I’ve loved hard rock and heavy metal since I got Destroyer for my fifth birthday, and it’s the music I most fondly remember from my childhood. (New wave is a strong second, but headbanging is a little nearer to my heart.)
There are about 15,000 songs on my phone, and I’d solidly guess that half of them fit the category. So when I’m randomizing my entire collection, I hear a lot of it. And as I listened to a 1989 selection on the way in to work the other day, I considered how silly so many of the lyrics of “my music” were.
When I listen to my favorites of my dad’s favorites—late ’50s to mid-’60s, so “Runaway,” “Sherry,” “Poetry In Motion,” stuff like that, dig?—I’m often struck by the beauty of the lyrics. Those guys knew how to write and sing about sex. You do it obliquely. You hint. You whisper.
Now the rockers of the ’80s still had some restraint, else there would be no Steel Panther today. But a lot of it is still pretty cringe-worthy. They had song titles like “Mista Bone.” They sang about “(rocking) my missile,” and directed us to “slip and slide, push it in,” because “bitch sure got the rhythm.”
I thought most of it was great at the time, of course. It’s not like I was thinking about much else anyway.
But to say it’s tough to sing along to today is an understatement.
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