Healthiest and Unhealthiest relationships in songs?

[BernardBlacksMolluscs]

As I was cleaning the house this morning I was musing on those songs that come on the radio that you've been singing along with for years where you suddenly actually listen to the lyrics and either think 'well you sound very sensible' or 'intervention. NOW'. Any one got any suggestions? The ones I came up with first were

Healthy - Respect by Aretha Franklin. I know it's a cliche, and the guy she's singing about sounds like borderline not a keeper frankly, but I love the line 'I ain't gonna do you wrong, cause I don't want to'. She's all in, but she's still telling him how she expects to be treated

Red buntingtastic - Never Gonna Give You Up - why wouldn't she get a full commitment from any other guy Rick, you gaslighting bastard?

Anyone else fancy whiling away some weekend time thinking up some examples?

(mumsnet's AI suggested a thread title of 'Songs that sound sensible or alarming once you really hear the lyrics' which I kind of love but decided not to go with!)

Is that one nice? I thought he told her he loved her till the end of time so he could get his leg over and afterwards he's praying for the end of time to come.

Yes sorry I was being sarcastic there. Difficult to communicate in text I know

They've definitely had some dodgy moments, but I think Prettiest Eyes by the Beautiful South is a very sweet song about ageing and still being in love.

Aside from one dig at skinny models, Perfect 10 is pretty healthy as well

Perhaps John Denver missed a trick and 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' should work in a curse directed at the Wright Brothers?!

Oh right, I didn’t realise - thanks. Sounds very twisted, I may well give it a listen!

Absolutely me too, bloody hell it's like you go your whole life not knowing what an ignorant bloody fool you are it's like the near-final scene in The Music Box with Jessica Lang.
Just thought it was, bloke's gotta get away from the clubbing scene, clear his air for a moment, can leave his gal with his mates (kids) for a while cos they're okay.

I'm a bit heartened by the alternative interpretation that he was leaving someone (adult girlfriend) with mates while he went out to clear his head , possibly permanently. Preferable to the child abandonment scenario.

Although according to another post upstream, this is indeed what the song is about!

Oh, Ewan always struck me as being a right dick. Wrote some good songs and did somw good stuff, but still your classic lefty arse of a bloke. He was at least a better singer than mr Bragg of that parish, though.

Slow down,
we've got time left to be lazy
All the kids have bloomed from babies into flowers in our eyes.
We've got 50 good years left to spend out in the garden
I don't care to beg your pardon,
We should live until we die.

We were barely 18 when we'd crossed collective hearts.
It was cold, but it got warm when you'd barely crossed my eye.
and then you turned, put out your hand,
and you asked me to dance.
I knew nothing of romance, but it was love at second sight.

I swear when I grow up, I won't just buy you a rose.
I will buy the flower shop, and you will never be lonely.
Even if the sun stops waking up over the fields
I will not leave, I will not leave 'till it's our time.
So just take my hand, you know that I will never leave your side.

It was the winter of '86, and all the fields had frozen over.
So we moved to Arizona to save our only son
and now he's turning to a man, although he thinks just like his mother,
he believes we're all just lovers he sees hope in everyone.

And even though she moved away,
we always get calls from our daughter.
She has eyes just like her father's
they are blue when skies are grey
And just like him, she never stops,
Never takes the day for granted,
works for everything that's handed to her,
Never once complains.

You think that I nearly lost you
When the doctors tried to take you away.
But like the night you took my hand beside the fire
30 years ago to this day
You swore you'd be here 'til we decide that it's our time
Well it's not time, you've never quit in all your life.
So just take my hand, you know that I'll never leave your side.
You're the love of my life, you know that I'll never leave your side.

You come home from work and you kiss me on the eye
You curse the dogs and say that I should never feed them what is ours
and the kids are coming home
I'll set the table
You can make the fire.

'I've been cheated by you since I don't know when...'

Red flags first line. In fairness, it's not just Mamma Mia - which is a brilliant song - many male love songs have that 'she's giving me the runaround' lyric. George Michael specialised in this - Freedom, Wake Me Up, Cowboys and Angels, really.

Maggie May by Rod is a lyrically great song... but many of these songs have a subtext because he's a young lad regretfully dumping his older lover and plausibly making it sound like he's the wronged party! So he can, in due course, shag younger talent and presumably write more songs about those interactions.

Walk Away by Matt Monro and lyrics by the still alive Don Black is an example of a fine decent 'no can do, love' song, maybe If I Needed Someone off Beatles' Rubber Soul, too.

The Beatle lyrics I cited earlier was from No Reply which is a belter but... 'If I were you, I realise that I / Love you more than any other guy' which now might elicit the response, Yeah, that's why I'm dumping you, you clingy bastard...

This was my grandfathers favourite song (b 1893) as it for him was about my (b 1895 grandmother, who did indeed have sea blue eyes) He used to sing it to her.

I just did; it grows on you.

Weird 80s controlling vibe on Dance Hall Days by Wang Chung. Great tune, creepy words.

Take your baby by the hand
And make her do a high handstand
And take your baby by the heel
And do the next thing that you feel

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days
We were cool on craze
When I, you and everyone we knew
Could believe, do and share in what was true
I said
Dance hall days love

Take your baby by the hair
And pull her close and there, there, there
And take your baby by the ears
And play upon her darkest fears

We were so in phase
In our dance hall days
We were cool on craze
When I, you and everyone we knew
Could believe, do and share in what was true
I said
Dance hall days, love
Dance hall days
Dance hall days, love

Take your baby by the wrist
And in her mouth an amethyst
And in her eyes two sapphires blue
And you need her and she needs you

Etc. I always picture the singer as a Nazi, or some kind of sadist perv.

Some Velvet Morning is a gorgeous song but its creepy as fuck i'ntit?

Billy Joel has a dodgy lyric or two in his collection, but Tell Her About It is excellent advice.

😁

Prettiest Eyes by The Beautiful South is sweet, and probably counts as a green flag, remembering the stupid things you do on the way

I’m amazed that I’ve got two pages in and nobody has yet mentioned Young Girl.

Ah, you beat me to it. The other songs don't necessarily have healthy relationships, but at least most of them have women who recognise they're being treated badly

I thought the point of that one was that he didn't want to do anything about being attracted by the young girl of the title?

The Rolling Stones' "Stray Cat Blues", on the other hand, is beyond dodgy.

It's a bit victim-blamy though isn't it. Making his attraction to an underage girl be all about her pretending to be older

Another vote for the beautiful Magnetic Fields, The Book of love

I try not to think about it too often as it is a grade A++ earworm

I thought of it as him not having realised how young she really was and resolutely deciding not to let things get any further when he did find out, because he knew they mustn't. At the time (1968), a lot of girls of fifteen spent their time trying to pretend to be eighteen, and a lot of them did a good job of it too!

Bearing in mind the number of popstar and dj types who delighted in taking advantage of under-age groupies, at that time, I felt it was a good thing at least one of them was acknowledging that was wrong behaviour.