Not So Deep Thoughts

I dunno what came over me, but I’ve decide to take a fairly simple year end project for my history class and turn it into a freaking doctoral thesis. The original assignment was to choose one song, transcribe it, analyze it and write something about it that includes at least something you’ve learned in class to show the teacher that you’ve actually absorbing something over last year.

So, during one of our classes, we were covering some of the bigger hits of the 1950s. Four of the songs he put on were by women, and I couldn’t help noticing a theme in the lyrics they sang: I Love You, I’ll Wait For You, I’ll Be True To You, Will You Be Kind Enough To Have Me As Your One And Only Lady?

Where was the attitude? Where was the defiance? Where was the ‘I-Am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar!’ on the radio waves?

Looking into it a bit more, I found a list of songs that have reached #1 on the Billboard Lists over the years - every # 1 song since the 1800s… seriously. I though it might be interesting to compare how the image of the female was portrayed in popular music over the times and how it might have effected the youth at which it was targeted.

So I started with the 1950s and the following few decades, picking out any #1 single that was fronted by a woman singer. Listening, reading… And what a joy it was, I felt like I was back in my old house on a Sunday afternoon as my dad blasted oldies on his Hi-Fi. With each song I found, I would put it up on YouTube and search Google for the lyrics. 100 songs I got through on the first day. It was a lot of cutting and pasting, but it was a great to relive such a blast from the past.

Until today that is…

I got to the 80s.

I seriously started to twitch as I wrote that.

Fucking awful

That’s all I have to say.

Paula, Debbie, Cyndi, Gloria, Whitney, Janet, Madonna - Shame on you. Shame, Shame, Shame.

God! I thought that women were finally coming into their own come the mid 60s and 70s as Nancy stomped around in her boots and Janice and Bobby stowed away on trains.

Granted, I knew something was going wrong when disco slipped its way into the #1 list come the end of the 70s, but I was so blind to what was coming ahead in the 80s. Atrocious.

I’m gonna put on some Ray Charles just to get this awful feeling out of my head.