Great Songs That Are Sexist, Part 1

by Alexandra Molotkow

Since the beginning of time, music has been sexist. I don’t like sexism, but I do like a good sexist jam, because I like good jams. Sometimes the sexism is like feedback you just have to ignore, other times it’s part of the song’s DNA and you’ve got to accept that you like a sexist song. You know what? Fine. I like some sexist songs. Sometimes I even like the fact that they’re sexist, because it feels good to spite myself.

Excluding the incredibly sexist “Run For Your Life,” “Under My Thumb,” and “No One Else” because riffing on them is too boring.

https://vimeo.com/44561183
The Prodigy, “Smack My Bitch Up”
The worst thing about this song is just, why? The lyrics don’t even make sense out of context. I could be wrong about this, but I vaguely remember an interview in which the clown-haired guy said something like, “It’s not a we-hate-women song. It’s actually a we-love-women song.” I don’t think he even tried to explain. The Prodigy is a teen boy drawing guts and knives and babes in the margins of his calculus notebook, except that a teen boy who shaved his head into Krusty the Klown would be amazing.

The other worst thing about this song is it meant I couldn’t buy Fat of the Land back when that would have meant a lot to me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcdAuxmohv8
Eddie Kendricks, “Girl You Need a Change of Mind”
“Why march in picket lines/Burn bras and carry signs/Now, I’m for women’s rights/I just want equal nights.” This is obnoxious in the way it’s obnoxious when you’re in a bad mood and someone won’t stop trying to make you laugh, which is to say, basically delightful. You would have to hate joy pretty bad to hold it against Eddie Kendricks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJFVPxBpezk
Gary Puckett & the Union Gap, “Young Girl”
This sexist song doubles as an early example of ramanah. (Not saying he is, but “Gary Puckett” is a great name for a terrifying creep.) I used to sing it a lot when I was 16 with a fake ID and newly aware of three things: a) my youth was a sexual asset at a time when I had none other; b) men were both intrigued by my underformed features and terrified of my actual age; c) if I didn’t volunteer my age, they weren’t likely to ask. It’s strange to think back on the older men who befriended me then, sort of like how I can’t decide whether to keep patronizing the corner store that sold me cigarettes as a child. I mean, thank you guys for the beers and ice cream*.

*The bar we used to go to served ice cream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ul-cZyuYq4
Fleetwood Mac, “Go Your Own Way”
Stevie Nicks was really offended by the lyric, “Packing up/Shacking up’s all you wanna do,” but I’ve never really understood why. It just sounds like she moved a lot? Maybe it’s one of those ’70s expression, like “puttin’ the blocks to ‘er.” Anyway, I thought this song was beautiful and just so sad until my friend David explained that it’s all about Lindsey Buckingham’s failure to deal with Stevie’s strong will and special talent, or understand why she couldn’t just let him shine and love him from the sidelines. This take is especially disturbing in light of what Carol Ann Harris, his girlfriend after Stevie, has written about their relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGHAfBVP3gw
Elton John, “All the Girls Love Alice”
This song is about a teenage girl who can’t get boys, so she becomes a lesbian, and gets really good at it. Slice of life, right? The best part is how Elton pronounces “one or two middle-aged dykes in a go-go” (“a-dy-gees in ah-ah go-go”). Blame Bernie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZbusN-n8rE
Jack Jones, “Wives and Lovers”
In grade 11 I recorded a “feminist cover” of this song on my dad’s four-track. The idea was to make it sound scary, because the message is scary, but you can’t really fuck with the original. I like how the violin sounds like a broom sweeping across linoleum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvFsULpx0To
R.B. Greaves, “Take a Letter Maria”
I appreciate Roseanne’s rant about this song (“It’s about this guy, and he’s screwin’ his secretary, and she still has to take his stinkin’ letters to his wife!”) but I’ve listened to it many times and I agree with Jackie: I don’t think he’s screwing Maria yet. He might be screwing with her, though (“Was I wrong to work nights/To try to build a good life?”) because there’s a chance he’s been screwing other women and has a virgin/whore complex that he needs Maria to sub in for half of.

Gary Puckett covered this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVk_e31dnlE
Ben Folds Five, “Song For The Dumped”
Just kidding, this song sucks. But I do really like Ben Folds, who, while he may have been the voice of the mediocre, had a hell of a set of crawlers (that means “hands”). Whatever and Ever Amen is a good album. It sounds like three buds having the most fun in the world, just a rockin’ bunch of adult babies hard done by having to drive their girlfriends to the abortion clinic.

Seriously, I do like that album.