Dodgy morals in pop songs

[Gahhhhereheisagain]

I'll start...
Escape (the pina colada song)
I'd be leaving that Irish bar without him. What a tit.

Horrible when you realise. Loved lots of these before I realised. It’s the way they’re still played on radio that’s surprising.

Little Mix’s Secret Love Song with Jason Derulo.

It’s a beautiful piano led album song without him (Secret Love Song Part 2) but in the radio version everyone knows, Jason wrote and sang a verse that absolutely changes the meaning of the song, from being about two people who couldn’t be together and having to hide their relationship due to potential conflict in society, to a song about sordid cheating.

(he also backflips in the fucking video , it’s a ballad. I reckon he missed a few memos 😂)

thankfully the heartfelt album version exists

"All I want to do is make love to you" by Heart. It sounds romantic. Catchy tune, great singing but best not to listen too closely to the lyrics.
www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/heart/alliwanttodoismakelovetoyou.html

Has anyone mentioned Roy Orbison’s ‘I Drove All Night’ yet?

I drove all night to get to you
Is that alright?
I drove all night crept in your room
Woke you from your sleep to make love to you
Is that alright?
I drove all night

Er, no, that is not alright. That is just creepy.

Yeah but wasn’t it by Cyndi Lauper first?

Ah Google tells me written for and recorded by Roy Orbison but released by Cyndi first.

Bee Gees - You Win Again

Oh girl, oh no
Oh baby, I shake you from now on
I'm gonna break down your defenses, one by one
I'm gonna hit you from all sides, lay your fortress open wide
Nobody stops this body from taking you

There's a new Texas song that Radio 2 are playing a lot at the moment, called Keep On Talking. Nice tune and I love Texas but dodgy lyrics about him saying he wants to cheat on his partner with her...

You say you need a lovin' woman, ha
I keep on talkin'
You say you need a guidin' hand, baby
I keep on talkin'
And you say that you're not satisfied
With the love your woman is givin'
You say that she's just a drag
And you wanna do some real livin' (hey, hey, hey)
Keep on talkin'
Keep on comin' on strong
Keep on talkin'
Keep on talkin', keep on talkin'
Talkin' all night long (ooh)
(Hey, hey, hey)

Lots of people have mentioned Bruno Marrs songs - there's one that always makes me cringe - think it was a collab called Silk Sonic? It sounds so retro-sleazy - talking about leaving the door open (presumably for sex) and trying to impress the woman with having cigarettes and potato crisps available! Maybe it's a deliberate spoof...

Ooh, you're so sweet (So sweet), so tight (So tight)
I won't bite (Uh-uh), unless you like (Unless you like)
If you smoke (What you smoke?), I got the haze (Purple haze)
And if you're hungry, girl, I got filets (Woo)
Ooh, baby, don't keep me waitin'
There's so much love we could be makin' (Shamone!)
I'm talkin' kissin', cuddlin'
Rose petals in the bathtub
Girl, let's jump in, it's bubblin'

Actually, now I've googled the lyrics, I realise that it's "filets" that are available to eat - not Lays crisps as I originally thought ! Still cringe-inducing though.

Is it Lewis capaldi? I'd rather you learn how to regret me, than forget me. Seems very cruel, does get worse.

Annie I'm Not Your Daddy
"B'coz if I was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly"

Yes I think so too. I thought the point was they want to get older quickly so they don't have to wait so long til they can be together and spend the night. They want to wake up together in the morning and to be married. It's a lovely innocent song about young love!

Oh yes, her partner is infertile so she picks up a random guy and shags him to get pregnant and pass the baby off as her husband's. Corniest lyrics ever - I am the flower, you are the seed. We walked in the garden and planted a seed 😄. My friend and I were only joking about it recently, don't even know how it came up.

Heart - all I wanna do

She positively milked that man for his sperm

… It was a rainy night
When he came into sight
Standing by the road
No umbrella, no coat
… So I pulled up along side
And I offered him a ride
He accepted with a smile
So we drove for a while
… I didn't ask him his name
This lonely boy in the rain
Fate, tell me it's right, is this love at first sight?
Please don't make it wrong, just stay for the night
… All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will, you want me too
All I wanna do is make love to you
I've got lovin' arms to hold on to
… So we found this hotel
It was a place I knew well
We made magic that night
Oh, he did everything right
… He brought the woman out of me
So many times, easily
And in the mornin' when he woke
All I left him was a note
… I told him I am the flower, you are the seed
We walked in the garden, we planted a tree
Don't try to find me, please don't you dare
Just live in my memory, you'll always be there
… All I wanna do is make love to you
One night of love was all we knew
All wanna do is make love to you
I've got lovin' arms to hold on to, oh
… Ooh, we made love
Love like strangers
All night long
We made love
… Then it happened one day
We came 'round the same way
You can imagine his surprise
When he saw his own eyes
… I said, "Please, please understand
I'm in love with another man
And what he couldn't give me, oh-oh
Was the one little thing that you can"

I've no idea why random sentences are bold in my post above!

No it's not.

It was written about his manager's daughter who he was babysitting.

How old is this girl if she’s literally still growing …and how much younger was she when they were “making love in the green grass” if he has to cast his memory back there?!

He may just be using 'how you have grown' poetically to mean 'you've got yourself fully established as a 'proper' adult, rather than the foolish 18/19yo he used to know? He's certainly known for using a lot of poetic licence in his songs.

I agree about Wouldn't It Be Nice - just two innocent teenagers hoping to wed and looking forward to spending married adult life together.

The Rolling Stones no longer play Brown Sugar at gigs - they've distanced themselves from it and acknowledged that it is very inappropriate now for modern times.

"I drove all night crept in your room"
I always used to think that Roy sang "crapped in your room" (listen to it!) - never quite understand why he'd go to all that effort just to gross her out by deliberately polluting her room with his dirty business, though

You're everything to me

I used to sing along to this drivel:
"You're everything a woman ought to be,
Youre sweet and kind
And pure of mind
And beautiful to see"

"I drove all night crept in your room"
I always used to think that Roy sang "crapped in your room" (listen to it!) - never quite understand why he'd go to all that effort just to gross her out by deliberately polluting her room with his dirty business, though

I CAN NEVER UNHEAR THIS.

It's not dodgy/questionable at all, as an 'adult' love song goes, but I think a lot of people enjoy the tune and beautiful close harmonies of Afternoon Delight without really listening properly to the words.

Especially the bit where the lyrics are allegedly supposed to be "Rubbin' sticks and stones together make the sparks ignite, and the thought of lovin' you is getting so exciting" - except she so clearly sings "the thought of rubbin' you"!

If you watch the video on YouTube - which features a lot of quite 'interesting' white splodgy explosions (fireworks, of course...) - there are numerous comments from people who were sung it as children and assumed (presumably as did the adults who sang it to them) that it was just about innocently chilling or playing in the afternoon

A lot of the songs mentioned in these threads were written about things that happened in the writer's circle of friends or that they heard about on the news. And some of them are actually about the writer's own child, niece or pet!

Some were written for entirely dodgy reasons, of course. And I really HATE recent(ish) rap & grime lyrics that are just sexually violent, no other point to them. Presumably 'inspired by' too much adult entertainment.

"He hit me (and it felt like a kiss)" came out in 1962, and was treated as a glorious moody romance until the grown-ups made a fuss. It was a comment on their friend's real-life relationship, definitely not intended to glorify the violence.

Sting said about "Every Breath You Take": I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it's quite the opposite. It's hilarious that so many experts have layered all sorts of sociological importance onto it! He was ... you know, angry.

[Edited due to disappearing words]
[And Freudian misspelling of rap as rape!]

'interesting' white splodgy explosions @FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper 😂😂

Racey
'Some girls will, some girls won't,
Some girls need a lot of loving and some girls don't'

'interesting' white splodgy explosions

Well how else would you describe them?!

By the way, I love the way the man in the red shirt shuffle-dances - he reminds me of Itchy from Itchy & Scratchy!

Other PPs have touched on this but if the singer is speaking in character and not condoning what they do then does that make it okay?

Contrast two songs previously mentioned here: in Delilah the character acknowledges he’s going to get arrested (“so before they come and break down the door”); in House on Fire a large part of the song is about trying to get away with the crime. Is there a difference?

(Incidentally The Killers did three songs collectively called the “murder trilogy”. They’re all great songs even if they are about suffocating a girl and throwing her into the sea, which I’m pretty sure no-one from The Killers would actually consider doing…)

Aw, that's sweet, @FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper. Yeah, they could have been a tad more subtle with the 'skyrockets in flight' 😂