Jolene, and other anti-feminist anthems

I just want to get back up off the floor to wipe my eyes and thank @DodoApplet for the link to Bardcore.

Ha, totally agree on Sexual Healing. Let’s get it on is way better, as a song and for that wonderful IF in ‘If you feel like I feel...’

@WhispersOfWickedness It is a good song but very sexist.

This by No Doubt, shines a spotlight on what woman are expected to be. Gwen Stefani sings it with such venom it's wonderful.

I'm Just A Girl - No Doubt

Take this pink ribbon off my eyes
I'm exposed and it's no big surprise
Don't you think I know exactly where I stand?
This world is forcing me to hold your hand
'Cause I'm just a girl, oh, little old me
Well, don't let me out of your sight
Oh, I'm just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don't let me have any rights
Oh, I've had it up to here
The moment that I step outside
So many reasons for me to run and hide
I can't do the little things I hold so dear
'Cause it's all those little things that I fear
'Cause I'm just a girl, I'd rather not be
'Cause they won't let me drive late at night
Oh, I'm just a girl, guess I'm some kind of freak
'Cause they all sit and stare with their eyes
Oh, I'm just a girl, take a good look at me
Just your typical prototype
Oh, I've had it up to here
Oh, am I making myself clear?
I'm just a girl
I'm just a girl in the world
That's all that you'll let me be
Oh, I'm just a girl, living in captivity
Your rule of thumb makes me worrisome
Oh, I'm just a girl, what's my destiny?
What I've succumbed to is making me numb
Oh, I'm just a girl, my apologies
What I've become is so burdensome
Oh, I'm just a girl, lucky me
Twiddle-dum, there's no comparison
Oh, I've had it up to
Oh, I've had it up to
Oh, I've had it up to here

Get up, get up, get up, get up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up

Ooh baby, now let's get down tonight

[Verse 1]
Baby I'm hot just like an oven
I need some lovin'
And baby, I can't hold it much longer
It's getting stronger and stronger

[Chorus]
And when I get that feeling
I want sexual healing
Sexual healing, oh baby
Makes me feel so fine
Helps to relieve my mind
Sexual healing baby, is good for me
Sexual healing is something that's good for me

[Verse 2]
Whenever blue tear drops are falling
And my emotional stability is leaving me
There is something I can do
I can get on the telephone and call you up baby, and
Honey I know you'll be there to relieve me
The love you give to me will free me
If you don't know the thing you're dealing
Oh I can tell you, darling, that it's sexual healing

(Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up)
Let's make love tonight
(Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up)
'Cause you do it right

[Bridge]
Baby I got sick this morning
A sea was storming inside of me
Baby I think I'm capsizing
The waves are rising and rising

[Chorus]
And when I get that feeling
I want sexual healing
Sexual healing is good for me
Makes me feel so fine, it's such a rush
Helps to relieve the mind, and it's good for us
Sexual healing, baby, it's good for me
Sexual healing is something that's good for me
And it's good for me and it's so good to me
My baby
Ohhh

[Verse 3]
Come take control, just grab a hold
Of my body and mind soon we'll be making it
Honey, oh we're feeling fine
You're my medicine open up and let me in
Darling, you're so great
I can't wait for you to operate

(Get up, Get up, Get up, Get up)
Let's make love tonight
(Wake up, Wake up, Wake up, Wake up)
'Cause you do it right

(Heal me my darling)
I can't wait for you to operate

[Chorus]
When I get this feeling
I need sexual healing
Oh when I get this feeling
I need sexual healing
I gotta have sexual healing, darling
'Cause I'm all alone
Sexual healing, darling
'Till you come back home

Please don't procrastinate
It's not good to masturbate

I mean, if you're not sold about this song being "WRONG" the last sentence alone should make it so.

Just because it's a "classic" and sung "beautifully doesn't make it any better. It's horrendous to me.

I don't think we can assume he's the best she can hope for. He's the only man she'll ever love, is what she says.

I think the references to Jolene's stunning beauty and that she can have her choice of men implies that the singer doesn't.

My dawg comment was meant to be mildly taking the piss out of the one I responded to but evidently failed massively.

I can't listen to it either @UltimateBlends

Haven't read through the whole thread, but Marvin Gaye, sexual healing leaves me so cold.
Dp and I always argue over this. To me it's all about the man getting what we wants. Doesn't matter what the woman (who I see as bloody knackered) wants!
Might be an unpopular opinion, I'll be surprised if anyone else has mentioned this..
I cant actually listen to it!

Off to read the whole thread now!

Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight.

Manchild with substance abuse issues taking a woman for granted.

Dolly wrote Joanne and I will always love you on the same day , apparently. Some woman for one woman!

NewYearNewTwatName - YY to that. But the younger teenage audience at the time was probably not as hip to the context as Soft Cell may have believed they were.

Apologies, clearly put my foot in it there didn't I. I'm sure I read it somewhere, or it could very well have been about a different song.

John Mayer - 'Daughters'

The daughter - lover - mother trajectory for women is all too depressingly familiar. We are somebody's daughter or sister or wife or mother, not individual people valued in our own right.

Loretta Lynn: Still Woman Enough review – strident and timeless at 88. www.theguardian.com/music/2021/mar/11/loretta-lynn-still-woman-enough-review

You say you're gonna take him
Oh, but I don't think you can
'Cause you ain't woman enough
To take my man

Women like you, they're a dime a dozen
You can buy 'em anywhere
For you to get to him
I'd have to move over
And I'm gonna stand right here.

Which is the sort of antithesis of 'Jolene' (which I also like).

"I'm in the Olympics, way I'm jumpin' through hoops"

Sexy voice, breathily singing about doing anything in the kitchen and the bedroom to please her man

And there is also the association of gymnasts.

A genre in which women actually do extremely well, frequently working collaboratively with other women. And oddly whilst managing to be fully clothed, unlike say the the likes of Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion.

Yep. And they often dealt with social issues the pop stars of the time didn't dare touch. For example, the great and glamorous Loretta Lynn, the coalminer's daughter, wrote her feminist anthem, The PIll:

All these years I've stayed at home
While you had all your fun
And every year that's gone by
Another baby's come
There's a 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

mathanxiety

That was the whole point of the song though. It is about hypocrisy of the posh/business men who frequented the seedy Soho clubs that Mark Almond was hanging out in at the time.

I don't see it as an anti feminist song, it's one of my favourite softcell songs. But when David Grey covered it, it just seemed all wrong coming from him, and yes it just seemed to erk.

Feminists seem to believe that you give up your femininity to be a feminist. Bizarre contradiction, but true.

I don't think it's feminists who think that.

Have you ever unpacked what 'feminity' means?

I seem to remember being surprised that the woman in that song is male.

Whether that's true or not, the lyrics are full of sexism and classism.

I thought of the song when I saw the reports of the shootings in Atlanta recently. The gunman reportedly wanted to kill what he saw as temptation.

@MissBarbary what an extraordinary response. I was brought up on country. It's my experience that country artists are some of the first to poke fun at its reputation for being maudlin.

OP asked for this thread to stay light-hearted but we seem to have left that behind long ago. Country music is, to me, a storytelling genre and the multiple pp who are determined to misread Jolene literally have also missed the point.

Whatever I said
Whatever it did
I didn't mean it

Something something

You'll be right ,and understood.

WORST. APOLOGY. EVER