These are the words from a song by popular modern beat combo, The 1975.
I despair!
Did nobody point out to at least one of the three writers of this song, George Daniel, Matty Healy and Jack Antonoff, that ‘times’ does not rhyme with ‘Caroline’? I know it’s a small point and grammar has never been a strong point in popular music (I always correct Paul Simon – great song-writer that he is – to ‘I wish I were homeward bound’, not ‘was homeward bound’ when I sing along) but to state so positively that ‘Caroline’ is the only rhyme to ‘times’ is positively shameful. Why could they not have spent a moment considering adjusting the lyrics to find a word that did rhyme?
Yet that has led me to consider the lyrics of many of the songs that populate the best-sellers of today. In my 1960’s youth, I was virtually weaned on the top twenty, buying all the hits and singing along to ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’ and ‘Wah wah wah wah why, she ran away’. Simple and catchy. And while not at the pinnacle of English language construction, easy and harmless. True, quite a few songs might have had my parents shaking their heads in despair about declining standards. ‘If you gotta go, go now, or else you gotta stay all night’ might have had the tensing for me as a small boy asking what it meant. Or ‘I’m afraid we’ll go too far’ (in ‘Young Girl’). Or ‘She was too young to fall in love and I was too young to know’ (‘Only Sixteen). But there was nothing so overt that it made me snigger in my bedroom.
Of course, it would be naïve to assume that all sixties’ music was pure and above board – there were too many drugs around to guarantee that. And anyone who has listened to the Beatles’ ‘Girl’ will know that those cheeky chaps, Paul and George, were singing what was considered at the time to be rude words in the background. But who noticed? Anything naughty and not wholesome for tender ears was disguised, almost an in-joke for the performers. For me, as a pre-teen, I suspected nothing, just singing along with the words and enjoying the sound. And my parents could feel safe that I was not being exposed to the adult world too early.
By the time I was a parent, such niceties were history. Songs now went full f-word, although radio remixes saved innocent ears and record covers carried stickers with the message, ‘Parent Advisory’.
Did that help? I always feared it might make young people more curious. But it gave adults a chance to protect their children. Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’ – that I’d bought and my daughter liked to dance to – starts with, ‘I thought that music mattered. Does it? Bollocks’, so I knew I had to cough at the appropriate moment and hope she wouldn’t notice. Then I felt safe to let the rest play. (I should say that, only now while writing this, do I realise the chorus is ‘Pissin’ the night away, pissin’ the night away.’ I don’t know what I thought it was, but it wasn’t ‘pissin’’! Did she know or care? Still, I expect she was familiar with the word already. So I exonerate myself!)
Fortunately, the most explicit sexual content tended to remain as innuendo, and it could be interpreted in a wholesome way. ‘Milkshake’ (Kelis), ‘When Two Become One’ (Spice Girls), ‘Genie In A Bottle’ (Christine Aguella) can all be explained away if you’re not looking for sexual content or don’t understand it. And while in ‘Oh Carolina’, the singer (Shaggy) was ‘banging on the bathroom floor’, it could always have been thumping the tiles while jumping around. And research suggests most young people did take it all at face value.
That’s not to say all artists were ambiguous about sex in their songs. I’m thinking of the likes of Liz Phair. ‘Liz Phair who?’ I hear you cry – luckily such performers tended to be ‘alternative’ or difficult, so not popular with the young. She performed explicit lyrics to catchy tunes, but the arrangements and minimalist accompaniment weren’t commercial and therefore off the main music radar, and out of aural reach of the young. But don’t go playing her albums to your little ones before checking out her titles or lyrics first.
Which brings us to today. Things have taken a lurch for the worse. It’s all quite different. Some of the most catchy, singable popular songs are the most profane, intimate and explicit. Who would expect that the most potty-mouthed would be radio-friendly Sabrina Carpenter? Or Lana Del Ray? Even Taylor Swift. Yet their lyrics invariably leave nothing to alternative interpretations. I would quote some here, but it would involve too many asterisks! And as they’re streamed, there can be no control or parental warning.
There are moves to protect young people from explicit visual material (the jury’s out on how effective they’ll be), but music escapes all control. It was a joy of my childhood, and sung in all innocence because, by and large, it was innocent. Things only got bawdy when you were old enough to know better. Now it’s in your face. The occasional Anglo-Saxon word in a song can shock and have a relevance (I’m thinking of the anger in Alanis Morrisette’s ‘You Oughta Know’ as an example) and you can steer innocent ears away if necessary.
But in recent pop tunes and number one hits like, ‘Manchild’ by Sabrina Carpenter, it’s simply gratuitous. Without losing anything, she could have recorded, ‘Why you always come a-running to me? Mess my life’, substituting ‘mess’ for the four-letter f-word she actually uses. And there are many, many other examples in hit songs today.
Are today’s performers adult and responsible enough to think of who’s listening when they write and record? Or don’t they care, or simply looking to get credit for being streetwise?
I have loved popular music in all its forms since I was eight or nine. Now, I fear for parents who’d like their children to share and enjoy that same love without having to shield or censor.
Richard Smith’s novels, Homeward Bound and I’m Still Standing are available from Amazon and bookshops.
