To want heads on platters? Utterly inappropriate school assembly

[Renarde1975]

This is a fucking corker. I am fuming but I'd like the hive minds' view.

At DS assembly today. Topic is 'Evacuation: WW2'. All good. Actually, they've done a great job and it's really excellent. Then this.

Towards the end, Christine Aguilera's 'Candyman' comes on. I'm watching open mouthed. I still cannot believe it.

MN: let me refresh you on the 'choicest' lyrics.

He's a one stop shop, makes the panties drop

He took me to the Spider club on Hollywood and Vine
We drank champagne, and we danced all night

He's a one stop shop, makes my cherry pop

And no, MN - this was NOT the radio edit.

And then to cap it all off for some inexplicable reason we are treated to two renditions of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey

A singer in a smoky room
A smell of wine and cheap perfume
For a smile they can share the night
It goes on and on, and on, and on

WTAF? Did I smoke crack this morning and enter into a parallel dimension? I am a teacher, that another member of my profession could fuck up so royally is just, wow.

I don't want my nine year old son to be singing this in a school assembly, or listening to words that objectify women and glorify alcohol. Turns out the kids were practicing the dance moves to Candyman for three weeks!

When I was 9 my best friend and I did a whole dance routine to “Cecelia” (“making love in the afternoon with Cecelia up in my bedroom”)

Had no fucking idea what it meant.

I don't think lyrics in songs go unnoticed or simply wash over children as much as we might like to believe. I paid attention to the lyrics in songs when I was that age. Children absorb, listen, observe and think about a hell of a lot more than we give them credit for

Some.

And some of completely oblivious. I didn't pay attention to lyrics and still don't unless they are so outrageous you can't miss them like Robbie Williams' Rudebox.

some ARE

not of

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest. Then again, my kids have a dad who is obsessed with rap music and hear much worse My eldest when he was in reception did a whole scho performance of Grease. He asked me after what a 'pussy wagon' was

But what do people think will happen if their kids hear these songs?

When I was 9, eminem was just famous and I loved him. I knew his songs off by heart, to the exact ‘chicka chicka’. I had his poster (aka my first boyfriend) and everything.

Then went onto listen to Tupac (my second poster boyfriend). Nothing really happened?

I didn’t become a thug or grow up hating hoes, or whatever else some posters think will happen when kids hear a song.

Something from Vera Lyn or the Andrews Sisters may have been a better choice.

Sometimes we don’t read the lyrics carefully enough of songs that initially seem suitable.

However at face value I could be guilty of a similar crime - intro of wheels on the bus to a Rosa Parks assembly.

However I wanted to wake up 11-16 year olds post lunch. I wanted them to think that the chairs lined up at the front was a bus.

However no panties were dropped or cherries popped in my assembly!

I just watched the video as I didn't know the song. I think there was a bit too much leg flashing but I didn't notice the lyrics at all. The most inappropriate bit for me was her wearing hardly anything towards the end of the video in the air hangar.

Interestingly someone has written in the comments underneath the video on Youtube that the lyrics are far dirtier than they remembered :)

I'm with you OP. I'd have been cringing. Not sure I'd do anything though, or maybe ask that they use the radio edit in future?
I speak as a Brown Owl who had a lovely local dance teacher volunteer to do a free session with the Brownies. How kind, how generous such fun, thought I....until she had 30 7-9 year olds gyrating to the revolting 'Swalla' by Jason Derulo. I honesty wouldn't have known what to say if any of the parents had come back to query it. Some people's judgement is just so weird. These are children!

When I was 9 we learned American Pie in school for a concert. The whole shebang, which was a feat of endurance. We hadn't a clue what most of it was about. I also liked to song My Dingaling - had no clue about the connotations.

When I was a little older I loved Simon and Garfunkel and got great pleasure in singing about whores from seventh avenue, much to my mother's horror. I did know what that was at thst age, but liked to wind the parents up

I would think the lyrics in the song you describe might possibly go over the head of the 9 year olds to be honest.

Dh was listening to Radio 6 and the discussion was "suitable" listening for children, and there was much hand wringing over old rock classics, but no mention at all of current rap/r&b stuff which has far more obvious, nay, unpleasantly misogynistic lyrics and as for the videos... I was particularly peeved to see Jason Derulo singing in an oversized coat and big boots whilst scantily-clad girls gyrated around him. Such double standards.

I'm in the 'you need to get a grip ' camp

I remember being at a school disco once and the DJ played Rihanna's 'S and M' with the line 'sex in the air I don't care I love the smell of it'. Now that is inappropriate.

There's always been controversial, rude music. It's part of music culture and growing up. Like a Virgin, Lets talk about sex, I wanna sex you up, I sang along to all of these as a kid. What's new is the saturation of words and imagery that kids get now. Dodgy pop ups on YouTube, able to access porn on phones at school. No wonder we have such an issue with consent and boundaries with young people

Not RTFT but just wanted to pipe up with my issue with Little Mix being so squarely aimed at little girls - hearing my 8yo DSD singing "i hope she getting better sex, hope she aint faking it like I did".... shudders.

Isn't the point though that a song from the era could have been played?

Don't stop believing is played at school discos etc but those lyrics from candy man seem out of order, (not that I knew them before). It's really hard to find u rated lyrics that kids actually want to sing though

Oh dear.
That's not on.

I've spent weeks before my kids birthday parties checking rechecking and then super checking songs beforehand.

Wow.

Another horrified parent here at the thought of teachers exposing kids to inappropriate pop music. I was acutely aware of song lyrics and what they might mean from a very young age.

I'd agree with the OP that Candyman was inappropriate and - I suspect it was laziness on someone's part though, using something they're familiar with rather than doing a bit of research and coming up with an authentic 1940s song - after all "Goodnight Children Everywhere" was actually written for evacuees, though perhaps it's a bit slow for modern tastes!

Get over it you'd hear worse in the local bloody supermarket!

Picturing the Old Dears in Waitrose spitting their free coffee out in horror as Me So Horny plays over the radio

I’m more offended* that’s it’s more WW2 American stylee.....as opposed to British.

• very, very midly by the way.

I see both sides of the argument on this one.

PMSL tell

If they did play it in Waitrose, it's prolly this version.

Here's my gift to you MN