Unlyrical

Like many Americans, I have hours’ worth of my favorite songs downloaded to my phone. Many of these songs, once the voice of my generation, would be considered ancient by modern listeners. And some of them—dare I say it—even edge back into my parents’ young adulthood.

I have a penchant, for instance, for the music of the Big Band and World War II eras, perhaps stimulated by my love of history and their evocation of times past. Music truly can transport us back to “the times of our lives,” providing an emotional context for our memories.

I listen to a Jim Croce song and I am transported back to my early 20s when he played on an eight-track tape player in our non-too-reliable English Cortina. Pull up Glenn Campbell’s “By the Time I get to Phoenix,” and I think of Phoenix, where my future husband listened to an as-yet-unknown Campbell performing in the Mr. Lucky Club. Put on Joan Baez and I am again pouring over textbooks in my college room as her records whirled on a portable record player.

But increasingly, I am becoming more aware of dark reflections in our musical mirror. Yes, Baez sang “We Shall Overcome” on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during Martin Luther King’s March on Washington. And, yes, Peter, Paul and Mary assured us the answer to racism (and a lot of other “isms”) was “Blowing in the Wind,” but other songs reveal much nastier truths about race relations, sexism and societal expectations—truths that may have been temporarily lessened, perhaps have changed in some degree, but threaten to reassert themselves in modern America.

Sometimes the messages were shadowy; sometimes they were blatant—often they were not consciously absorbed, cloaked under a catchy rhythm or an engaging performance. Frequently they rose to the top of the charts, becoming hidden persuaders.

Take for instance, “Summer Nights,” from the musical Grease, that frothy paean to misspent youth performed by Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta. A run-away hit, the song tells divergent tales related by a boy and a girl to their friends about their summer fling. Choruses of curious male and female voices demand, “Tell me more, tell me more,” with the males inquiring, “Did she put up a fight?” Travolta's friends make him seem more like a predator than a suave greaser and seem to endorse sexual violence.

There were other examples of a cave man mentality at work in the music of the day. In 1962 the Crystals sang about domestic violence as if it were a norm. In a Gerry Goffin/Carole King song, improbably named “He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss),” the doo-wop group sang, “he hit me, and I knew he loved me." Ouch! Can you imagine such a tender little ditty today? I hope not.

Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones were no better than they ought to be when they penned the lyrics of "Under My Thumb," about a woman who has been groomed to dress, talk and do what her man tells her to. He calls her a “squirming dog” and "the sweetest ... pet in the world."

Jagger defended the song in a 1995 Rolling Stone interview saying, "It’s a bit of a jokey number, really.” A “jokey number” that became a popular opening number for the group on both American and European tours.

Equally cringe-worthy is Rod Stewart’s seduction song, “Tonight’s the Night,” an unwholesome number about a louche lover trying to persuade “a virgin child” to let her “inhibitions run wild.” The only thing more repugnant than the lyrics is the video which shows a seedy-looking Stewart in a caricature of a mansion attempting his conquest of a nubile girl.

But perhaps the leading entry in the misogyny category can be found in the Rolling Stones’ “Brown Sugar,” again one of their most popular hits. With no moral qualms, it graphically portrays the slave trade and the sexual violence the “Peculiar Institution” propagated against women. What really distinguishes this masterpiece, however, is its eligibility for consideration as “most loathsome song” in other categories as well, such as racism and bigotry.

The band has defended the song, saying they wrote it in only 45 minutes and didn't think much about its meaning. An older, perhaps more reflective, Jagger told Rolling Stone n 1995, "God knows what I'm on about in that song. ... All the nasty subjects in one go."

Much has been made in recent years of the 1944 Christmas hit, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” Now, I admit, I never paid much attention to the innuendo in this song. I’ve heard it all my life and it was background noise that didn’t grate on my ear. To me, it was just a flirty tune about two adults deciding how far to take their evening together. But in the wake of the Me Too movement it is probably inevitable that the now-startling line, “Say, what’s in this drink?” would provoke echoes of date rape.

That Yuletide classic is now banned from many stations and is unlikely to pop up in Christmas specials. But the Christmas song that makes me gnash my teeth the most is “Santa Baby, which has provoked relatively little comment. Sung with a baby-doll delivery by Eartha Kitt, it is in the voice of a gold-digger female who rattles ofF her wish list—“a sable under the tree for me,” “a ’54 convertible, too, light blue” and “a yacht, and really, that’s not a lot.”

In return she resorts to sexual blackmail: “Think of all the fun I've missed/ Think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed/ Next year I could be just as good/If you check off my Christmas list.” Hardly a flattering picture of womankind and one that belongs firmly in past centuries.

“Santa Baby” is blatant but other stereotypical messages were more subtle. As a mid-20th century model human being, I was never seriously bothered by the lyrics of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas.” It depicted a warm and fuzzy world in my memory.

It wasn’t until this last Christmas, surrounded by a new generation of family children, that I noticed the gender stereotypes in the third verse: “A pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben; dolls that will talk and go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen.” In today’s more fluid gender environment, few would be alarmed if Barney wanted a doll and Jen wanted a gun (I did). And I bet if children today listened to the lyrics, they would wonder who in the world is Hopalong.

Women’s and gender issues aside, racism, bigotry and violent imagery thrive in the musical world. In “One in a Million,” a song by Guns N’ Roses, the band sings, “Immigrants … , they make no sense to me / They come to our country and think they’ll do as they please." Written in 1988, sadly, it’s an anthem that would find support from many parts of the United States today.

In a world riven with hatred, Carol King’s “Smackwater Jack,” written in 1971, was prophetic and strikes me as a song that publishers today would find too politically volatile. In the song, Smackwater Jack, “brought a shotgun/’cause he was in the mood/for a little confrontation/ He just let it all hang loose,/ he didn’t think about the noose/ he couldn’t take no more abuse/ so he shot down the congregation.”

Critic Stewart Mason says the song has "dry wit and several clever lines" but regards it as a "rather lightweight song.” Maybe it is lightweight musically but for families who have suffered grievous loss from gun violence it could be heavy listening.

These songs are neither good nor bad in themselves but the issues they unveil, and the subliminal messages they carry, are. The world has changed much in the past 75 years with an ever-growing awareness of the power of words. Let’s not inculcate bigotry or advocate violence, misogyny or racial hatred through song. It is not music to my ears.