Open up the doghouse
Open up the doghouse
Rover, Rover, move it over, two cats are coming in
Nat, you look like a man with a story, I sure have
I told my wife we oughta save money, uh huh
That’s the way it’s gotta be, oh, gotta be, gotta be that way
She canceled all her charge accounts, gave all the gold to me
Well, I can’t see what you did wrong
Why was your woman so upset?
Well, I put the money on a horse and he hasn’t showed up yet
Open up the doghouse
Open up the doghouse
Rover, Rover, move it over, two cats are coming in
Well Dean, what’s your problem, huh? Here it is
I gave my wife a beautiful fur coat, you did?
Told her it was genuine mink, rich man
I took her out to show it off
Then we stopped in for a drink, oh, cocktails
Well, I know your wife was really thrilled
How come you two had a spat?
Oh, it’s easy to see, it started to rain, the coat got wet
And mink just don’t smell like that, timber
Open up the doghouse
Open up the doghouse
Rover, Rover, move it over, two cats are coming in
Let’s hear it Nat, you know what, you know what though, what?
There’s just one way to handle a woman
Dean, we just got to treat 'em rough, gotta slap 'em
That’s right, we gotta show 'em who wears the pants
Cut out that sissy, sissy stuff, uh huh
Now it ain’t no use to take abuse
Whenever they are cranky or cross
Let’s put the women in their place
And we’ll show them who’s the boss
Open up the doghouse
Two cats are coming in
It’s a cute, catchy tune - right up until it’s not.
You know, if we’re gonna keep including songs that really never had airtime in the first place, I can link to some of The Mentors greatest hits:
Heterosexuals Have the Right To Rock
Secretary Hump
My Woman From Sodom
et.al.
As for a song that was actually played on the radio that might make the Millies a little uncomforable:
I don’t know, all I see in this thread are some pretty awesome songs!
Yeah, Cannibal Corpse’s ‘Necropedophile’ springs to mind…
It didn’t really get airtime when it came out originally, so…
How is that any different from some of the pop/hip-hop/R & B getting airtime today?
Edit: Ok, was replying to just the first one (My Sharona), but damn, that one’s pretty tame compared to some of the other ones posted. Holy crap, never paid attention to the lyrics of Brown Sugar!
I get the point of this thread, but Blurred Lines was only like 5 years ago, and explicitly about date rape.
I guess it was pre-#metoo, but I’m not sure that much has changed.
I’m going to say it’s really not, excluding the pedo stuff (and stuff like “Brown Sugar,” which still gets played on classic rock radio even though probably it shouldn’t) and, even then, as noted above, dodgy stuff still gets played if it has a beat or melody people like.
Going back to the turn of the millennium, we had a slew of sex-positive hits from Missy Elliott (in addition to more sex-positive songs written by Missy like Tweet’s “Oops (Oh My)”) and dirty-south bangers like the Ying Yang Twins’ every-other-word-is-censored “The Whisper Song” (a top 20 hit played often on MTV and top-40 radio). More recently, we’ve got SZA singing (positively) about polyamory and a few years ago a massive hit with an explicit reference to anilingus. People have always been horny, and they still are so naturally they’re going to continue writing songs about it and people are going to continue liking it.
I have a whole bunch of songs that on the one had are good rock songs, but on the other hand I can’t really listen to anymore, because IMO they are demeaning, racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise unnecessarily, well, I’ll say “offensive” though that’s not a word that means much to me personally. I just find them songs I no longer want to listen to, no matter their musical quality.
In this category I’d put things as variable as:
“Instant Club Hit” (You’ll Dance to Anything), by the Dead Milkmen, because the use of denigrating terms referring to homosexuals. Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” falls into this category as well, though there are differing opinions here.
Pretty much anything off of *Appetite For Destruction, * Guns ‘n’ Roses, because of the rampant misogynism. Some great riffs, but so sexist and abusive towards women. Axl Rose has…issues.
Most of License to Ill, which is a fabulous album, but which even the Beastie Boys admitted crossed the line in its sexism. They changed the lyrics for live shows later in their career.
The live version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s version of “Gimme Three Steps,” off of the One More From the Road concert album, which has a quite gratuitous line about “not fighting over this c*nt.”
And of course stuff like “Brown Sugar” and others already mentioned.
Now, I will listen to songs with language that many will consider offensive, depending on context. A lot of political rap uses the N-word, but it kind of is part of the message. While I might not blare these out of my car stereo, I don’t feel bad about listening to stuff like “New Jack Hustler” or stuff by Public Enemy or NWA. . Songs with a point like “Speak English or Die!,” from Stormtroopers of Death is an example, as is the Dead Kennedy’s “Holiday in Cambodia.” The former is deliberately offensive in its lyrics because one, the entire project was a deliberately over the top self-parody by some core thrash artists, and two, it’s poking a finger at people the artists clearly consider idiots. The latter uses thee N-word but the lyrics make it very clear that it’s being used in mockery of white liberal posers who themselves use such language. And Marianne Faithful, who sings about sexual betrayal in “Why’d You Do It?” uses her extremely coarse lyrics to make a very powerful point. I guess Lennon’s “Woman is the N---- of the World” might fit, too, but it’s not a good song IMO and Lennon was kind of an ass.
I still like early Beasties too (and later Beasties as well) but it is cool, especially in hindsight, how quickly they outgrew their frat period and became genuinely apologetic over some of their earlier lyrics. Licensed to Ill was 1986 and that line in “Sure Shot” was 1994, as opposed to them waiting to be old men and then saying, “yeah, some of things we said decades ago wasn’t great” in an interview most of their fans never read, as is often the case. I could be glib and say something like “dating Kathleen Hanna will do that,” but some quick googling finds that Check Your Head Ill Communication was years before she and Ad-Rock started dating (and they’re still married, which is sweet).
Edit: Got the album “Sure Shot” was on mixed up. Still predates the Ad-Rock/Hanna relationship though, so still no riot grrl pressuring MCA to call for the end of the disrespect to women.
I have, sincerely, no idea how to determine this for older songs. I didn’t listen to popular radio until the 80’s, I have no idea what did and didn’t get airtime prior to that. I tend to assume if I know it, it must have gotten enough air time to qualify, but then @triggercut says “The End” didn’t get airtime so that hypothesis is blown all to hell.
I remember hearing The End on WNEW in NYC many times. They bleeped a single word.
How many times did they bleep that word, though?
(Also, I must have the censored version. I had no clue.)
Back in my wasted youth, so-called “underground” (or progressive) radio would air just about anything, as long as it didn’t contain the FCC’s 7 verboten words.
If I could ask Robbie Robertson one question, I’d ask if he ever regrets writing this:
A couple of the songs at the beginning of the thread don’t seem like a big deal to me. They are creepy and wrong when you think about the age of the singers but when I hear them I think of an 18/19 year old and it doesn’t seem so odd. I’m probably giving them too much credit though.
That’s another one that I’m ambivalent about. I have no problem hating the Confederacy for their defense of slavery but The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down strikes me as more about family/clan/kin and the futility of war for the grunts. I’ve always heard it ironically I guess and not as a peon to Dixie.
I listen to that song all the time, I love The Band. There was any number of young men who went off to die in the Civil War, any number of young men who were sold a bill of goods as to why they should do so. Just like any other war. And any of them probably could have written that song or something like it. But that’s just me, of course it’s going to be a personal call as to what works for you.