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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:
olliegarchy99 · 15/07/2017 20:05

YABU - there was nothing in that song to suggest anything creepy or unacceptable. I know I was a teenager then. You are looking back at the time with jaded cynical eyes of today. Those of us who were young then did not get the message you are seeing at all.
now I can't get the song out of my head Smile

pigsDOfly · 15/07/2017 20:09

Olennas The song 'Try a little tenderness' was originally recorded in 1932 and the words were 'women do get weary'. I think it was changed from women to young girls, in the 70s or whenever it was later recorded, to fit in with the change in the tempo of the music and to give it a more, at the time, up to date feel. Young girl = young woman.

However, Gary Plucket's 'Young Girl' can never be anything but creepy.

midsomermurderess · 15/07/2017 20:10

There's a Rolling Stones' song, Stray Cat Blues where a fifteen-year old is described as jail-bait, that certainly wouldn't do now. And I find the Beatles' 'She was Just 17, You Know What I mean..., a bit dodgy-sounding.

AutumnalLeaves38 · 15/07/2017 20:13

^ I suppose an alternative interpretation of that particular song is that slightly-older teen boy (irrelevant that Neil Sedaka IRL was 22) is respectfully waiting for his younger girlfriend to marry him before any shenanigans occur...

So "tonight's the night" refers to...ahem...announcing their engagement.

Wasn't 18 (theoretically) the age of consent in 1960s America?
Though it varied by state, I expect...am thinking Jerry Lee Lewis (aged 23) marrying his 13 yr old bride in the late '50s (How? Did they elope abroad? That's a huge age gap Shock).
(Can't be bothered to Google tonight).

woodhill · 15/07/2017 20:14

Oh Carol by Smokey is sleazy but went over my head when I was a dc.

PetyrBaelish · 15/07/2017 20:14

Music might be worse now in terms of how sexually explicit it is, but OP's point was that subtext of waiting for a teenager to become of age so you can shag them would be something artists wouldn't touch with a barge pole anymore, it's become too taboo because of all the scandals we've had. So yeah I think she is right that culture has changed a bit there.

And it blatantly is about sex, it's just softened by artsy language. 'Tonight is the night' - for what? Hot chocolate and cuddles? 'You're gonna be mine'. Just so happens to be on her 16th birthday (age of consent in a lot of states). I am sure she was just as mature and beautiful the day before her 16th.

CaveMum · 15/07/2017 20:16

When you realise that "Come On Eileen" is basically a bloke pleading for sex it's not quite such a fun song to sing along to at weddings/parties:

"Come on Eileen, oh I swear (what he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress, my thoughts I confess
Verge on dirty
Ah, come on Eileen"

morningconstitutional2017 · 15/07/2017 20:17

I didn't read it that way at the time, we were more innocent then. Today culture is much more sexualised and looking at it with modern eyes it perhaps has taken on a different meaning.

If you look into them more closely I bet there are lots of older songs which sound less innocent now than they did at the time.

AutumnalLeaves38 · 15/07/2017 20:17

And, yes, a huge amount of darker lyrics (often coded to bypass the censors of the era) amongst the bubblegum, 'innocent', well-known music.

Always been the case...always will be the case.

Clawdy · 15/07/2017 20:20

If anyone can find Neil Sedaka singing Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen even remotely disturbing.....I despair. Get real ,for God's sake.

ellestyle · 15/07/2017 20:20

Young Girl was the first record i ever bought, i absolutely refuse to think of it as a pervy song, especially sung by the very gorgeous Gary Pucket. He's singing about a girl only slightly younger than himself, but she looks older and he knows he can't have her. As a young girl myself in 1968 i can absolutely identify with those lyrics. There's far worse lyrics out today imo.

Madeyemoodysmum · 15/07/2017 20:21

I'm a 80's teen and was still innocent then. I knew the song as mum liked him and I never thought it was wierd then It's just our experience from recent sad events.

SomewhatIdiosyncratic · 15/07/2017 20:21

Most people would have left school at 15 so would have been in employment by 16, not like today where most young people are in school/ college/ training until 18. People grew up earlier and weren't mollycoddled well into their 20s or beyond.

Going back one generation before these songs, my great granddad was on his own at 16. One parent died when he was 14. The other at 16. The oldest at 21 raised the youngest who was about 8, and the other 7 had to fend for themselves. Not remarkable in the slums of the 1930s. Until the 1950s, society abruptly thrust young people from childhood to adulthood on the tail end of puberty.

The tone of early 60s songs was much more innocent "I want to hold your hand". "Let's spend the night together" was pushing at social boundaries.

Living in a much more overtly sexualised society with skeletons from previous generations being pulled out of the closets means that we can read much more intention in to songs than was ever there. Society was different then. Homosexuality, contraception and abortion was illegal. Marriage under 21 was very normal, indeed my grandma feared being left on the shelf and an old maid at 21. A tangible fear to a generation that remembered old spinsters unable to marry due to a shortage of men from WW1.

Whichwayyisup · 15/07/2017 20:22

It's not about the actual lyrics more the implications behind them

FreudianSlurp · 15/07/2017 20:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

user1476869312 · 15/07/2017 20:23

There isn't actually anything wrong with singing about sex, or wanting sex, or wanting someone you can't have (for whatever reason). Pretty much the entirety of high and low culture is people feeling desire for one another, whether it's a celebration of the fact that the other person is willing and available, misery about the fact that the desired person is either unwilling or unavailable, or even greater misery that they were 'yours' once and have binned you.
From the 50s to the late 70s or so, a lot of stuff was about being young and in love and sometimes touched on the concept of one or both potential overs being 'too young' for sex - though there was also a popular theme of being too young for 'love' which was less specifically about shagging and more about teenagers' parents not wanting to accept that their DC had grown up enough to 'fall in love'.

choli · 15/07/2017 20:27

A song about a girl growing up - the horror!

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 15/07/2017 20:27

I've always liked Young Girl and not found it creepy. Released in 1968, when I was 7. I assume it's supposed to be about a girl who is under 16 but looks older, he finds out her true age, and he sends her away. By the standards of the time, that puts him in line for some kind of medal. Innumerable stars of the 60s and 70s were only too happy to have sex with girls well under 16, and there were plenty of starstruck teenage groupies who often ended up very damaged. Sad

Young girl, get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run girl
You're much too young girl

With all the charms of a woman
You've kept the secret of your youth
You led me to believe you're old enough
To give me love
And now it hurts to know the truth

Young girl, get out of my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run girl
You're much too young girl

Beneath your perfume and your make-up
You're just a baby in disguise
And though you know that it's wrong to be
Alone with me
That come on look is in your eyes

Young girl, get out my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run girl
You're much too young girl

So hurry home to your mama
I'm sure she wonders where you are
Get out of here
Before I have the time
To change my mind
'Cause I'm afraid we'll go too far

Young girl, get out my mind
My love for you is way out of line
Better run girl
You're much too young girl (repeat to fade)

pigsDOfly · 15/07/2017 20:29

It's not just modern songs. One of my DDs is a blues singer and covers a lot of songs from way back to the earliest blues singers.

Some of the oldest song are incredibly explicit.

MitzyLeFrouf · 15/07/2017 20:30

It's not about the actual lyrics more the implications behind them

But even if it is about sex, so what? He's not Humbert Humbert.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 15/07/2017 20:33

On the subject of songs that are actually really nasty, what about Under My Thumb, from the Rolling Stones? I really hope we were meant to think badly of the male protagonist, but I'm never sure.

And then there's the stalkers' anthem, Every Breath You Take.

BewareTheUndertoad · 15/07/2017 20:35

I was a teenager around that time, sex was not expected in the way it is now, contraception not as easy to get and 'going out' with someone didn't imply being ready for sex. It was more of a gradual process, one base at a time. I never considered the lyrics in those days to be predatory, just a boy & girl falling in love and being together kind of thing because when you were a teenager you dreamed of falling in love and getting married.

misit · 15/07/2017 20:35

I was a teenager in the sixties, the age of consent was 16, I understood the words to mean that they would be having sex on the night of her 16th birthday. Because that makes sense.

Cliff Richard's Living Doll, now that was creepy, just like him.

CeeceeBloomingdale · 15/07/2017 20:35

I sang that in school choir aged about 9!

goose1964 · 15/07/2017 20:36

Have you ever listened to the lyrics of Jailhouse Rock? Bear in mind it's a men only location.

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