Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Or was this acceptable in the 60's?

202 replies

luckylucky24 · 15/07/2017 18:57

Today I came across this song by Neil Sedaka called "Happy birthday Sweet 16". It appears that he released a song at age 22 singing about a girl he has known for a while and has been watching and waiting for her to come of age. I find it quite uncomfortable. You couldn't release such a song nowadays so was this okay in the 60's? AIBU to be so uncomfortable with a song that probably hasn't had airtime for 50 years?
Here are the Lyrics
Tra la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Happy birthday, sweet sixteen
Tra la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la
Happy birthday, sweet sixteen
Tonight's the night I've waited for
Because you're not a baby anymore
You've turned into the prettiest girl I've ever seen
Happy birthday, sweet sixteen
What happened to that funny face
My little tomboy now wears satins and lace
I can't believe my eyes you're just a teenage dream
When you were only six, I was your big brother
Then when you were ten, we didn't like each other
When you were thirteen, you were my funny valentine
But since you've grown up, your future is sewn up
From now on you're gonna be mine, so
If I should smile with sweet surprise
It's just that you've grown up before my very eyes
You've turned into the prettiest girl I've ever seen
Happy birthday, sweet sixteen

OP posts:
MitzyLeFrouf · 15/07/2017 19:44

The Puckett sing is pure sleaze. He's telling her he's on the brink of shagging her unless she leaves.

Get out of here before I have the time
To change my mind
'Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far, oh

khajiit13 · 15/07/2017 19:44

If course it's sexual

"Tonight's the night I've waited for
Because you're not a baby anymore"

That's fairly obvious Hmm

I've noticed this in a few songs of that generation. It is pretty gross but so are the songs today.

A song currently in the charts

"Gonna treat you like a lady""
Fuck you till you're burned out, cremated"

TheweewitchRoz · 15/07/2017 19:44

People these days seem keen to sexualise everything & no girl can think for herself as it's all grooming. Pretty shite really.

Idratherhaveacupoftea · 15/07/2017 19:45

As a teenager when this came out, we were incredibly naive compared to today. It wouldn't have entered our heads there was anything wrong with it.

noeffingidea · 15/07/2017 19:45

A song is a piece of performance art, it doesn't really mean anything. It's not real life. It has no bearing on Neil Sedaka's sexual preferences.
There were plenty of references to 'sweet sixteens' ,teenagers in love, schoolgirlls, etc, etc, because most pop music was specifically marketed to teenage girls.

Beeziekn33ze · 15/07/2017 19:46

Maurice Chevalier singing
'Thank heaven for little girls,
They grow up in the most delightful way' etc. etc. etc!

BoysofMelody · 15/07/2017 19:46

Sorry Gary Pucket, not Gary US Bonds

RhubardGin · 15/07/2017 19:47

I didn't read it that way so YABU.

Songs nowadays are very sexualised, by male and female artists.

It was a more innocent time back then in my opinion.

kmc1111 · 15/07/2017 19:47

It really was not a more innocent time, and yes, there were no shortage of songs about sex. Sex, not cuddling and kissing.

However I don't see anything wrong with the song. He might have been 22 when it was released, but it's a song about a slightly older boy suddenly noticing and wanting a slightly younger girl. Nothing unusual there.

AutumnalLeaves38 · 15/07/2017 19:48

Hmm...I've never really noticed the lyrics before, TBH, other than vaguely registering a boy falling for a tomboyish kid who, of course, has transformed into a teenage beauty.

The general theme, on reading those words, reminds me a bit of when the Leveson Inquiry (media ethics) revealed that the bloody Sun ran a really grim ticking clock countdown to Charlotte Church's 16th birthday ("she's turning 'legal' any minute, boys!").

Bleurgh.

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/07/2017 19:49

Again, are you really saying that teenage boys (or 22 year old men) in the 60s didn't have thoughts of having sex?

Of course they did. But Sedaka's whole shtick was singing fairly benign pop songs in a high pitched voice. Maybe the real Sedaka was a total shag monster, but the persona in his songs was a nice boy that parents in Wichita would have been happy for their daughter Mary Kate to go on a date with.

user1489675144 · 15/07/2017 19:50

I read it/hear it as a 16 year old boy growing up with a friend and how the friendship has changed over time and now he loves her.
Many people find their true love at a young age and back in the day many would stay together for a lifetime from a very young age.
Now the song lyrics are about sex/grinding/and young girls copy slightly older girls/women in virtually no clothes just underwear gyrating around.... ummm

woodhill · 15/07/2017 19:50

I don't think it is like that. He sees her as a pretty girl rather than a kid.

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/07/2017 19:51

Oh that Maurice Chevalier song is creepy. Especially in the context of that film and knowing what Gigi is growing up to be.

OlennasWimple · 15/07/2017 19:51

The lyrics in Try A Little Tenderness make me Hmm

"Oh she may be weary, and young girls, they do get weary [...] when she gets weary, try a little tenderness"

OlennasWimple · 15/07/2017 19:52

I've now got the Neil Sedaka song as an earworm: "sha-la-la-la-la"

MaisieDotes · 15/07/2017 19:52

Just because he was 22 at the time doesn't mean he wrote it when he was 22, or even that he is the "character" singing the song.

the bishop and his pals would lock up any woman who had unmarried sex in a Magdelene laundry

Not any woman. Only the ones who got "caught" (pregnant). Often by a priest or a married man who couldn't marry them. Many a pregnant bride in those days too.

user1471451355 · 15/07/2017 19:53

The Celtic Thunder version of that song is played quite frequently in stores, etc where I live. I don't read it the same was as the OP at all.

woodhill · 15/07/2017 19:54

Lyrics written by Howard Greenfield. Sedaka wrote the music

Sara107 · 15/07/2017 19:54

I don't see it as creepy but I think times were very different then. It would have been usual to marry much younger than now. And I think it was much more normal to not have sex before marriage or at least not to have multiple partners (when I was at uni in Ireland in the 90's, some research there suggested average age for students to lose their virginity was 21 and non-students a few years younger).
And this song does not suggest he has been lusting after the girl for years, as children they played together, later on they had nothing to do with each other, and now he fancies her! I think back then many more people would have stayed in the same place all their life, and marrying someone you had known since childhood would probably have been more common than now.

MaisieDotes · 15/07/2017 19:54

mitzy Neil Sedaka went out with Carole King for a while so he must have some edge to him!

Madeyemoodysmum · 15/07/2017 19:57

I agree with Sara107
I have many aunts married at 18/19 babies by 20/21. I see this as he wants to make a move on her romantically not jump her bones.

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/07/2017 20:00

Oh I didn't know that maisie. He must not have been as irritating as he seemed in that case 😅

user1489675144 · 15/07/2017 20:02

Ariana Grande
"I've been here all night (Ariana)
I've been here all day (Nicki Minaj)
And boy, got me walkin' side to side
(Let them hoes know)"

Lots of young girls singing along to these lyrics nowadays... walking side to side because you had really hard sex and cannot walk... umm and all children gyrating along with her! Wow so how is that acceptable?

HappenedForAReisling · 15/07/2017 20:03

Try Chuck Berry:

Swipe left for the next trending thread