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No, we’re not going to tell you what the word in the title of this episode means. But it is revealed within. Other things revealed in this episode: weird injuries from benign objects that befell men as they get older, what if they held an Oscars® and nobody cared, Hollywood producer Scott Rudin is revealed to be a bad boss even though they made a movie about it 30 years ago, we defend iconic Simpsons character Apu from that sap Hank Azaria who voices him, the now obligatory joke designed to offend at least someone, and we propose re-making the last season of Game of Thrones. Because why not?
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Well it’s not my thing, but the producers of “rap music” don’t seem to agree with you. And just because they aren’t – and probably don’t want to be – popular WITH US, doesn’t mean they aren’t raking in money. (And we can’t object because that would be “racist.”)
But the point you seem to be missing – deliberately, perhaps – is that 17 was not underage FOR PAUL MCCARTNEY, or likely any or at least most of the audience they were intended for.
And, what, if some teenage boy likes “The Way You Look Tonight” and figures he should go after some older woman, is that the song’s/song-writer’s fault too?
Let’s try another example, or thought experiment:
Paul Anka wrote/performed the song “Puppy Love” in 1960, when he was 18, about Annette Funicello, who was then 17. So, not really scandalous AT THAT TIME. It’s not like 50-year-old Paul Anka was professing his love for 17-year-old Annette.
Now, if you say “If I sang that song about a 17-year-old, that would be wrong.” Okay, fine. But Anka wasn’t your age then. And neither was his target audience. So that would make only you the sicko, not him.
The target audience was young teenage girls dreaming of future romantic conquests: “Young girl, get out of my mind …” Pure ego gratification!
A young woman’s goal was to graduate from high school with an engagement ring on her finger, which means 16 – 17 – 18 was courting age. If she hooked a college man, she was the envy of her peers.
“That’s sick, man!” – channeling BY
That’s not what I said. At all. I like those songs and I have no issues with them — which is why I intentionally ended the podcast with one of them. Maybe you missed that?
The guys were a making a larger point about the changing moralities of society and the obsessive finger wagging we have to endure because of it. You seem to be misunderstand that or purposely overlooking that in order to nit-pick some minor point about lyrics.
I Saw Her Standing There is about a dance. People keep quoting that first line as if it means something dirty.
I think your comment #27 argues against this claim, unless you would like to now claim that you were “just being devil’s advocate.”
And even aside from issues of the actual ages involved for the people involved with the song (McCartney was 20 and his actual girlfriend was 17), one of the points I was making is that “you know what I mean” doesn’t require any more significance or deeper implication than that it’s a SONG, and “mean” rhymes with “teen.” Big. Whoop.
Another way of putting it, yes.
No, you just want to argue. And I’m silly for indulging it.
Yes, this is exactly the point: people are reading their own meaning into these lyrics and making whatever moral judgement about them that fits their narrative.
If you weren’t agreeing with that, your comments especially these two, really don’t make sense:
This sounds like when Gary barges into a thread, and then complains about “personal attacks” when people refute his claims.
No, it’s nothing like the non-sequitor you are describing. And you are parsing what I wrote and missing the larger point. And this conversation is exhausting and misses the entire tone and point of this particular podcast.
Well, if you meant to say that this – about “inferred” etc – is what OTHER people say/believe about it, but you don’t agree, then you did a lousy job of it.
By the way, as Mr Pendantic it would be “implied” not “inferred.”
Note #1
Ann Miller was in the Academy for something? Besides being a great dancer with legs that went all the way up, she was in Stage Door (minor role, but dancing with Ginger Rogers), You Can’t Take It With You, Easter Parade, On the Town, and Kiss Me Kate. She’s in all three That’s Entertainments. That’s something.
Note #2
If the priest/rabbi/12-year-old boy joke is a podcast-ender, it would have happened already. I heard it either on GLOP or the flagship some time ago with no ill-effects, except that it sits there in my memory tempting me to tell it. Maybe times have gotten even squirrelier since. Good test case. Definitely reinforces the retromingent…or Reverse Cowgirl (South Park meaning)…theme.
Or at least have your airplay cut down. “Let’s Spend the Night Together” was paired in a double A-side single with “Ruby Tuesday.” “Let’s..” hit 55 in Billboard, “Ruby…” no. 1. Interestingly, it was no. 3 in the UK although the BBC banned it. Probably thanks to pirate radio, Ireland, and Luxembourg.
Ed Sullivan insisted the lyric be chemically altered to the simply inane “Let’s Spend Some Time Together” (Yes, that’s what just about anyone suggests when your tongue gets tired and your mouth dry.) The Stones agreed, but it elicited some understandable, possibly involuntary, on-camera eye-rolling from Mick and Bill Wyman. Mick you can see here (it’s the second song starting at about 3:40). Bill of course gets about a second and a half of camera, and I can’t detect the eye-roll during it. You’d notice that. Like if Teddy Roosevelt on Mount Rushmore winked at you. Ed was so understanding about it all that he banned them forever.
The Yardbirds chose another approach for their 2nd single “Good Morning Little School Girl.” Take the blues standard “Good Morning, School Girl” associated with “Sonny Boy” Williamson and lame the music and lyrics down (earlier R&B arrangements had done the heavy lifting) to the point that it sounded like a pretty good Freddie and the Dreamers song. Except for, perhaps, the title.
In 1964, Mick Jagger was 21. Do you think he was singing about 5th-graders or something?
“Good Morning Little School Girl” also came out in 1964, when Yardbirds singer William Keith Reif was also 21. I also doubt he was singing about a 5th-grader.
I think the problem is that @blueyeti is too young to understand just how much sexual mores have changed over the last 60 years.
A 1963 Roper Paul shows that only 19% of men and 17% of women approved of premarital sex; and — wait for it — that was for engaged couples!
1963 was also the year the Beatles sang, “I wanna hold your hand”. That was not a euphemism for anything. These were songs about courting, not about having sex.
Date all you want, society said, but sexual intercourse is reserved for the wedding night. And that’s how these songs would have been understood at the time.
In the 21st century, of course, dating implies having sex. That’s why people are ridiculing that hapless CNN producer who went on five Tinder dates with a Mata Hari from Project Veritas and never got lucky.
The Stones were canny marketers — Mick Jagger had studied at the London School of Economics — and instead of competing head to head with the Beatles, they established themselves as the “bad boy“ alternative. Having a song banned from radio now and again would be ideal for building interest in their albums.
The Yardbirds also cultivated an outlaw image: the group’s name is slang for convicts who hang around a prison yard. When they covered that risqué blues standard from 1937, they were likely intending to push the boundaries.
@blueyeti — Sometimes, it’s possible to read way too much into a line:
The original title of the song was “Seventeen”. Paul McCartney recalled, “I had ‘She was just seventeen,’ and then ‘never been a beauty queen’. When I showed it to John, he screamed with laughter, and said ‘You’re joking about that line, aren’t you?'” Lennon changed the second line to “You know what I mean”, and McCartney said later, “Which was good, because you don’t know what I mean.”
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/isawherstandingthere.html
Yup.
Yup.
Super-fun podcast, by the way. I enjoyed the hell out of it.
Wait, what??
Only 2 days left for the obligatory second GLoP of April.
I suppose since it’s mostly a comedy, I didn’t remember until today that in the 1982 movie “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” the characters played by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Phoebe Cates were both in search of/involved with college-age men. I don’t remember the audiences finding that scandalous, then or since.
We just recorded it and it will be out this evening.
Now do Animal House and the girl Pinto took to the frat party.
Never been interested in seeing it. And still not.
But according to the Wikipedia article about the movie, the actress playing the role of Clorette was 18 at the time, although playing supposedly a 13-year-old store cashier, however according to the article she and “Pinto” did not actually have sex.
And let’s not ignore the likelihood of a 13-year-old actually looking 18. Movies can write whatever they like, but that doesn’t make it the least bit plausible.
Meanwhile, I’ve never encountered a 13-year-old cashier at any business.
Animal House is a must-see. It’s both very funny and very politically incorrect, and could never be made today. In fact, I wouldn’t be very surprised if the streaming services started censoring certain scenes, down the road.
Clorette and Pinto start making out but she passes out drunk, leaving him with hands full of tissue paper, with which she has been improving her bustline. After struggling with his conscience (in the form of an angel and a devil perched on each shoulder), he trundles her home in a shopping cart.
Just not a Belushi fan, except for Blues Brothers.