The question of the appropriateness of past song lyrics has created a pretty fierce debate. Some people defend the songs, saying they are reflections of the times. Other people say that while it was made in the past, we live in a different cultural climate now, and the questionable lyrics should be changed.
Many kinds of songs have fallen victim to this debate, from holiday classics to rock ballads to country love songs. Some of the lyrics in question are pretty nuanced, while others are blatantly sexist, racist, or homophobic.
While some artists will defend their original song's lyrics vehemently, others have decided to change lyrics or retire a song altogether. Sometimes this is after public outcry, and sometimes it's before.
Some lyrics, as soon as you hear them, make you gasp. Lil Wayne's lyrics on Future's 2013 song “Karate Chop” is one of those instances.
Lil Wayne was featured on the song, and a section of his lyrics were:
Beat that p***y up like Emmett Till
If you're familiar with the story of Emmett Till, you know how incredibly disrespectful these lyrics are. Till was a 14-year-old who was tortured and lynched in Mississippi in 1955. So to make any reference between him and “beating” is completely out of line.
Lady Gaga is typically known for her advocacy and support for marginalized groups. However, she had a major misstep when it came to 2013's “Do What U Want.”
Already, the title gives away the issue of the song, which is echoed in the chorus:
You can't have my heart, and you won't use my mind (My mind) But do what you want with my body (Yeah) Do what you want with my body (With your body) You can't stop my voice 'cause you don't own my life But do what you want with my body
Lady Gaga did dodge a bullet, it seems, by choosing to scrap a music video the two had filmed for the song. The Atlantic reported that in the unreleased video:
Lady Gaga lies on an operating table, R. Kelly reaches under her sheet and toward her groin, and Gaga moans. Sedatives kick in, and Kelly and a crew of scantily clad nurses start gyrating on her sleeping body.
We'll give you one guess for why “Christine Sixteen” didn't age well. The song was released by KISS in 1977 and is about a young girl named Christine.
Want to venture a guess to how old the four members of KISS were at the time of the song's release? Between 25 and 32.
Here are just a few of the lyrics:
I don't usually say things Like this to girls your age (Christine, sixteen) But when I saw you coming Out of the school that day That day I knew, I knew I've got to have you, I've got to have you (Christine, sixteen) She's been around But she's young and clean I've got to have her Can't live without her, whoa no
When men in their 30s are literally talking about seeing a girl at school and want to get with her, you know something isn't right.
While Grease is a beloved musical, there are some lyrics from the 1978 film that don't hold up well. This can be seen in “Summer Nights,” the song Danny (John Travolta) and Sandy (Olivia Newton John) sing about each other to their schoolfriends.
While listening, Sandy and Danny's friends have radically different responses to their story. Sandy's newfound friends, the Pink Ladies, are more interested in the romantic elements, while Danny's friends, the T-Birds, seem to only want to know what happened physically.
"Misery Business" is one of the best-known songs of the band Paramore. Released in 2007 on their second album, the single helped them jump up the charts.
However, in 2017, Hayley Williams first spoke to how she regretted using a derogatory term to refer to a woman in the song.
The lyric she's referring to is:
Once a whore, you’re nothing more, I’m sorry, but that will never change.
Williams said that while she didn't know it as the time (as she wrote this song as a 17-year-old), she was “feeding into a lie” that she'd bought into like so many teenagers before her.
In 2018, the band announced they were “retiring” the song from their live tour (largely due to the controversy around the lyric), however, they brought it back in late 2022.
Every Picture Tells a Story was the name of Rod Stewart's first solo album, which was released in 1971. While he was already fairly known, this album helped skyrocket him to stardom.
The album had a song by the same name that described a man traveling around Europe, finally falling for a woman on a ferry. However, how he describes the woman has been called both racist and sexist.
First, he describes the woman as a “slit-eyed lady" whom he met by the “light of an eastern moon.”
He then adds more about the woman, saying:
Shanghai Lil never used the pill She claimed that it just ain't natural
These nuances likely weren't a big deal nearly 50 years ago when the song was released, but modern listeners do cringe a bit when they hear these lyrics.
