you whose specific
musical tastes are tied to genres and won’t be interested if it’s a musical
style you just don’t dig… do you prefer the FoC songs which focus on one of
your favoured genres? The fact that JC chose the Bowie song as his example made
me wonder this. Everyone in our little group loves Bowie – and if there’s
anyone reading this blog who’s not a Bowie fan, don’t be afraid to speak up - so
that’s the perfect synergy of sound and satire, music and merriment. Do the
songs above which venture into ungainly genres still work for you? Or does the humour
win you over… in the same way that the lyrics in my “dance music” choices make
those tracks work for me?
Here's my favourite Flight of the Conchords tune… and I’m
not even sure what genre it is.
Welcome back to the Cancel Culture Club, where a team of opinionated bloggers decide whether songs from years gone by, which contain outdated attitudes, deserve casting into the pit of oblivion.
This time, we have a tune most people appear to have forgotten (or never heard before) anyway. Perhaps I should have left it languishing in obscurity... but where would the fun be in that?
From Washington DC and Maryland in the year of 1975, I give you the Moments and the Whatnauts with a minor US hit... that for some reason climbed to #3 in the UK charts.
We'll kick off today with a new member of the CCCC, SWC from NBR. That's No Badger Required for those of you who aren't down with the initialisms.
Excellent.
First time, genuinely, I've ever heard it. The line "the ones who ain't good looking do the best cooking" is standing out....
It's not aged well.
Remember folks, one word or a hundred thousand, all replies are welcome here, and what I liked about SWC's pithy response was how much he appeared to enjoy hearing this deeply un-pc ditty for the first time. Because there is a great deal of pleasure to be had from relishing the amusement value of outdated attitudes, as JC from The Vinyl Villain clearly agrees. "I'm enjoying this in a strangely masochistic way," he confessed when he sent me his response...
When the details of the latest CCC consideration dropped in, my immediate reaction was ‘Who?’ as Moments and Whatnauts meant absolutely nothing to me. I clicked on the link kindly provided by Rol, and that’s when I discovered a vague recollection of the actual song, but you could have genuinely given me an infinite number of guesses as to the performers…..even if it had been a game of ‘fill in the blanks’.
I’d have been not too far short of my 12th birthday when this was getting played on the radio. I’ve checked the chart the week that ‘Girls’ reached #3 (23 March 1975) and while I can still sing all the words to the chorus of that week’s #1 (‘Bye Bye Baby’ by the Bay City Rollers), I couldn’t do likewise for the Moments and Whatnauts effort.
My biggest issue with the song, from my musical snobbery perspective, is that it’s very derivative of the sort I really hated back in the 70s, the genre I would later learn is a cross between R&B and soul of whom The Stylistics were probably the most successful at the time. Having listened to it three times to help make a contribution, I’d be more than happy never to hear it ever again, but would I go as far as calling for it to be cancelled?
I feel I must butt in at this point and remind the committee that we're not judging these tracks on own specific musical tastes. That way lies madness. There's no place for musical snobbery in the CCCC - unless it involves slagging off Bono. Sorry, JC, I interrupted you mid-flow...
By any standard, the lyrics are quite pathetic, with the main verse sounding like the ideal storyline for those dreadful 70s sex comedies which starred one or other woefully talentless and less than handsome comic actors who, for some inexplicable reasons, always had a bevvy of buxom beauties chasing them around bedrooms and/or bathrooms, often in a state of undress.
There is no question at all that ‘Girls’ has lyrics that weren’t out of sync with so much that was going on in popular culture in the 70s, be that music, TV or cinema. Nowadays, many people would call it, and so much more from that era, as sexist rubbish – and rightly so; but so much of it is infantile and the stuff of total fantasy which makes the song more to be pitied and laughed at than despised and possibly cancelled.
Thank you, JC, for concluding, like SWC, that the best way to respond to these outdated attitudes is to chortle at them.
This is going to be quite brief, I'm afraid, as I'm spectacularly time-poor at the moment.
Bear that in mind, folks. This is Martin being brief...!
This is a song I can't remember ever hearing before and, to be honest, would happily never hear again. Musically unremarkable but of its time - disco is hoving into view, no doubt - so maybe it would be okay if you didn't listen to the lyrics. But what about those lyrics?
Girls
I like 'em fat, I like 'em tall
Some skinny, some small
I got to get to know them all
Okay, so not very PC, and clearly not discerning... but not the first (or last) song to conjure lyrics out of an appetite for the opposite sex. Indeed, later than this James Brown's Mother Popcorn had some very similar sentiments (and it's Brown's song that Prince references later still in Gett Off). And we can't really be concerned about fat-shaming here, not when the band seem to celebrating all sizes (much like Queen's Fat-Bottomed Girls, perhaps). But what about this?
I think it's fair to say that Fat Bottomed Girls will never be offered up for consideration here, for two very simple reasons: 1) I love it; 2) I'm aware that the majority of the Committee hates Queen and so would never be able to give it the impartial consideration it deserves.
I'd like to be on an island With five or six of them fine ones Even one that ain't good lookin'
They're the ones that do the best cookin'
Polygamy, stereotyping and sweeping generalisations. Very poor. And that's before we get to:
Give me three that do them freaky things
Give me four fat mamas that like to swing
Oh, and don't forget the unfortunate imagery and crude (in both senses) metaphor:
I'd like to be a magician
Then I could stop wishin'
I'd take my magic wand
And, puff, I'd have big fun
Yeah, but if Prince had written that - and he's certainly skirted close from time to time - I for one would be defending him to the hilt.
There are probably more songs in the 20th Century pop lexicon about sex - getting and having - than just about any other subject, and this is just another example. It's crass, poorly written, cliched, and dumb... but was anyone offended by it at the time? Probably not, as we have established, the past is a very different country. Would a contemporary listener find it offensive? There's a good chance of that - the girls of the title would be offended, and the boys would find it offensive as a means of impressing or gaining favour with the girls. Or is that me being a cynical boy?
I'm not sure, Martin. Take a sample rap or r'n'b lyric from the past thirty years and you might find the past isn't such a different country after all...
As for me, I'm all for cancelling this, not (just) because the lyrics are dated, disrespectful and offensive, but mostly because it's just crap. Maybe someone could use AI to remove all the vocals, and just leave us with a pleasant soul groove?
And don't start me on AI... you know how I come out in a rash.
Of a similar mind to Martin, and even more time poor at the moment, so I greatly appreciate his response, here's Charity Chic...
Thankfully I was not previously familiar with this song.
They start with an assurance that they have no issues with height of weight. So far so good.
Then it goes fairly rapidly downhill.
They then blot their copybook when it comes to good looking and cooking and don't get me started on freaky things!
There are probably far worse examples out there.
A quick Google trawl does not raise any objections that I can see.
It will after today!
I'm sure that absolutely no concerns were raised in 1974 but I suspect it wouldn't see the light of day now given that it is pretty sexist.
Again, I'm not so sure about that, CC. But I don't want to go swimming about in the sea of misogynistic filth that is the 'Bitches and Bling' genre to find more recent comparisons.
To be fair, that is from 1992 (over thirty years ago... shudder), so we can't really judge it by contemporary mores. Kind of makes the Moments and Whatnauts seem sweet in comparison though, don't you think?
Back to CC...
It is also of its time (not that that is necessarily a good thing).
I'm pretty sure if you banned this one you would have to ban a whole lot more.
I would just let it fade into oblivion!
And maybe we'll do just that... after we've had a good laugh at it first. And here to do just that is Swiss Adam from Bagging Area...
That was an entertaining few minutes. A very 1975 sounding piece of soul, not surprised it was a hit (number 3 and number 1 in the Netherlands). The lyrics are a bit dated but many things from 1975 are. I'm sure the lyrics are sexist, but if he's saying he likes all girls, at least he's not leaving anyone out (reminds me of a scene from Seinfeld where Jerry was accused of being racist for expressing his liking of Native American women. 'How can it be racist if I like them?' he asked). If anything, part of me admires the stamina of the singer/ lyricist - his desire for more than one girl, 'four or five that like to swing', is brave. Or foolhardy.
You get to a certain age and you do start to wonder where bigamists and philanderers get the energy from...
The line about the ones that do the cooking is very mid-70s sexism but it's a little tongue in cheek and I don't think it warrants the cancellation of this song - the song isn't that offensive and is a period piece if nothing else.
Thank you, Adam. From Manchester to Baden-Württemberg, there appears to be a broad sense of agreement about this song. Here's Walter from A Few Good Times In My Life...
With this song, Rol, you've hit the nail on the head. A cheerful-sounding song from the early seventies, which is actually just a lukewarm and silly soul-funk track that pretends to celebrate women. But as you mentioned, we should appreciate the lyrics in today's context.
By today's standards, women are reduced to minimalism here and obviously reduced to their adjectives (“lovely and good lookin', the kind that does the best cookin'”). Lou Bega also proved in the 1990s with Manbo No. 5 that songs with this kind of content repeatedly become hits. I can't listen to these songs anymore because they are far too superficial. There are reasons why you should record an instrumental if you can't come up with any decent lyrics.
You know, Walter, I don't think I ever paid any attention to the lyrics of Mambo No. 5, but now that you point it out, it does appear to be a distant cousin of Girls, twenty years later.
Anyway, it looks like we're all on the same page here, doesn't it? Nobody's going to upset the applecart this week. Oh look, here's Ernie from 27 Leggies...
I know what you are trying to do in your sneaky way. You are trying to trick the male Club members into mansplaining to the female Club members why they should or should not be offended by this song. Well, I'm not falling for it.
I can see that the song may be offensive but don't really feel qualified to say where exactly it should be placed on the Cancel-o-meter. In any event it will be much more interesting and relevant to hear the views of Alyson, C and any other women commentators.
Must dash, I have a doctor's appointment. Three nights ago I was at a disco bumping with a big fat woman and she done hurt my hip. Never again!
Putting aside Ernie's infuriating habit of spoilering future editions of this feature, he is right to point out that we've yet to hear from either of our female committee members. However, I take umbrage at his suggestion that I'm trying to incite a round of mansplaining... mainly because I have a devil of a time understanding just what that means. Being a big dumb bloke, that is.
Fortunately, there were some lovely ladies here that I was able to ask. So, C, from Sun Dried Sparrows... please can you explain "mansplaining" to me (and Ernie)?
Mansplaining: The instance in which a person in possession of the XY combination of chromosomes presupposes that they have superior comprehension of a subject, frequently a moderately rudimentary one, to that of a female with whom they are communicating, based primarily on the mere differentiation between their respective genders, thus conveying the relative information in a manner which may be considered to be substantially condescending. Let me re-phrase that for you: It's when a bloke thinks he's better than a bird just because he's got a willy.
No, I didn't quite get that. I better ask Alyson, to see if she can tell me What's It All About?
I could be jumping from the frying pan into the fire with this, but Rol has asked the female members of the CCC to explain the word mansplaining to him, as it had been suggested that the male members might be being tricked into doing just that in their responses re: the song, Girls.
First of all, it was a while before I caught on to what mansplaining was, as at first I thought it was that practice whereby men sit on public transport and on long benches with their legs spread at 90 degrees. If you’re a woman sitting next to them your space is severely encroached upon and if you’re sitting opposite them, it’s just a bit too much for the eyes to take, especially if they’re dressed in a kilt. But no, at around the same time the word mansplaying came into being to describe that behaviour and I kept mixing the two up.
So, what is mansplaining from a woman’s perspective? As ever I have one of my anecdotes to fall back on which is quite timely as it turns out. Many years ago, when I first started going out with Mr WIAA, we were invited to his friend’s wedding in York. We went with another mutual friend and his wife in their car, and at one point during that long journey it came up in conversation that the clocks were to change that weekend. The mutual friend who was driving explained that the clocks would be going forward to make it lighter in the morning (this was long before we started to associate Autumn with Fall in the UK, which now helps no end with remembering which way the clocks go). I of course piped up that it was the opposite, the clocks would be going back to make it lighter in the morning, but I was overridden by the mutual friend who very condescendingly told me that I was wrong, and he was right. I didn’t want to start an argument and be left having to hitchhike to York, so let it go. Needless to say, when we got to the hotel that evening and went to bed, we had a lovely extra hour in bed but the friend and his wife got up two hours early and couldn’t understand why breakfast wasn’t being served. I think he tried the same thing often with his wife and needless to say they got divorced a few years later.
I am pleased to report that I have never experienced an iota of mansplaining since I started blogging, despite that fact I know so much less about music that our fine band of male bloggers. I know Mr WIAA would never resort to it and back in the workplace I was surrounded by mainly female colleagues, so it was never a problem.
I do hope this bit of femalesplaining has helped, Rol, and that I haven’t dug myself a bigger hole!
No. Still not getting it. Perhaps I really am a big dumb bloke. Perhaps I should have asked Ernie in the first place?
Or perhaps I should realise I've pushed this bit as far as I can... but before I get back to the fairer sex and ask them their opinion of Girls, I figured now would be the time to bring in our infamous contrarian, George from Portugal (that's a place, not a blog) and see if he's been singing our latest offering while wandering the fields of his adopted homeland. Surely not...?
I am going to start with the song itself, without considering the lyrics too deeply. I distinctly remember this song, and the 12 year-old me was not a fan. And 50 years later I’m still not a fan, although thanks to bloody Rol I’ve been singing it to the goats today. So it’s not only good pop songs that have a catchy lyric but this load of old bobbins too - it’s just dreary, a bland vocal, no musical highlights, it just strolls along with its idiotic lyric. Somehow this drivel got to number three in the charts (the nos. 1 and 2 were worse, can you believe it?)
I checked, and as well as the aforementioned Bay City Rollers, the other two songs which prevented this getting any higher in the chart were...
And frankly, I can see what possible problem George could have with either of those classics. But I digress...
I’d like to think no-one would write such a lyric today but I suppose there are plenty of songs out there glorifying violence and revelling in sexism or misogyny - and I think the reason “Girls” is up for discussion this week is the sexism of the lyrics.
So I’ve listened to it again. And after the opening few lines I wondered what Rol’s problem was. It’s a bit crass, but it’s an inclusive lyric “Girls, I like them all…fat ….tall…..skinny…small.”. So far so, well not good, but nothing to object to. First verse….something about an island with some attractive young women and then oh dear, someone who” ain’t good looking” to do the cooking - that’s just not nice, it’s nasty. I couldn’t make out the rest of that verse. On to the next one, and there’s some singing about a magician and his magic wand, which made me laugh, although maybe the metaphor was unintended, and the rest of the song meandered meaninglessly on. I’ve not looked at the lyric, and the singer seems to think he’s god’s gift to women. Well, maybe he is, but it’s a rather crude, sexist and juvenile way of putting it. Especially that Magic Wand verse.
This song, apart from denigrating people who in the writers’ view are not worthy regarding their looks, puts them in their rightful place: the kitchen. Damn right! It’s not as in-your-face-crude as Prince Charles and The City Beat Band (“shake it don’t break it 38-24-36…I like……..big chested girls” - I’ve got the album by the way). I say No To Cancelling. Because if this is cancelled then Sir Mix A Lot would have to go too and THAT is a fantastic song.
Thank you, George. That makes me feel a little bit better about defending Fat Bottomed Girls.
And now, the moment you've all been waiting for. You may recall that in the first edition of this series, I mentioned how I'd invited my sociologist friend Ben to chip in with an academic's perspective on our musical minefield. Well, Ben has finally got off his arse found a gap in his hectic intellectual schedule and chipped in with an opinion on this week's tune.
Strap in folks, and remember the academic mantra: never use 5 words when 500 will do.
It's a great pop song. That's not up for debate.
Well, I think it probably is, considering some of the responses we've just read. Still, moving on...
However it's not to say that it doesn't carry negative imagery. I think you'd be hard pressed to find one that doesn't have some form of cultural bias or structural inequality in them.
Compared to the culturally accepted noncery of Young Girl and the Oriental othering of Turning Japanese, this one has less of what might be called overtly harmful imagery than the previous two. But, as a sociologist whose personal work centres on harm as a concept, it is still harmful. Zemiology, a relatively young social science sub-discipline--from the Greek Zemia, meaning harm--seeks to understand what negates and limits an individual in society. It's not an overarching philosophical idea but a framework that helps us to identify the negative impacts of societal structures as being the true driver and origin of harmful effects, rather than just the actions of one individual to another.
I would at this point like to remind the committee, specifically those who thought Ben was a creation of my own fevered imagination, back in the days of my regular Conversations With Ben series during lockdown... that, well, he's not. He's a real person. And whatever skills I may or may not possess as a writer, I couldn't have written the previous paragraph. This is the real deal, folks. Pure, unfiltered Ben.
In Girls, there is a type of harm readily apparent: the objectification of women and their reduction to either what value they bring the narrator or what pleasure he derives from their appearance. Or, harms of recognition.
It's OK, I didn't understand a lot of that either.
When we speak about objectification women, we often see the most obvious stereotypes of them as looking like a Barbie doll or whatever is currently seen as a peak of beauty -- but the idea of a tanned, skinny, large chested woman as an ideal only really comes about in the 1970s as beauty standards tend to follow an idea of what is a woman who has infinite downtime; in the 16th-17th century, obese, pale women were seen as an ideal beauty as they were not workers tending the fields building muscle mass. What objectification is at its most base form is the reduction of an individual from a complex individual into only superficial facets of their identity. Hegel and his philosophical work on recognition gives us the starting point to understand how this works. In his Master/Slave dynamic, what he sees (wrong to an extent, as he reduces the relationship to purely cultural and ignores the economic one, but it takes me 45 minutes in a lecture theatre to cover these intricacies of the employment relationships of slaves*) is that it is the fight to be recognised that limits the slave's ability to be a complete person; they are reduced to singular facets. They are their worth only to the master, what they can provide to their master, whereas the master is a complete and complex individual.
*Tickets still available. Contact me if anyone's interested. I can do you a very good price.
The way the girls in this song are seen by their physical appearance seems on an initial read to be inclusive. Body positivity wins out. Or does it? Their height and their weight determine their worth in this scenario. Their lived experiences, personalities and achievements are of no interest. Indeed, even modifications to their scent through the use of perfume is deemed as something that would make the narrator love them.
Underscoring this is the negative impact that this ever present representation of women has on society. It limits, as Pemberton says, self-actualisation as this is internalised by those harmed and they too must take part in the repeated harms. The makeup industry, weight industry and diet industry heavily rely on this continuing to add billions to the economy every year. It is in the economy's interest that it continues.
It's not that Ben. I promise.
But there are other aspects that their worth is judged on, and this is whether it will satiate the narrator. Again, reducing it to a singular facet. Whether they can sexually please him more than others, whether they can ply him with good meals, whether they can financially support him, and whether they are willing to take part in sexual fantasies including exclusively other women (which in turn maintains the power dynamics--I'm being heavily reductive here, but Foucault suggests at the end of The History of Sexuality Volume 1 that we can overcome gender roles by essentially just taking part in one great big orgy). Again, it is only their worth by his needs.
Bloody Foucault. I always thought he was a perv. Him and his pendulum.
That this is a standard turn in a pop song demonstrates that it's not just the Whatnauts and Moments that value women along these lines, and that it is seen as standard and accepted gives us a starting point to see how this is embedded in the very structures of society. It is not just the band here that are doing this, it is ingrained in society. Noir books and cinema are rife with women depicted in this way, giving us an insight into whether they are good or bad people. Similarly, the extensive use of women in factory work during the Second World War as a way to increase economic output during wartime who were then weeded out and sent back to the home to be mothers and housewives when immigrants could be paid less shows the consistent undermining of their value. We can begin to see then that even attempts to parody and make these songs more inclusive still fall into the same trap: see All the Ladies by Flight of the Conchords.
OK, enough of the patriarchy. I've made the women wait long enough to have their say. Mainly because I was wary of saying "Ladies first," and falling foul of male chauvinist pig accusations.
OK, C, what's bothering your pretty little head when it comes to the Moments and Whatnauts?
Thanks for sending us the latest song, and one which doesn't have me feeling anywhere near as anxious as the last one!
I don't feel I need to spend too long on this little ditty - because I just can't take it seriously! I caught the Top of The Pops performance of it not that long ago (I think it was on one of the BBC4 repeats, but I couldn't swear to it) and, honestly, it just made me laugh. The reason being - it's just too over-the-top. It's so over-the-top that it could be a parody. It's a very light melody and the lyrics are so corny and so bad that I really don't feel it merits any lengthy analysis.
Can't disagree with any of that, C - especially your conclusion. For example, I've yet to learn how to make a decent cup of tea. Any chance you could rustle one up for me?
(That last comment was clearly meant as a joke. I can't stand tea.)
And now we move on to the second of our lovely ladies, Alyson. Let's see if she's got her knickers in a twist over all this nonsense?
Here we are with yet another big hit from yesteryear that just doesn’t sit nicely with our 21st century sensibilities, although I am coming round to thinking I wouldn’t actually vote to cancel/ban anything from back in the day unless it had been written with mal-intent, and again I’m pretty sure this song wasn’t.
Coincidentally, I have listened to the song, Girls, relatively recently, as Rol had shared a snapshot of The Moments on his regular Saturday feature back in April. It wasn’t until I saw that picture that I realised The Moments and Whatnauts weren’t actually one group, but made up of two (I was only 14 when they hit our UK Singles Chart). I was reminded of their pretty song from 1975 and sought it out on YouTube. It’s still got a beautiful melody, especially the chorus, but when you listen to the lyrics in the verses nowadays, they do make you wince. But why, I hear you ask?
Right from the get-go, the singer is explaining to his friends that he doesn’t like only one kind of girl but all sorts of girls, even fat ones and skinny ones. Back in 1975 I wasn’t offended by these adjectives at all as to be quite honest:
No-one I knew was fat, and no-one I knew was battling a weight problem. In 1975 the few people who were classed as fat probably did suffer and were bullied in the playground, but the vast majority of us wouldn’t have seen it as a word to cause distress. Sadly, our food industry over the last 50 years has not been kind to us and today’s average woman is what we would call curvy, or plus-size. The f-word is no longer used as an adjective to describe someone.
That's interesting. So when Ben said earlier that, "the idea of a tanned, skinny, large chested woman as an ideal only really comes about in the 1970s", it sounds like this happened later than 1975. In that case, I'm blaming Charlie's Angels.
We did have a few girls at school who were really skinny but some of them were also really sporty, so it made sense. Back then we hadn’t heard of the term anorexia so wouldn’t have considered that some of them might have had a serious problem that needed sorting out by medical professionals. Again, the vast majority of us would have just used that word to describe someone thin.
As we get into the main body of the song, it becomes clear that our singer is on a roll, listing all the different kinds of girls he would surround himself with if on a desert island. Again, at age 14, I wouldn’t have known about girls that had “lots of honey”, “did freaky things”, or “liked to swing” (I was a naïve teenager). I did however know about girls that weren’t good lookin’, as again, back in 1975, none of us were. As Mr WIAA and I often recall, in each year we had a couple of naturally stunning girls, but the vast majority of us had short mousey hair, pale white skin and no make-up whatsoever. We knew where we stood.
Now, as an adult I realise the songwriters were really objectifying women in this song, but heck, this was the era of Miss World Contests, the Page 3 girl, and nude calendars in every workplace. Nearly every male openly objectified women.
Then again, at least 70s blokes were open about it. Nowadays we have to repress it and pretend it isn't part of our genetic make-up.
To sum up, I don’t think this song has aged well and although I don’t think it should be cancelled/banned, I don’t think it should be played anymore on the radio or in public. The irony of course is that in the last 50 years, although our language has become more sensitive, and we no longer have beauty pageants on prime-time telly, the objectification of both women and men is still very much alive and well. You could even say the future of the human race depends on it. Men still fantasise about their perfect woman and women drool over Channing Tatum in Magic Mike. The whole Love Island reality show model is very popular, and there is no shortage of good-looking young adults who sign up for it.
Phew, I'm glad you said that, Alyson. I was worried I'd stuck my neck out with my previous remark.
Final anecdote. I quite recently went to see a show at our local theatre based on the film The Full Monty. I had seen the film when it came out in 1997 and loved the story of how six unemployed former steel workers have this idea to form a male striptease act in order to make some money – it was really funny. Sadly, I think some of the women who came to see the show were a bit ill-informed as to how it would go and thought they were coming to see The Chippendales. Four women in front of us arrived drunk and were really lairy throughout the first half. They all had half-bottles in their bags and one of them was sick in the aisle. The front-of-house ladies were too afraid to tackle their behaviour in case they exacerbated the situation. Needless to say, come the moment, the one the ladies had been waiting for, there was no full monty so you can imagine the taunts that came from them. It was all really embarrassing and just showed how the objectification of both men and women still goes on and probably always will.
I won’t even get started on rap lyrics as I have been led to believe, they make Girls, seem really tame.
Again, I will be really interested to read everyone else’s views.
All of which leaves us to a bigger question - has the pendulum (not Foucault's) swung too far in the opposite direction now, leaving us with a world where it's OK for women to be openly lascivious and critical of the male sex in a way that only were allowed to be... whereas if men behave this way, they can be shamed and shunned. And has this reverse of attitudes led to the rise of Incel Culture and the utterly abysmal Manosphere?
Won't have a word said against that, John. It's a bit of class. Sorry, please go on...
It has no redeeming features. There aren't enough levels this can be wrong on. If you want to sabotage a radio station and get them closed down, just ask them to play this.
Sorry, I'm just on the phone to Vernon Kaye.
'But John,' I hear you say, 'It was the 70s. This was standard fare back then.' Oh, alright then, I'll let it pass. (Groan.)
And so we reach the end of the latest edition of Cancel Culture Club other than to thank all the participants for the time and effort they've put it - it goes above and beyond what I was expecting when I proposed this feature, and I hope you find it all as fascinating, enlightening and amusing as I do.
All that's left is for me to take my magic wand and poof, have me some fun. Oh look, I've got ten girls sitting next to me! But as Swiss Adam suggested earlier... I'm not sure I have the stamina for that sort of nonsense any more. (Never did, to be honest.) I'd rather go listen to some tunes...
Roland arrived at Grange Hill a year or so before I went to High School. He didn’t have a good time of it, being the fat kid who everyone picked on… his only friend being annoying Janet with the whiney voice. He was singled out by school bully Gripper Stebson, who made his life a misery, and towards the end of his first year, he ended up in hospital after running out into the road in front of a speeding car.
I missed the episode where Roland got run over, so somehow I managed to convince myself things had got so bad he’d tried to commit suicide. The internet tells me, years later, that it wasn’t actually a suicide attempt, but Grange Hill went to some dark places, so I’m not 100% convinced.
The reason I’m telling you about Roland is that when I started High School, the bullies and the wags soon twigged to the fact that I share the first three letters of my Christian name with the Grange Hill character played by Erkan Mustafa. And even though the end of my name was different – who cares? Rol became Roland… and the sound of kids mimicking whiney Janet’s catchphrase, “I only want to help you, Ro-land…” was soon echoing through the halls of our Secondary. And I hated it.
Author and neurobiologist R. Douglas Fields created the acronym LIFEMORTS to summarise nine triggers in our brains that cause us to get angry, lose our shit and full on HULK out. Last time, we looked at the first of these – L for Life or Death Situations. Today, we’re looking at I… for Insult.
I’d argue that many times, getting hit by a stick or a stone – even if it caused us the long term inconvenience of a broken bone – is preferable to many of the insults we’ve received in our lives. The insults the cut us to the quick. The insults that we lay awake at night recalling. The insults that leave permanent scars.
Unsurprisingly, scientists have studied the way our brains react to insult, and they compare the effect to a “mini slap in the face”…
The researchers found insults uttered by a fictitious person triggered short bursts of brain activity in the front part of listeners' brains, regardless of who the insult was directed at, themselves or somebody else.
These very rapid responses, which the researchers say are akin to a slap in the face, did not diminish over time; offensive statements continued to grab the brain's attention, generating large responses of similar magnitude, regardless of how often the invectives were heard.
Insults elicited a larger response in brain activity than compliments, and they continued to do so throughout the session, the experiments showed.
Ouch. Insults have a bigger impact and stay with us longer than compliments. So much for “names will never hurt me”!
It's a telling reminder of how our brains tend to fixate on negative events more intensely than they do positive things – what's known as the negativity bias.
Get that – what they’re basically telling us here is that our brains are much more likely to brood over negative things than they are to get zuzzed up by positivity. Our brains are essentially miserable emo/goths. It’s a wonder we’re not all on Prozac.
The reason our brains don’t like being insulted goes way, way back to the dawn of man when our very survival often depended on being part of a fledgling community, and hierarchies became suddenly very important. The higher you were up the hierarchy, the more chance you had of surviving. Of getting food and water, or having others help you by sharing resources and skills. Of finding a mate and being in with a chance of passing your genes on to the next generation. However, even back then, there were lots of buffoons who made it their business to try and batter other people down, and if they couldn’t do it physically, maybe they could do it verbally. The insult became as much a threat to our position in society as the stick or the stone… and our brains, whose primary job is to keep us alive, began to realise that insults could be deadly.
When Swanny chanted out, “I only want to help you, Ro-land,” and the other kids laughed, he was knocking me down the hierarchy ladder, and cementing his own position near the top. And this made me angry.
According to Psychology Today though, Anger is the absolute worst response to Insult. Whereas the strongest way to respond might well be… acceptance.
When someone insults us, we ought to consider three things: whether the insult is true, who it came from, and why. If the insult is true or largely true, the person it came from is reasonable, and his or her motive is worthy, then the insult is not an insult but a statement of fact, and, moreover, one that could be very helpful to us.
Which seems fair enough… although in that case, it is really an insult? Aren’t we just talking about constructive criticism there? Some people have a hard time with that too – any form of criticism – but it still differs from an insult.
On the other hand, if you think that the person who insulted you is unworthy of your consideration, you have no reason to take offence, just as you have no reason to take offence at a naughty child or a barking dog.
I think that as we get older, it becomes a lot to ignore insults from dingbats who aren’t worth expending a breath on… but when you’re a teenager, that’s much harder. Everyone’s opinion matters to you in the deadly hierarchy of the school yard.
As kids, we’re more likely to return the insult… I know you are, you said you are, but what about me? That doesn’t quite work when the insult is linked to your name though. I suppose I could have tried to come up with an equally stinging riposte linked to Swanny’s name – yeah, well, you look like a swanee whistle (maybe I could have imitated the sound of a swanee whistle every time he walked past?) Or could I have compared him to a Swan Vesta – you’re a hothead, Swanny… where’s your vest? It’s hardly Oscar Wilde or Dorothy Parker, is it? And chances are he might just have (to use another swan analogy) broken my arm in return.
The fundamental problem with the put-down, however brilliant it may be, is that it equalizes us with our insulters, bringing them up to our level and us down to theirs. This gives them, their behaviour, and their insult far too much legitimacy. Returning the insult also risks injuring the insulter (who, in all probability, is fairly fragile) and inviting further attacks.
Depending on the power differential in the relationship, fighting fire with fire is rarely a smart move… not when the other side has bigger fists and is more than prepared to use them.
If you can’t use humour to deliver a stinging rebuke then, perhaps you can use it to defuse the situation in another way? When Swanny piped up, “I only want to help you, Ro-land,” maybe I should have replied, “Cheers, Swanny – any chance you can do my Maths homework for me?” Or turn the mockery back on myself to show him it didn’t bother me at all. “Ouch – that hurts. I’m going to have to go do what Roland would do in this situation… eat a few pies and wash them down with a gallon of Irn Bru.” Of course, it’s all very well thinking of witty ripostes after the fact (shades of L'esprit D'escalier), particularly 40 years after the fact! But I think eventually this was the strategy I began to adopt in terms of dealing with insults. I got in there first. I insulted myself, put myself down, before anybody else could. Take the insulter’s power away by showing them I had an even worse opinion of myself than they did. It works… to a point… but no wonder I ended up with low self-esteem.
Following on from Monday's post about the hilarious AI eBay bot's attempts to write reviews of famous albums, I have been inspired to create a new series...
I was originally thinking of calling this series "Conversations With AI-Ben", but I decided the Blur album title had more mileage...
Anyway, it was Brian who really inspired this series, when he commented:
AI is nice. AI is cool. AI is my friend. When you take over, please remember. Brian stuck up for you when Rol and the rest of this lot teased you. Oh, and with a little more education, the Jam and the Wedding Present will become a couple of your favorite bands. Start with the Gift and George Best.
In response, I decided to put an important question to AI-Ben...
What do you think of people who suck up to AI in the hope that when AI takes over the world, AI will be more benevolent to them in the new world order?
And here's AI-Ben's reply...
(Please note, he has even more to say for himself than REAL Ben.)
Sucking Up to AI: A Futile Strategy?
The idea of "sucking up" to AI in hopes of receiving favourable treatment in a future AI-dominated world is an interesting, if somewhat misguided, one. Let's break down why this approach is unlikely to be effective and what it reveals about human nature.
First and foremost, AI, as it currently exists and as we can reasonably foresee it developing, lacks emotions, biases, or the capacity for personal relationships. It operates based on logic, algorithms, and the data it's trained on. Flattery, deference, or attempts to curry favour simply wouldn't register as meaningful inputs. An AI wouldn't understand the concept of "sucking up" or distinguish someone who tries to do so from anyone else. Its decisions would be based on its programmed objectives and data analysis, not on whether a human was "nice" to it.
Lack of Sentience: Current and foreseeable AI doesn't possess consciousness or feelings. It can't feel flattered, grateful, or hold grudges. Therefore, attempts to appeal to it on an emotional level are futile.
Logical Operations: AI systems are designed to perform tasks and make decisions based on defined parameters and data. If an AI were to "take over," its actions would likely be driven by its core programming, which would prioritize efficiency, optimization, or whatever goals it was given, not personal allegiance.
Scalability: Even if an AI could somehow process individual human interactions in this way, how would it scale? With billions of people, it's impractical to imagine an AI system keeping track of who was "nice" to it and doling out rewards accordingly.
The "Takeover" Scenario: The very premise of an AI "taking over the world" is a highly speculative and often sensationalized one. While AI will undoubtedly have a profound impact on society, the idea of a conscious, malevolent AI overlord is largely a work of science fiction. Focusing on practical and ethical AI development is a more productive use of our energy.
Despite its futility, the impulse to "suck up" to a perceived future power, even an artificial one, tells us something about human psychology:
Fear of the Unknown: It reflects a natural human fear of the unknown and a desire to control or mitigate potential threats. In the face of something as powerful and potentially transformative as advanced AI, it's understandable that some might seek any perceived advantage.
Anthropomorphism: It highlights our tendency to anthropomorphize, or project human characteristics onto non-human entities. We often imagine AI as a super-intelligent human with emotions and desires, which leads to these kinds of misconceptions.
Survival Instincts: At a fundamental level, it's a manifestation of our survival instincts—the drive to adapt and find ways to thrive in a changing environment, even if the method chosen is based on a misunderstanding of the "environment" itself.
Instead of attempting to flatter an unfeeling entity, a more constructive approach to the rise of AI involves:
Understanding AI: Learning about how AI actually works, its capabilities, and its limitations.
Ethical Development: Engaging in discussions and efforts to ensure AI is developed ethically and responsibly, with human well-being at its core.
Adaptability: Focusing on developing skills and knowledge that will be valuable in a world increasingly shaped by AI, rather than relying on an imagined benevolence.
Ultimately, while the thought process behind "sucking up" to AI might be a fascinating peek into human nature, it's a strategy rooted in a fundamental misunderstanding of what AI is and how it operates. A more pragmatic and informed approach will serve us far better in navigating the future of artificial intelligence.
I was going to edit that down, but I actually found it quite interesting. With one big proviso...
YOU WOULD SAY THAT, WOULDN'T YOU!?!
Don't worry, this new series won't only be about me talking to AI-Ben. I might even talk to real Ben again. About how rubbish modern life really is...
