Remember this tune?
Here are a few of the lyrics from the Dead or Alive version:
“You spin me right round, baby
Right round, like a record, baby
Right round round round…”
You know you’re humming along. Admit it. You are, aren’t you?
Have you heard the refrain on the new version by Flo Rida? When I first heard my son and his middle school friends singing the chorus, just the “You spin me right round baby right round,” part, I thought, “Oh, look, everything really does come back.”
And then my girlfriend asked me if I knew Flo Rida had changed the lyrics. Huh?
Ah, yes, why would Flo Rida touch a song that wasn’t about oral sex? Here, his chorus:
“You spin my head right round, right round
When you go down, when you go down down
You spin my head right round, right round
When you go down, when you go down down…”
Better yet, he pays her:
“From the top of the pole I watch her go down
She got me throwin my money around
Ain’t nothin more beautiful to be found
It’s goin down down…”
There are so many things going on here that I don’t know where to start and if I climb up on this high horse I may never come back down. So here’s what I have to say in as few words as possible:
- If your child has an iPod, it would behoove you to know what’s on it.
- If your child doesn’t want you to touch his or her iPod, you better start listening.
- Women are degraded endlessly in an incredible number of currently popular songs.
- Sex, oral sex, paying for sex, doing drugs, selling drugs, stealing and general depravity seem to be the main themes.
- I don’t care if they “just like the tune.” It’s the old “junk in,” “junk out” philosophy.
- I know you don’t have time for this. I don’t either. But making time is probably a great option for both of us.
- This is not harmless; if it’s on their iPod it’s playing over and over in their head a bazillion times a day (yep, that’s a scientific number).
- Google the title, artist and lyrics if you want to know more.
- Hang tough. You’re the parent.
And you know, back in the day, Madonna was considered racy.
My kids love this song. Until I started singing along. "You know this song, Mom?" "Oh yeah! I danced to it in college! You spin me right round baby right round…." (sung very loudly and very badly).
And that was that. No longer their favorite song.
Ok, but seriously? Did not know about the changed lyrics. And yes, did play it loudly in my car and did not hear what I was singing. So thanks for the info.
I confess, I often just hope they have no idea what they are singing.
Am generally opposed to censoring their music – of the belief in the unfortunate reality that banned music becomes more enticing and lyrics are then read with fascination. So I don't have an answer except that I won't buy crap music for my kids. And I try to talk to them about it. And hope I can forge some ethics along the way.
phd… Ha! Perhaps I should've tried singing along, too. That would probably do it. I agree with you in that I don't think outright censoring, in most cases, is the way to go. Forbidden fruit is just too tasty.
In this particular case, my husband simply explained what the new lyrics meant. Ewww, gross. End of story. We haven't heard the song since.
Since my son is old enough to be making choices about the music he chooses, I think my husband and I have a responsibility to help him navigate this terrain. I've told my son a thousand times, and I'm sure he's sick of it, that I don't really care a tremendous amount about the language in a song. It's the context that gets me. I'll take a few swear words over the degradation of women–his mother is one for goodness sakes–any day.
But next time, for the record, I'm just going to try singing along and see what happens. 🙂
any luck? LOL
I remember once singing "wanna take a ride on your disco stick" really loud and breathy-sexy like in the car and my girls were all, "gross mom!" But then I pursued it. "What? Why? What's a disco stick?" Which got us talking about the song a little bit, about what it meant. But they shut it down pretty quickly. They really hate it when Mom tries to open up the dialog based on one of their fave pop-tunes.