"i dont want you but you dont get to not want me"

DH and I had a discussion about this song and the video the other day. The jury is still out.

We can't quite decide it it is creepy and rubbish or quite good commentary on the dynamics of a certain type of relationship.

I agree with SQ that the part sung by Kimbra is very strong and she is quite contemptuous of him in the video. He appears to be in denial of what she says.

Don't think it's a modern phenomenon. Have you ever listened to the Best of Diana Ross and the Supremes? Or even some good old-fashioned Blues? Plenty women singing about how they'd do anything to get some shit back.

I don't find it that horrid to be honest - to me it reads like just one of these heartbreak-but-trying-to-be-cool songs. You can read stalkerish things into it, but I don't actually think that that's what was implied.

I can see where you're coming from with your reading, but don't find it that strong to be honest. Might be also because compared to some stuff out in the charts, it's relatively harmless.

Now I'm still creeped out though, everytime I hear Let you go by Chase & Status on the radio

It sounds quite similar to 'Romeo and Juliet' by Dire Straits - in that as well the guy has been persuaded the girl is really into him ('when we made love you used to cry') and then she just goes off with someone else and says 'Oh Romeo, yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him'.

Having never heard this song or seen the video or anything, it therefore comes across more as 'god aren't some people bloody cruel to those who love them? Yeah well I'm gonna pretend it doesn't matter to me either' rather than being sexist per se. They're all lyrics a woman could sing as well.

You missed the best bit though - Her:

"Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believing it was always something that I'd done
But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know"

What's the tone of the song though? I've not heard it. Is he whinging and then she says ^ that in a "you're a deluded arsehole" way? Probably not, but worth asking!

I try hard not to listen to lyrics in chart-based music anymore. They nearly all show some form of misogyny, sexism or stereotyping. It's incredibly depressing. I find the current 'fashion' for lyrics featuring derogatory terms about women and glamorising abuse (physical or psychological) dressed up as passion particularly disturbing. It's not a new thing as such, but I think it's far more powerful than it's ever been at any other point in history because the media and popular culture is so all-pervasive now.