OK, I know what you’re thinking. Another woke article about why we need to cancel everything from our past to appease the social justice warriors. Hear me out! I don’t want to cancel anything, well not that I will talk about in this article at least. What I really want to do is to convey the message that today’s music might be fairly awful for a variety of reasons, may make you uncomfortable to the point that you are longing for the days where music was wholesome, G rated, and sung by some clean cut do-gooder with a winning smile. I hate to burst your bubble but I have a whole list of creepy songs from the past that will make you blush once you take a second to actually listen to the lyrics and the real meaning of the song. Like I said, I’m not here to cancel anything, I’m not advocating that. Some of these artists are actually decent, so we shouldn’t revile their whole songbook because of what someone like me said on the internet (see Nickelback), but I am advocating that you take a closer listen to some of these songs of old (and some not so old) and perhaps you might think twice about your thoughts on today’s music.
YOU’RE SIXTEEN
Title kind of gives this one away. As you continue reading through the post you might find that to be a recurring theme. Honestly they aren’t even trying to hide the creep factor on this one. The singer is pointing out the person (whom we can only conclude is female) is underage. If you have a morbid curiosity about these types of things, feel free to head over to lyrics.com and read through each line of this inappropriate little ditty. Johnny Burnette, singer/songwriter of this gem was in his mid 20s when the song was written. Not old by any means, but still should have been old enough to know how creepy it was/still is to sing about a teenage girl barely old enough to drive. Turns out Johnny was killed tragically at age 30, so he only had a few years to spew out this little auditory turd, but as luck would have it, some intrepid individuals thought it best to remake the song to ensure we could all continue to enjoy it in all its inappropriate glory for years to come.
I SAW HER STANDING THERE
I’ll admit, this one is teetering on the edge of being not a big deal at all. The opening lines are “She was just seventeen, you know what I mean”, but it was written around the time that Paul McCartney was about 20, so it’s reasonable to say that it is only border line creepy, because there is only a 3 year age difference. Unfortunately the age of the girl in the song did not age every year as Paul did in the real world. So now you have a steadily aging Paul still singing about that seventeen year old girl. Just a little lack of foresight on Mr. McCartney’s part when he wrote that song. Having said all of that, I will reiterate that I’m still on the fence about this one, because they are the Beatles.
YOUNG GIRL
This song by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap, actually takes the subject of being a creepy guy singing about a younger girl head on, and adds a nice disclaimer in the chorus. He says the attraction is obviously way out of line and then tells her to run away. Dude admits right in the lyrics that he’s a creep and wants her bad, and the tells her to get away before he acts on any of his masculine urges. It’s unclear if he tells her that out of a profound moral obligation to do what is right, or if he is just worried he’ll get caught. We’ll probably never know I guess. Again this is one of those songs that does not age well, because the protagonist never does either.
SEVENTEEN – BOBBY BROWN
This one could go either way, because the lyrics to this aren’t really that suggestive, despite mentioning the under age status of the subject right in the title of the song. In reality the song itself isn’t inappropriate for any particular reason other than the fact that Bobby Brown is the one singing it. I don’t think I have to explain that thought any further.
SEVENTEEN – WINGER
Unlike the song of the same name discussed above, this one leaves no doubt at all of the dubious intentions of the singer. Kip Winger was in his mid to late twenties when this song came out. It was emphatically creepy when it came out and remains to this day. Allegedly, he claims that he was inspired by The Beatles I Saw Her Standing There, but apparently he decided that Paul McCartney’s song did not have that certain WTF factor he was looking for, so he took it a couple dirty steps further. Not worth your time reading the lyrics for this one unless you enjoy tasting your own vomit.
MY DING-A-LING
The last on the list, but certainly not the least. It’s not so much inappropriate as it is bizarre. Mostly because it was originally recorded and released in 1952 and it was actually given radio time, which is mind boggling given the blatant sexual innuendo contained in the lyrics. I remember hearing this for the first time in an old episode of The Simpsons, where a kid is singing this at a talent show. I must have been singing it out loud at some point afterwards and my dad asked where I had heard it, and I told him. Then he started reminiscing about crazy it was when he heard it when he was younger (probably the version popularized by Chuck Berry). I couldn’t believe it was a real song. Still can’t.
There are so many more examples of super creepy songs, just head over to any one of the many lyrics websites, and type in certain keywords. Just too much content to fit into one article. I don’t have time to list them all, but let me know if there are any glaring omissions from this list or if you simply want to out yourself as a super creep and defend some of the songs on this list. Go ahead, defend Winger, if you feel you must.