Posts tagged Sex

From time to time, when I am in the car, I will flip on the radio to see what all of the cool kids are listening to these days (usually because my ipod was left at home by accident). Today, I had to make a quick trip so I flipped on the radio. The three songs that came on back to back while I was in my car, a grand total of ten minutes, were chocked full of undisguised sexuality.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that to a certain degree sex and rock n’ roll have always been good buddies. The term “rock and roll” itself was used early on to be sexually suggestive. We have seen a trend in rock music (along with other genres of music and society in general) to be increasingly overt sexually since its inception in the 1950’s.

Now before we continue, let me state that I am a lover of diverse musical styling’s. I harbor no ill feelings toward rock music. In fact, I cut my teeth on 90’s grudge rock and alternative music. I like many forms of music (excluding a few) as long as the content is well written, thought provoking, encouraging or uplifting. What I want to examine is how the content has changed from past to present.

Since the sexual revolution music (and majority of culture) has went through a sexual evolution (or maybe I should say de-evolution). Again, since the beginning there have always been musicians that focused on sex lyrically, but the disparity between current music and what was written 40-50 years ago is vast. Majority of the early songs that referenced sex did so more covertly or with double entendre. Today’s music leaves nothing to the imagination. In fact, the music just pumps through your speakers and slaps you in the face with sex. You might call it ear pornography.

Let’s just take a look at a few songs and see how music has evolved sexually over the years. I realize I could do a Google search and weed through the millions of songs that reference sex, but instead I am going to appeal to my own memory of popular songs throughout the years. Disclaimer: The following lyrics will become increasingly offensive.

1950’s
Jerry Lee Lewis – “Great Balls of Fire”
“Well kiss me baby, woo….it feels good
Hold me baby
I want to love you like a lover should
Your fine, so kind
I got to tell this world that your mine mine mine mine.”

Fats Domino – “Blueberry Hill”
“Tho’ we’re apart you’re part of me still
For you were my thrill on Blueberry Hill”

Bobby Darrin – “Dream Lover”
“Dream lover, where are you
With a love, oh, so true
And the hand that I can hold
To feel you near as I grow old”

1960’s
The Beatles – “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
“Oh please, say to me
You’ll let me be your man
And please, say to me
You’ll let me hold your hand”

Roy Orbison – “Pretty Woman”
“Pretty woman, walking down the street
Pretty woman, the kind I like to meet
Pretty woman
I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth
No one could look as good as you
Mercy”

The Beach Boys – “California Girls”
“The Midwest farmer’s daughters
They all make you feel alright
And the Northern girls with the way they kiss
They keep their boyfriends warm at night”

1970’s
Marvin Gaye – “Let’s Get It On”
“Don’t you know how sweet and wonderful, life can be
I’m askin you baby, to get it on with me
I aint gonna worry, I aint gonna push
So come on, come on, come on, come on baby
Stop beatin round the bush”

Aerosmith – “Walk This Way”
“So I took a big chance at the high school dance
With a missy who was ready to play
Wasn’t me she was foolin’
‘Cause she knew what she was doin’
And I knowed love was here to stay”

Four Seasons – “Oh What A Night”
“You know I didn’t even know her name
But I was never gonna be the same
What a lady, what a night!”

1980’s
Billy Joel – “Keeping the Faith”
“I thought I was the Duke of Earl
When I made it with a red-haired girl
In the Chevrolet. Oh yeah
We were keeping the faith”

Madonna – “Like A Virgin”
“Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Like a virgin
When your heart beats next to mine”

Tina Turner – “What’s Love Got to Do With It?”
“It’s physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore
That it means more than that
Oh what’s love got to do, got to do with it”

1990’s
Nine Inch Nails – “Closer”
“I want to **** you like an animal
I want to feel you from the inside
I want to **** you like an animal
My whole existence is flawed”

Green Day – “Basketcase”
“I went to a shrink
To analyze my dreams
She says it’s lack of sex
That’s bringing me down
I went to a *****
He said my life’s a bore
So quit my whining cause
It’s bringing her down”

Dave Matthew’s Band – “Crash”
“Oh and you come crash
into me, baby
And I come into you
Hike up your skirt a little more
and show the world to me”

Songs I Heard on the Radio Today While Driving for Ten Minutes
Nelly Furtado – “Promiscuous”
“You expect me to just let you hit it
But will you still respect me if you get it
All I can do is try, gimme one chance
What’s the problem I don’t see no ring on your hand”

Usher – “Scream”
“And I ain’t trying to fight it, to fight it
But you’re so magnetic, magnetic
Got one life, just live it, just live it
Now relax and get on your back”

Neon Trees – “Everybody Talks”
It started with a whisper
And that was when I kissed her
And then she made my lips hurt
I could hear the chit chat
Take me to your love shack
Mamas always gotta back track
When everybody talks babe

As you can definitely see, the overt, explicit exploitation of sex in music has increased over the years. Why is this? I think there are a couple of reasons. Where people lack creativity there is a trend to appeal to the use of sex. As Switchfoot so knowingly sang several years ago, “Sex is currency.” There is no doubt that the use of sex sells a great many products, music being no exception.

Another reason we see an increase in sexually suggestive/explicit lyrics is due to the fact that sex is no longer sacred. Society has reduced it to a meaningless act for recreation. Some might argue whether the chicken or the egg came first. That is, is music a reflection of society’s attitudes toward sex or did the arts drive people to approach sex in a more apathetic way? The cause does not matter near as much as the result. Little is considered sacred, and the current state of the arts will continue to eradicate what traces of sacredness remain.

With the daily amounts of sex consumed every day through media and the arts, it is no wonder that people are overly sexualized. We have lost our way as a society. Let me close with C.S. Lewis’ take on the topic. “You can get a large audience together for a strip-tease act-that is, to watch a girl undress on the stage. Now suppose you came to a country where you could fill a theater by simply bringing a covered plate on the stage and then slowly lifting the cover so as to let everyone see, just before the lights went out, that it contained a mutton chop or a bit of bacon, would you not think that in that country something had gone wrong with the appetite for food? And would not anyone who had grown up in a different world think there was something equally queer about the state of the sex instinct among us?”

It’s time to restore sex to an expression of love (between married people). We need people to create good art. We need art that is reflective, inspiring, and that holds on to all things sacred.

Walk good. Love wise. Be blessed.
Josh