Top-40 hit lyrics of the past that would not be acceptable today

Ten Years After: “I’d Love to Change the World”

Alvin Lee didn’t even play it when I saw him in concert around 1990.

 

I'm the friendly neighbor in the black sedan
Won't you hop inside my car.

 

At least two big hits from my junior high days would not get near a radio playlist today. In fact, you rarely ever even hear them on oldies radio:

Joe Tex's "Ain't Gonna Bump No More (with No Big Fat Woman)" which hit #12 in 1977; and Randy Newman's "Short People," which got to #2 in 1978.

Things comes in threes, so I assume there is a third and final song to round out this late '70s trend of body shaming hits. Does anyone remember another?

 

I've written about this one here before, but I can no longer listen to Joe Tex's "I Gotcha" without cringing since a female coworker brought to my attention that its lyrics depict rape mentality -- that a woman "provoked" a man sexuality and now he was entitled to have his way with her.

 

This is perfect.

 

Never gonna stop, give it up, such a dirty mind
Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind



my, my, my.........woooo!............my sharona!

 

Four Tops: “Ain’t No Woman (Like the One I’ve Got)”

'Cause it's my word, my word she'll obey, now

 

Practically anything Lesley Gore recorded. But as an example, That's the way boys are:
"When he treats me rough, and he acts as though he doesn't really care
Well, I never tell him that he is so unfair".

 

So do we get messed up and say Jagger was singing about necrophilia on Start Me Up....
Certainly some lyrics can be a bit dodgy, but I think some of these examples seem more out of context ...
Do we suggest that Joyce Kilmer's Trees is about a botanical fetish?
Do we suggest that Elizabeth Browning's - How Do I Love Thee, is actually a poem subtly suggesting she is also a necrophiliac? "I shall but love thee better after death."

So yea, sure some lyrics are a bit dodgy, but I think the PC nonsense is pretty messed up too

 

Hey, does anyone remember Larry Croce's "Junk Food Junkie," which hit #9 in 1976? My brothers and I used to LOVE this one as kids.

But would the helicopter parents of America today complain to radio stations that they were pushing junk food by playing it? Judging from the way my brothers and their wives monitor every morsel of food their kids eat, I'd say a song would be voted off the island today.

 

Uh…would that include "You Don't Own Me"?

Incredibly forward-looking for its day, and still cited as a groundbreaking song.

"Practically anything"? I'm looking at the complete list of Lesley Gore's 11 Top 40 hits and trying to figure out which of the other ones besides the one you cited fit this thread's category.

Would you care to elaborate, with examples of the offensive lyrics?

 

Yes. There was a particularly unpleasant - and also very silly - song some years ago called "Short Dick Man". I'm not sure of the year, think it was the late 1990s.

It was a minor hit, certainly not a big hit.

 

The truth, as with so many things, lies in the middle.

There are those who mock the entire concept of political correctness, and go on from there to say just about anything is OK, imagining that it gives them leave to be as offensive about anything as they care to be.

That's wrong — but at the same time, there are instances of political correctness crossing the line into ridiculousness.

The above would be an example. "Junk Food Junkie" is a song about human weakness and hypocrisy, delivered with good humor. Whatever I may feel about the perils of junk food, I don't want to live in a world where we have to cover our (or our children's) ears and pretend that Big Macs and Moon Pies don't even exist.

 

Well, obviously as a Scottish diabetic who hates precipitation, "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" is terribly upsetting for me... /s

But seriously, Lesley Gore is an odd one to single out, between "You Don't Own Me" and the fact that she was herself a lesbian, which suggests that maybe we shouldn't take the lyrics she sang as evidence of her true feelings about the male gender...

 

On what planet are some of these songs Top 40 hits, or did that rule fly out the window like just about every thread here?

 

Two pages and no mention of “Under my Thumb?” I guess it’s been so long that it escapes the PC gaze... do they still play it in concert?

 

[ETA: I wrote this before seeing the post directly above mine.]

The Stones' "Under My Thumb" was not a hit single, but it got AM radio airplay in some markets and remains one of their better-known 60s songs.

It's a tough case, because the lyrics are unabashedly sexist — but it's such a great song musically that it's hard for me, feminist though I may imagine myself, to dismiss.

Usually those who bash "Under My Thumb" also include in the same category the Stones album track that comes two before it on Aftermath, "Stupid Girl."

This is foolish — the girl depicted in the song's lyrics really is stupid, and those lyrics give a long list of specific examples of her stupid behavior (her vanity, her gossiping, the way she "digs for gold," etc.)

The notion that a person should be immune from criticism in any way simply because she is female is in itself an example of sexism.

 

That’s the first one I thought of.

 

I’ve heard Elvis’ ‘one more widow, one less white n****r’ censored in more recent radio plays.

 

I don't consider any top 40 as an expression of the true feelings of any of the performers!
For that I think you have to look elsewhere.

 

I can't speak to a couple which may have been hits in markets other than the US, but the overwhelming majority of songs cited so far were indeed Top 40 hits.

I'm as anal about this as anyone, but the offending (in this sense) songs so far have been few in number.

 

And from which Elvis Top 40 hit is this line taken?

 

Seventeen - Winger

 

He's singing to his manager's daughter, who was like a niece to O'Sullivan.

 

Sure, there are plenty of examples.
Take It's my party, and the reference about the engagement (or whatever) ring Judy's wearing. I doubt that would be in the top 40 today.
Then it's Judy's turn to cry because Johnny's back with her... I don't think so.
The thing with Lesley Gore is that you can take You don't own me as the exception, not the rule. The portrait of girly love is usually submissive. She's a fool being another example.
Don't get me wrong, I love those hits. But they wouldn't make the top 10 today, in my opinion.