Jolene, and other anti-feminist anthems

[StealthPolarBear]

Just to say this is a light-hearted chat thread.
I love jolene, sing it with a minor adaptation every time I'm cleaning the windows. I have no idea about the background, but it must come near the top of the least feminist songs ever!
Another which I've just heard is sheryl crow, strong enough. "lie to me, I promise I'll believe, lie to me, but please don't leave"
Brilliant song, awful lyrics :)
Any others?

Sorry if it’s been mentioned but Money Money Money by ABBA has just come on the radio.. good god those lyrics! I’d never thought about them before.

In my dreams I have a plan
If I got me a wealthy man
I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball

Thanks for ruining all these amazing songs OP

@JustGotHere

Great thread., sorry for spamming it. One of my pet peeves and something I can’t stand is when men assume the character of a woman and sing as if in her literary voice. The quintessential example would be “Candy Says” by the Velvet Underground. I think there is a word for this process of putting words into women’s mouths , something like “exscription”.

Is this an acceptance that trans women are women? Candy was Candy Darling- a trans woman.

LunaNorth I think that's the interpretation Bruce had in mind for Sad Eyes, and maybe she's with someone else or has something going on in her life. But if anyone said that to me in real life, however good looking, I would think arrogant sod or creepy weirdo. Bruce is a funny one, he can't dance and I got bored listening to him reading his boring autobiography (sorry Bruce).

But (other than Reno) his songs can be so sexy.

The H.P Lovecraft re-write of Jolene is brilliant.

@MissBarbary Is it the version a PP posted that you mean, ( ) or a different one?

Sexual healing- lol I'd never heard that last verse/bit. Bad

Ohhh if we're talking about women using men for money as being unfeminist (I suppose it is really) how about some Eartha Kitt?

'Old Fashioned Millionaire.' But I think some of her other stuff is kind of more feminist, I'd have to remind myself of it.

I'm still trying to fathom this The Internet song (Special Affair) if anyone knows it and has a view. It's bothered me for a while but this thread has had me listening to it loads again, I love it.

The H.P Lovecraft re-write of Jolene is brilliant

@MissBarbaryIs it the version a PP posted that you mean, (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkbFeu6IZwY) or a different one?

Yes it's that one !

[quote mswales]@SusannaMorvern well if we're talking about Bruce what about Fire??!!
I LOVE this song and always feel a bit guilty singing it!

I'm driving in my car
I turn on the radio
I'm pulling you close
You just say no
You say you don't like it
But girl I know you're a liar
'Cause when we kiss
Ooooh, Fire

Late at night
I'm takin' you home
I say I wanna stay
You say you wanna be alone
You say you don't love me
Girl you can't hide your desire
'Cause when we kiss
Oh, Fire
Fire[/quote]
This one I can't hear now without remembering the

The H.P Lovecraft re-write of Jolene is brilliant.

Thanks so much for this

wonderful

Anything For You by Evanescence.
'I'll believe all your lies, just pretend you love me.
Make believe, close your eyes, I'll be anything for you.'

I like the way that the song Me and Bobby McGee seems to changes depending on the sex of the singer.

When the composer Kris Kristofferson, or any other man sings it, it's about Roberta McGee:

From the Kentucky coal mines to the California sun
Yeah, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Through all kinds of weather, through everything we done
Every night she kept me from the cold
One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let her slip away
Lookin' for the home I hope she finds.
Well, I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday
To be holdin' Bobby's body next to mine.

to Janis Joplin's about Robert:

From the Kentucky coal mines to the California sun
Yeah, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul
Through all kinds of weather, through everything we done
Yeah, Bobby baby kept me from the cold
One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away
Lookin' for the home I hope he finds.
Well, I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday
To be holdin' Bobby's body next to mine.

Robert always seems like such a wimp, somehow.

Speaking of Dolly Parton and Bob Dylan, there have been suspicions that the latter's recent song co-written with Robert Hunter) 'Jolene' might be intended as some sort of answer-song to Dolly's, though that doesn't get much shrift here: bob-dylan.org.uk/archives/1496

"There also seems to be a worry about why Dylan and/or Hunter chose the name Jolene. Of course they knew the Parton song was there, and, it has been argued, once a name reaches a certain level of significance then it can’t be used again. You can’t have another Jolene, it is said, any more than you can have another Maybelline, or Mrs. Robinson."

Do you never read a novel with a female main character if it's written by a man

Don’t know why I cant quote this.

Sure, the first one that comes to mind is Thomas Hardy, but I think that’s because he did it so well.

What bugs me about Lou Reed and Candy Says, I mean, the character is his creation, he could have imagined her as anything, but he went with insecure, powerless, and shallow; she’s no Tess.

I’I’ve been on the lookout for this kind of thing ever since the fat girl got dumped for a man in William, It Was Really Nothing. Who says she doesn’t dream about anything, of course she does.

But the song is about Candy Darling- a real person- who Lou Reed was friends with.

@Deliriumoftheendless

But the song is about Candy Darling- a real person- who Lou Reed was friends with.

Oh I feel dumb, really, I never knew that. I wonder what she thought about it.

Wikipedia: Candy Says" is a song written by Lou Reed. It is one of four songs Lou Reed explicitly wrote in the voice of a female character, in the case of "Candy Says", a transgender woman, telling her experiences. Each would begin with the woman's name and then be followed by the verb "says." "Stephanie Says" was the first - later adapted into "Caroline Says" on his solo album Berlin.

I think I must have instinctively recoiled.

Holly came from Miami, F.L.A.
Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A.
Plucked her eyebrows on the way
Shaved her legs and then he was a she
She says, "Hey, babe
Take a walk on the wild side"
Said, "Hey, honey
Take a walk on the wild side".

Candy came from out on the Island
In the back room she was everybody's darling
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head.

I have to admit that neither I nor, apparently, the BBC knew what 'giving head' meant when the song was first released in the UK.

Is it anti feminist if it's about men though?

I always found the casualness of that grim, same as 'killer Queen' by. Well queen obviously!

I mean not my world and the 70s were a different time. I am sure that exploitation of young men on the gay scene happened. How much I don't know. Men who have exchanged sex for cash seem more open about it. I just don't know how different the dynamic is etc.

Oh I haven't RTFT.

I like the velvet underground.

What's the complaint about Stephanie says?

Stephanie says that she wants to know
Why she's given half her life, to people she hates now
Stephanie says when answering the phone
What country shall I say is calling from across the world
But she's not afraid to die, the people all call her Alaska
Between worlds so the people ask her 'cause it's all in her mind
It's all in her mind
Stephanie says that she wants to know
Why it is thought she's the door She can't be the room
Stephanie says but doesn't hang up the phone
What sea shell sea is calling from across the world
But she's not afraid to die, the people all call her Alaska
Between worlds so the people ask her 'cause it's all in her mind
It's all in her mind
She asks you is it good or bad
It's such an icy feeling it's so cold in Alaska,
It's so cold in Alaska, it's so cold in Alaska

I mean I have no idea wtf it means but nothing obviously misogynistic.

It's a very mournful sort of song.

Yes little Joe and candy were real people he knew.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/music/shortcuts/2015/dec/07/holly-woodlawn-walk-on-the-wild-side-lou-reed-candy-little-joe

For misogyny have we had in the summertime?

Brown sugar by the stones is grim.

I mentioned get lucky earlier I think.

I mean it goes on and on and on and on...

What bugs me about Lou Reed and Candy Says, I mean, the character is his creation, he could have imagined her as anything, but he went with insecure, powerless, and shallow; she’s no Tess

Candy Darling was a real person. Candy, Jackie, Holly, Little Joe and the Sugar Plum Fairy in Take a Walk on the Wild Side were all friends of Lou Reed. I thought everyone knew that. Candy was insecure and powerless.

This is the famous photograph of Candy on her death bed. Anonhi when they still called themselves Anthony and the Johnsons used it as an album cover.

Is this an acceptance that trans women are women? Candy was Candy Darling- a trans woman.
Absolutely not, I had no idea it was about a real person, I just thought it was a series of misogynistic caricatures of what he thought goes on in our silly little heads,.

Another not so empowering song by a woman,
Patti Smith, Because the Night, such a great song that I love to sing along with, until it gets to

Come on now, try and understand
The way I feel under your command

Cmon Patti I love you but wtf is that?

@JustGotHere

Is this an acceptance that trans women are women? Candy was Candy Darling- a trans woman. Absolutely not, I had no idea it was about a real person, I just thought it was a series of misogynistic caricatures of what he thought goes on in our silly little heads,.

Another not so empowering song by a woman,
Patti Smith, Because the Night, such a great song that I love to sing along with, until it gets to

Come on now, try and understand
The way I feel under your command

Cmon Patti I love you but wtf is that?

As has been pointed out before music reflects emotions- its purpose is not to provide smash the patriarchy anthems and encouraging singalongs for radical feminists.

In the case of Because the Night there's nothing in the lyrics to say it's a woman talking about a man. It's been covered by U2, The War on Drugs, Father John Misty , Jason Isbell and Bon Jovi.

I mentioned The Marriage of Figaro earlier - you could hardly get a plot less likely of meeting feminist approval yet it has some of the most sublime and moving music ever written.

Mozart was actually a rabid feminist for his era - see “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, “Marriage of Figaro” all his Opera Buffa genre. He made fun of the aristocracy and the ludicrous rules in place including the young women being bedded by old farts. Tbh, Mozart got away with treason simply by showing the Marriage of Figaro, which was part of a banned book series at the time, having brein blamed for having inspired the French Revolution, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not want the plebs to get any ideas - but they adored him, and let him get away with it.

If the Countess were asking for advice on here I doubt she'd be told to forgive her husband.