Evil misogynistic song lyrics

[Florabritannica]

Billy Joel, ‘Always a woman to me’. Heard this introduced on the radio today as a romantic love letter to his wife.
‘She’ll carelessly cut you and laugh while you’re bleeding’ - wtf?
What other apparently sweet loving songs have lyrics that on closer inspection turn out to be woman-hating bile?

Tom Jones - Delilah

At break of day when that man drove away I was waiting
I crossed the street to her house and she opened the door
She stood there laughing
I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more

Grease - Summer Lovin’

“Tell me more, tell me more, did she put up a fight?” Ugh.

Tom Jones- She’s a lady

Always treat her with respect
I never would abuse her

Makes me raise an eyebrow every time

Wow I’d never properly listened to the Delilah lyrics.
Grease is pretty dodgy all round I think. I’ve always felt uncomfortable with Sandy having to conform to his idea of what he wants his girlfriend to be.

Delilah is meant to be a tragedy, what did you think it was about?

🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

If I remember correctly, this seemed so cool at the time to teenage me

I was thirty-seven
You were seventeen
You were half my age
The youth I'd never seen
Unlikely people meeting in a dream
Heaven only knows the way it should have been
Here today my tomorrow
Where you lead I will follow
All that kissing
No passion missing
Come live with me
Kiss the boys goodbye

There’s another Billy Joel song I find misogynistic - Just The Way You Are. Particularly these two verses:

Don't go trying some new fashion
Don't change the color of your hair
You always have my unspoken passion
Although I might not seem to care

I don't want clever conversation
I never want to work that hard
I just want someone that I can talk to
I want you just the way you are

Also, and rather more obviously, James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. Which was on the radio the other day

Ikea that’s a great song but you need to hear the whole thing

Just the whole of Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones makes me shudder.

I see that line "she will carelessly cut you" as her being callous not as a misogynistic remark. Am I off the point you're trying to make @flora

I love "Always a Woman" - it's a song about loving a woman who can be quite cruel. It's not meant as a straightforward love-song, obviously. It's about loving someone who hurts you.

Big Billy Joel fan here and the reason I love his songs are that the women he sings about aren't simple, pretty things. They are sometimes bitchy, mean, changeable, smart and fascinating. I much prefer his depiction of women to pretty much any other lyricist. George Harrison excluded.

Just about anything in the stranglers early repertoire.. Awful! (but I love them!)

“Always a woman” is about gender politics. His wife was the band’s manager, doing a man’s job in a man’s world and taking a lot of flak for it. The point was that by society’s standards she was suspiciously unfeminine and the song is composed of the insults men threw at her. It’s pushing the boundaries of gender and flagging misogyny.
He’s basically saying that womanhood is not defined by pleasing men. I think it’s an awesome song.

That would work if he didn’t describe her in terms of gender stereotypes - ‘She never gives in, she just changes her mind’? Per-Lewes!

I mean per-leese

She never gives in just changes her mind says to me she has to be seen to be strong (in a mans world) and therefore can't give in and has to display it as a change of mind.

ultimately the problem with the song is that she’s defined by male opinion - theirs or his, and men judging the worth/ worthiness of women is always problematic.

But I’d rather have a song like that written about me than the usual sugar coated romantic nonsense. She feels so real. Prickly, difficult and imperfect. Obviously the relationship was pretty toxic. But his regard for her wasn’t based on being blind to her flaws.

I’m arguing about one song, but I agree in principal with you that there are some shockingly misogynistic songs. I’ve ruined lots of great songs for dh over the years

Part of what grates on me is the mismatch between words and music - the casual lies, the walking away, the self-interest are combined with that soft lilting waltz in a way that seems masochistic and at the same time patronising. She may be all these unpleasant things, but ultimately it doesn’t matter because he is in control and she can’t really hurt me. Perhaps instead of ‘always a woman’ he should have sung ‘always inferior’.

These lyrics (the 1975 Inside Your Mind) pretty much speak for themselves - horrible romanticising of male on female violence. The thing is, the co-writer and lead singer of the band is always banging on about how he hates misogyny in pop music. How does he justify lyrics like these then?

Lyrics below

I've been learning the way that you talk
The back of your head is at the front of my mind
Soon I'll crack it open just to see what's inside your mind
Inside your mind
Marry me, I will wait until you're fast asleep
Dreaming things I have the right to see
Lately you are dreaming you're in love with me
The only option left, is look and see inside your mind
Inside your mind
I can show you the photographs
Of you getting on with life
I've had dreams where there's blood on you
All of those dreams where you're my wife

I will be your father figure
Put your little hand in mine.

George Michael - convicted sex offender but ... Noone seems to mind

Under My Thumb- Rolling Stones
It's down to me
The difference in the clothes she wears
Down to me, the change has come
She's under my thumb
And ain't it the truth babe?
Under my thumb
It's a squirmin' dog who's just had her day
Under my thumb
A girl who has just changed her ways
It's down to me
Yes it is
The way she does just what she's told down to me
The change has come
She's under my thumb
Ah, ah, say it's alright
Under my thumb
It's a Siamese cat of a girl
Under my thumb
She's the sweetest, hmmm, pet in the world

Frothybothie George Michael was a convicted sex offender? I'm sure you have a source for that.

Oh wait, I've just found it. Convicted of a 'lewd act' in a public toilet in LA. Has absolutely no bearing on the lyrics of Father figure, which has nothing to do with women anyway.