Unearthed from a dark crevice deep inside my iPod, I give you the weirdest song about wife ownership ever recorded.
What is this?
You are reading I Blame The Patriarchy, the patriarchy-blaming blog that advances the radical feminist views of Twisty Faster, a gentleman farmer and spinster aunt eating dinner in Austin, Texas.
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I’m going to play this on my show this week. www.lizaspills.blogspot.com. It’s on cjsr.com 6-7 p.m., MST. Fridays.
Love your site, though it often leaves me feeling angry. Ah, well. The fight goes on.
Is she supposed to wear the nightgown while on the tractor? She’s an “okay” farmer? I think Mr. Nelson was hittin’ the pipe when he came up with this one! I would think it was hilarious if it wasn’t so, um, disturbing.
Ugh, that was gross.
Who knows? Maybe she wrote a one hit wonder back to him called, “Schedule him a plane flight instead.”
I couldn’t listen to the whole thing. I had to stop after the first refrain of “Don’t put her down/She’ll be there ’til you’re dead.”
Wait. What?
I think my ears went deaf to protect my brain.
Why do I have a feeling this little doozy has Ozzie’s fingerprints all over it? That man was one iron-fisted, by thunder Patriarch. Who’s up for a field trip?
http://www.seeing-stars.com/ImagePages/OzzieNelsonsGravePhoto.shtml
I say we all buy a Big Gulp and then pay him a visit.
She never complains! I’m off to compose the sequel, where she runs over him with the tractor.
That was so very, very strange.
What a way to start the day. And before my first coffee, no less.
I’m just amused is all. That was absolutely funny to me. Whatever you do, don’t buy her a gun!
Why was it on your iPod? How?
I feel like I’m tattling here, but did you read this bullshit today? It makes Hulk MAD!
I wrote about it here, but rather ineffectively. Can we join together to blame the patriarchy for this?
I’m with you schatze - I can’t stop giggling. Thanks, Twisty, for that perfectly silly item. I’m wracking my brain but I can’t think of a weirder song about wife ownership than that.
Speaking of iPods, I downloaded the Johnny Magnet songs you posted a while back, and a couple of them have gone into regular rotation - the folks at my neighborhood pub seem to especially like “Don’t Fuck With the Straight Girls” and your cover of “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere.”
Twisty! Under what circumstances did you acquire that nugget of weird?
It’s even stranger to me, because I still can’t get my Quicktime to work right. Heh heh.
Notice how much your funny lady looks like Ricky Nelson?
Now I know what my life is missing…
Too funny.
You should hear the alternate take of Hello Mary Lou. After singing “Hello Mary Lou, goodbye heart, Sweet Mary Lou I’m so in love with you. I knew Mary Lou, we’d never part…” he goes into a 11-minute tirade about throwing her in the cellar and locking the door, punctuated with some maniacal laughter and Ozzie saying “That’s right, son. It puts the lotion in the basket.”
I’ve always been partial to You Stole My Wife, You Horse Thief by Hot Lips Page. Regrettably, I’ve managed to lose the CD. It’s worth a bemused listen, if you get the chance–if only for the call-and-response chorus.
I’m shocked, given the depth of his insight and nuanced revelations about aging and self-discovery so eloquently expressed in “Garden Par– oh, never mind.
Songs to cringe to–
“Young Girl” by Gary Puckett & the Union Gap.
Sounds like a lame-ass defense to statutory rape.
Twisty, why oh why does music bolster the patriarchy, she asked, innocently?
What is this “Under My Thumb” shit? “Take a Letter, Maria” adultery and sexual harassment! Propaganda you can dance to!
I thought rock and roll was about liberation, she sobs. I know women are too strong and powerful to be affected by rap, rock, and others, but Mary, Mother of God, it is sick.
Don’t get me started on horrible “love songs” that make women crazy….
Don’t stand so close to meeeeee…
Isn’t Sting in some trouble now about his propensities? I’m going to look it up.
My number one cringer: “Let her cry for she’s a lady….let her dream, for she’s a child! Let the rain fall down upon her…she’s a warm and gentle spirit running wild…”
Gawd that song makes me sick.
And its so good to see I’m not the only one who switches the dial everytime Gary Puckett croons about “Young Girl” seducing him to do her because he really doesn’t want to, but he will, oh, he will, because he’s just so tempted and she’s so…
Its like a damn pedo’s anthem.
And of course, having raised two girls who were bent on being the hippest around in the mid-to late nineties, I had to endure DMX and his comely voice yelling over senseless bass, “Where’s ma bitches, where’s ma hoes! Hey nigga!” over and over and over again. And everytime they had to hear my lectures after me telling them to NOT play that shit in the house and why…fifteen and sixteen year olds rolling their young eyes up into lids caked with blue eye shadow and rimmed with way to much eye liner, punctuated with heavy mascara.
It was a faze, they grew out of it and my lectures did actually sink in. But I thought either my brain would melt or my children’s would get sucked in by poppie-musicland forever.
OH my fucking word. I actually spelled phase ‘faze’. I am working all day to make a living and i don’t read doing it. I will have the cash someday to survive, but I won’t be able to read or write anymore. Good god. And I could write and spell really well once upon a time, I mean it, really I did.
I blame this squarely on the patriarchy. I should be thinking about retirement now and i would be if they gave benefits and retirement pay to mothers. damn.
What’s wrong with a tractor? They are pretty damn useful.
That said, I think this piece could be reworked into a Soviet-era propaganda song, no? Nyet?
She cooks, she cleans, she FARMS (although just okay). That Ricky Nelson is only lucky bastard! I feel like Rick Springfield! “Where can I find a woman like that?”
Tractor Boy may need to buy his wife a few more nightgowns (what the??),
but more importantly…
It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp!!
Ditto you betcha to Jaye for the “Young Girl” pedo-anthem nomination and the eternally awful “Under My Thumb”.
I remember as a teenager listening to that thinking what a jerk Mick Jagger was.
Another really weird one: She’s Once, Twice, Three Times a Laaaaady!
yeah Robin and look at what trying to be ‘three times a lady’ has done to Lionel Ritchie’s daughter. Poor thing is trying to three times, four times and ten times herself into ladyhood nothingness.
That song is pretty insane, but this is freaking me out more.
If you want to marry me, here’s what you’ll have to do:
You must learn how to make a perfect chicken-dumpling stew.
And you must sew my holey socks,
And soothe my troubled mind,
And develop the knack for scratching my back,
And keep my shoes spotlessly shined.
And while I rest you must rake up the leaves,
And when it is hailing and snowing
You must shovel the walk… and be still when I talk,
And — hey — where are you going?
From Where The Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein.
As long as we’re bringing up creepy songs, here’s a classic stalker song from The Association:
Cherish is the word I use to describe
All the feeling that I have hiding here for you inside
You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I had told you
You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I could hold you
You don’t know how many times I’ve wished that I could
Mold you into someone who could
Cherish me as much as I cherish you
So I come here to IBTP, and there’s Ricky Nelson’s blue-eyed mug. Do I need more coffee? I immediately thought my Aunt Joyce had hijacked the site. Next thing it’ll be Elvis, Elvis, all the time.
Oh, and the song? Well, I just have to wonder what he was thinking. Was the follow-up going to be “Teach her to change the oil and gap the spark plugs”?
“Under my Thumb” is an especially tragic example because those marimbas and that beat are so incredibly cool, but the lyrics ruin it completely. And it isn’t even the most disgusting song on that album… those guys seriously have some issues. (To give the devil his due, “Waiting on a Friend” is one of the most beautiful love songs I know.)
“Who knows? Maybe she wrote a one hit wonder back to him called, “Schedule him a plane flight instead.—
Sublime! Brilliant!
Speaking of tractors and Carhartts…
The ultimate anti-wife campfire song is “Put Another Log on the Fire” (I believe it’s by Tompall (or Tom Paul) Glaser)
Put another log on the fire.
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
And go out to the car and change the tire.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you’re leaving me.
Now don’t I let you wash the car on Sunday?
Don’t I warn you when you’re gettin fat?
Ain’t I a-gonna take you fishin’ with me someday?
Well, a man can’t love a woman more than that.
Ain’t I always nice to your kid sister?
Don’t I take her driving every night?
So, sit here at my feet ‘cos I like you when you’re sweet,
And you know it ain’t feminine to fight.
So, put another log on the fire.
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
Go out to the car and lift it up and change the tire.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you’re leaving me.
The ultimate stalker song is, of course, “Every Step You Take,” by The Police, but it’s so blatant it almost doesn’t count.
quick correction…
Evidently the magnificent Shel Silverstein wrote “Put Another Log On the Fire” and Tompall Glaser merely recorded the song.
Put Another Log on the Fire is clearly intended to be an ironic anti-patriarchy tune, while Stand By Your Man was meant to be deadly serious.
Hey! I know there was a discussion awhile back bemoaning the existence of those awful Japanese fetish shoes. I thought, in light of that entry, this episode clip was pretty interesting/horrifying:
I Blame the Patriarchy, Tyra.
I admit I sorta like America’s Next Top Model for its sheer bizarre, campy factor (I know, I know) but I’ve never seen ‘em pull such shit before. To sum it up, Tyra tells the models that because there’s some asshole designer out there forcing models to walk on 5-foot toothpicks, so must they for the panel. Predictably, one girl sprains her ankle. At no point does Tyra slap her head and go, “What was I thinking? This is effing sadistic.” Instead she praises the injured girl’s “performance”.
Whyme63:
The Association reference reminded me that their song titled, “Windy”, is where my mom came up with my name. It’s been really embarassing sometimes being named after the #1 hit song from the summer of ‘68.
unbelievable clip, rajmahall!
good lord, this is patriarchy-collaboration in its most distilled and absurd form.
The looks on those women’s faces of veiled anger as they staggered down the runway was quite something. How I wish they had all taken off the shoes and hurled them at the judges.
Another favorite of mine: Put Another Log on the Fire.
Put another log on the fire.
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
And go out to the car and change the tyre.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you’re leaving me.
Now don’t I let you wash the car on Sunday?
Don’t I warn you when you’re gettin fat?
Ain’t I a-gonna take you fishin’ with me someday?
Well, a man can’t love a woman more than that.
Ain’t I always nice to your kid sister?
Don’t I take her driving every night?
So, sit here at my feet ‘cos I like you when you’re sweet,
And you know it ain’t feminine to fight.
So, put another log on the fire.
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
Go out to the car and lift it up and change the tyre.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you’re leaving me.
Lavoris!
Eeeewwww! eww! eww! eww! eww!
I did give birth once and even I feel like I need a shower. Never will I get that visual out of my head. At some point that creep must have had to sculpt Britney’s anus, and he probably lingered over it.
Ewwwwwww!!!!!!
I think I remember reading that the sculptor turned out to be a prankster, thank the gods.
That’s going into the ‘wtf???’ section of my music collection, along with the Cambodian Funk Yodeler (who may be equally patriarchal, if only I understood what he was singing about).
And what farmers have the disposable income to just go out and buy a tractor? They’re expensive. Even if you do really need to make it up with her. You should check the rest of the equipment first - it may well be much more sensible to buy her a muckspreader or some such.
Oh, it’s good to be back here.
Apropos of nothing on this particular post… and yet somehow slightly apropos…. I was in a terrifically bad mood today. I deliberately went to a website that infuriates me just so I could fight with the commenters. Yes, I am just that mature. Well, I succeeded (how could I not? it’s so frigging easy)… and then I got pissed off, and then I had to laugh at myself for being drawn into foolishness.
It is SUCH a breath of fresh air to come back here, where the writing is gorgeous and true and funny. Thank you.
Speaking of giving birth and worshiping the whole mother/fetus thing:
http://www.send2press.com/newswire/2006-03-0322-003.shtml
Worshiping a pregnant Brittany Spears.
I really like Sam Cooke’s music, but he has one song that creeps me out. Maybe it’s just the whole “little girl” thing whioc supremely creeps me out as it sounds like he’s talking to a 10 year old.
Wo oh oh oh little girl, how happy I would be
If some miracle could win your love for me
Win your love for me (x2)
Wo oh oh oh wo win your love for me
Many’s the day I’ve longed for you, to hold you in my arms
Many’s the night I’ve cried for you, for your many charms
If you’d only come to me, my heart wouldn’t be full of sorrow
But now all I can do is hope & pray that you’ll come to me tomorrow
(chorus)
To me you are so beautiful, beautiful as a song
& whenever I look at you, my heart beat like a tom-tom
If you’d only come to me, this torch I wouldn’t have to carry
& if everything goes right, to the church we will go to marry
Or maybe I’m reading it wrong and he’s talking about a 4 foot woman. No, not really. I think of children.
Although reading all of these made me want to bring you the lyrics to my favourite Loretta Lynn song, which I use to counter a lot of the bad things I hear.
Well goodbye tubs and clothes lines goodbye pots and pans
I’m a gonna take a greyhound bus as further as I can
I ain’t a gonna wash no windows and I ain’t a gonna scrub no floors
And when you realize I’m gone I’m a gonna hear you roar
And you’ll say hey Loretta I love you more than my Irish Setter
Hey Loretta don’t leave me alone
Hey Loretta I swear I’m a gonna treat you better
Buy you brand new overalls if you’ll only come back home
I work my fingers to the bone and we don’t hardly speak
And all I ever get is just a little kiss about once a week
So you can feed the chickens and you can milk the cow
This a woman’s liberation honey is a gonna start right now
And you’ll say hey Loretta…
I’ll dress up like a movie star and pretty up my hair
And no one here is a gonna know what I’ll be doing there
I’ll be swinging from a chandelier and bouncin’ off the walls
Instead of lovin’ just one man I’m a gonna love ‘em all
And you’ll say hey Loretta…
Hey, don’t forget “Honey.”
Found it! Isn’ t the Internet wunderbar!
Honey
See the tree how big it’s grown but friend it hasn’t been too long it wasn’t big
I laughed at her and she got mad the first day that she planted it was just a twig
Then the first snow came and she ran out to brush the snow away so it wouldn’t die
Came runnin’ in all excited slipped and almost hurt herself and I laughed till I cried
She was always young at heart kinda dumb and kinda smart and I loved her so
I surprised her with a puppy kept me up all Christmas Eve two years ago
And it would sure embarrass her
When I came home from working late cause I would know
That she’d been sittin’ there and cryin’ over some sad and silly late late show
And honey I miss you and I’m being good and I’d love to be with you if only I could
She wrecked the car and she was sad and so afraid that I’d be mad
But what the heck
Though I pretended hard to be guess you could say she saw through me
And hugged my neck
I came home unexpectedly and found her crying needlessly in the middle of the day
And it was in the early spring when flowers bloom and robins sing she went away
And honey I miss you and I’m being good and I’d love to be with you if only I could
Yes one day while I wasn’t home while she was there and all alone the angels came
Now all I have are memories of honey and I wake up nights and I call her name
And now my life’s an empty stage where honey lived and honey played and love grew up
And a small cloud passes overhead and cries down in the flower bed that honey loved
And honey I miss you and I’m being good and I’d love to be with you if only I could
What’s wrong with knowing how to change oil and gap spark plugs?
The voice of the guy singing that ‘honey’ song always brings to mind some bespectacled geek sitting on his back porch feeling remorse after just killing his wife.
I don’t feel like fetching the lyrics, but that Johnny Rivers song about being seperated from a girl….”marie is only six years old, information please, help me get in touch with her in Memphis Tennessee.”
i was in diapers when that song came out so I had nothing to say back then, but jeez marie, didn’t anyone find that song just a little creepy? I keep thinking maybe he’s a dad caught in a custody battle, but no, some of the lyrics just don’t jive with that idea. Worst is that I really like the song, just the lyrics make me feel guilty for enjoying the melody and the rhythmn.
*******************
By the way, I miss twisty’s contribution today and i really needed it since I went to another site for tradespeople and stirred up a whole hornet’s nest over there saying things like, ‘white male paradigm’ and ‘i’m tired of people blaming illegals for trying to feed themselves’ and other challenges to the patriarchy.
For lack of a new post here I must have thought I was in the Twisty Room and let my professional guard down and let my real self show. Now I’ve gone and got them ape-shit, chasing their tails, calling me names and generally spitting their slop-shit thinking all over themselves.
Oh well, guess no one will be asking for my opinion about building technique over there for a while.
Another short win for the patriarchy but that I walked into the hornet’s nest and have my wits about me to smile about it; a big thanks to all of you here and this blog.
thanks you all. we do make eachother stronger.
Hattie! I’ll git you for that earworm! Urgh, ugh, yecch.
By way of revenge, I’ll let you remember the rest of
“You’re havin’ my baby.
What a lovely way of sayin’ how much you love me…”
And fill in this one:
“What’s that you say, Mama,
‘Come in and get your feet warm’?
Stay right there I’ll be there in a minute or so.
Something something something something
Me and God are watching Bobby grow.”
I guess you wouldn’t have time for a blog of your own, but I think it’d be terrific. I’d want to see lots of work-site pix of you, looking authoritative. Until then, rant on here.
I missed Twisty today too. We are a demanding bunch eh?
Jaye,
I saw pix of that Britney thing today. The pornification of chilbirth, unreal. Seductively on all fours with her ass raised up like a cat in heat. Is that any way to get a baby out? The article claims the head can be seen crowning, otherwise is looks like porn to me. Ack.
Nyx
That’s actually one of the better positions to give birth in, especially to help prevent perineal tears and the “need” for episiotomies.
But regarding the Britney statue being in that position: I don’t see why the sculptor would even have to deny being inspired by a bootleg BS birth video. She had a planned C-section. A great ironic comment about her actual birth versus this patritard artist’s “idealized” vision of it escapes me now, though, unfortunately.
Sorry about that. My lack of HTML skillz led to me somehow turning my second paragraph above into the link I actually meant to post between paragraphs. Which is for a page on a UK midwifery site about the benefits of the all fours position for birthing, in case anybody’s interested.
For what it’s worth, in retrospect, I am very glad to have had my daughter by planned cesarean. I’m sure not of the natural birthing extremists’ school that all cesareans are evil. I really kind of like the petrie dish idea, myself. And, even farther out on a limb, how about parthenogenesis? (if we could only figure out a way to maintain and increase genetic diversity in the process)
My vote for most horrifying sexist song: “Never Been To Me” by Charlene. After singing about all her crazy adventures (including seeing some things “that a woman ain’t supposed to see”), she concludes that her true identity consists of … well:
“Hey, you know what paradise is?
It’s a lie, a fantasy we create about people and places as we’d like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It’s that little baby you’re holding, it’s that man you fought with this morning
The same one you’re going to make love with tonight
That’s truth, that’s love”
Then she talks about “crying for unborn children that might have made her complete.”
And it’s musically offensive as well as morally!
I can’t believe I almost forgot this one:
www.theguitarguy.com/thankhea.htm
Ah, the Fifties: when you could sing about pedophilia in the movies, and joke (to the accompaniment of a roaring laugh track) about beating the shit out of your wife on TV.
Okay, after “Honey” and “Watching Scotty Grow,” I was unfortunately reminded of this Glenn Campbell ditty, which I’ve spent the last three or four decades trying to forget:
She looks in the mirror and stares at the wrinkles that weren’t there yesterday
And thinks of the young man that she almost married
What would he think if he saw her this way?
She picks up her apron in little girl-fashion as something comes into her mind
Slowly starts dancing rememb’ring her girlhood
And all of the boys she had waiting in line
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev’rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me
The photograph album she takes from the closet and slowly turns the page
And carefully picks up the crumbling flower
The first one he gave her now withered today
She closes her eyes and touches the house dress that suddenly disappears
And just for the moment she’s wearing the gown
That broke all their minds back so many years
Oh, such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see ev’rywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife who gave up the good life for me
Glen campbell should be beaten by a zillion tired, stressed to the max, overworked, underappreciated, ignored, bored and angry housewives for that stupid tune.
Pony: I would post a pic here if I knew how or if it were deemed appropriate. Since I’m not all svelte and long and lean, I haven’t put but one of me on my company website. And that one has me cutting out a window for a wall we’re putting up and i’m not looking at the camera at all.
How could anyone forget the crooners, Crosby and Sinatra, doing their renditions of this:
Frank Sinatra Try A Little Tenderness lyrics
INTRO:
In the hustle of the day, we’re all inclined to miss
Little things that mean so much
A word, a smile, and a kiss
When a woman loves a man, he’s a hero in her eyes
And a hero he can always be if he’ll just realize
She may be weary, women do get weary
Wearing the same shabby dress
And when she’s weary, try a little tenderness
She may be waiting, just anticipating
Things she may never possess
While she’s without them, try a little tenderness
It’s not just sentimental, she has her grief and her care
But a word that’s soft and gentle makes it easier to bear
You won’t regret it, women don’t forget it
Love is their whole happiness
And it’s all so easy, try a little tenderness
I can never hear that song without the image of a B-52 engaging a 707 in unnatural acts…
Naw, the most horrifyingly sexist song is “I enjoy being a girl”, sung by an adult woman, of course.
In junior high chorale, we stopped singing en masse until the teacher cut it from the program. I think it came from flower dumb song musical or something.
I’m a girl and by me it’s only great
I am proud that my silhouette is curvy
That I walk with a sweet and girlish gait
With my hips kind of swivelly and swervey
I adore being dressed in something frilly
When my date comes to get me at my place
out I go with my joe or john or billy
like a philly who is ready for the race!
When I have a brand new hair do
and my eye lashes all in curl
I float like the clouds on air do
I enjoy being a girl
(it just gets worse from there … won’t torture)
I’d posit that the worst song, patriarchally, is John Mayer’s “Daughters” if only, unlike Glen Campbell, he’s played about 4300 times a day on the radio.
I know a girl
She puts the color inside of my world
but she’s just like a maze
Where all of the walls all continually change
And I’ve done all I can
To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands
Now I’m starting to see
Maybe it’s got nothing to do with me
Fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too
Ooh, you see that skin?
It’s the same she’s been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she’s left
cleaning up the mess he made
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers, be good to your daughters too
Boys, you can break
You find out how much they can take
Boys will be strong
And boys soldier on
But boys would be gone without warmth from
A woman’s good, good heart
On behalf of every man
looking out for every girl
You are the god and the weight of her world
So fathers, be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too
So mothers be good to your daughters, too.
I’m sorry, the article about girls and college made me tear up. I have a granddaughter who will be applying for same in the not-too-distant future, and while her mother is busily carting her to activity after activity, sports (two or three a year)dance, and others and her grades are excellent, will it be enough? Is this just another way that the patriarchy will find to oppress our women? I blame the patriarchy for this as all else, and the end must come!
Twisty, thank you every day for your being.