When I was about 8 years old, I was obsessed with the song "We Fit Together" by O-Town. Here are some sample lyrics:
"I wanna go all night , ain't no stoppin' 'till the breakin' of the dawn
I wanna go inside every corner, girl you really turn me on
I wanna go knock knock, our bodies to the beat and when the morning comes
We're letting the sun shine, we'll stay in bed
You can't separate us, we fit together"
Clearly, not an appropriate song for an 8-year-old to be singing. My father forbade me to listen to it, and I was upset about it...until I listened to it again at 13 and finally realized why.
When I was a kid, I paid attention to the music, not the lyrics. I didn't understand the sexual connotations of this song. As music continuously gets more explicit, kids are exposed to more sexual terms at a younger age.
But there's no guarantee they understand them - like when a 5-year-old
Toddlers and Tiaras star sang LMFAO's "Sexy and I Know It" at NYC nightclub Libation, according to
The Huffington Post. While this raises a whole host of parenting questions (like what a 5-year-old was doing at a nightclub), little Isabella Barrett didn't really understand what she was talking about. How could she? She's 5.
Do you have any songs that you loved as kids that you didn't realize were sexual? Have you had any experiences with kids like this?
Image Source 1, 2
Recommend
Comments (21)
O-TOWN.
I had the same revelation not too many years ago. Same band, but it was "every six seconds".. then I went on a rampage of listening to 90's/early 2000's music, figuring out all that I had misunderstood. Nobody ever stopped me though!
Music has definitely become less tasteful though, I think no matter how cheesy those bands were way back when, it's better than "sexy bitch". For some girls, those can actually be empowering lyrics, but me I prefer the cheesy oldies.
oh god. I found out the same thing too.
here's a relevant story:
when I was a student in a catholic school during 7th grade our teacher made us do these confidence boosting exercises. we were to choose a song to lip sync and perform it on stage in front of our classmates. me, who was already super geeky and the only songs I listened to that time was JPOP, went through my brother's music stash and performed this r&b gem.
"When you're out in the club, don't think I'm not
Even when you're out making love, don't think I'm not
When your feeling good in somebody's spot, getting hot, don't stop
Just don't think I'm not, cause I'm out getting
mine
Don't be surprised to know that sometimes women
play the game"
imagine my horror looking back wondering how much teacher felt.
AQUA! I loved, and still do love Aqua but some of their songs.... like Candyman and I think one even has the lyrics wham bam thank you ma'am lol, yup Bumble Bees by Aqua was pretty sexual
Two Become One - Spice Girls.
wow are you like...12 to be quoting akon? the one that comes to my mind immediately is next - too close. (though granted, i think that was just a little bit before my time.)
i am always on the lookout for girls who know old school music. like, the kind of girl that knows 80% of the songs mister cee plays during the week. if you know that shit...we should hang out sometime. seriously. cause you are a rare fucking breed. (or just old, and girls in their 30s are never into guys in their 20s :( )
when I was a kid, I heard the song by color me badd called "I Wanna Sex You Up" and I had no idea what sex was, but I liked the "tick tock you don't stop" lyrics, because it was like the hickory dickory dock rhyme
one of my favorite songs was paula abdul's song called "Rush Rush" where she is basically horny for some guy, hence the rush, rush aka orgasmic/lustful feelings, but I thought the song was catchy..."hurry hurry lover come to me
" whatever that means
I also liked snoop dogg, because his name is adorable
which kid wouldn't like a name that sounds like a cute puppy, which is true since his name is inspired by snoopy from the charlie brown comics
who knew that he was a gangster rapstar, because as far as I was concerned, he's the mellow voiced nice singer named snoop doggy
dr. dre's "Gin and Juice" song was also catchy to me when I was a kid. nobody told me it was about alcohol, but it would be best if they didn't. I prefer to put my own naive kid interpretation of applejuice box song
My kids jam out to "Hot Thing" by Talib Kweli. Own it!
Oh shit, and Lets talk about Sex by salt n peppa. But for some reason, my mom convinced me that they said "Lets talk about Socks"
I jammed so hard to that when I was a kid.
I used to love the song boys by Britney "What would it take for you to just sleep with me?"
*shakes head
My three year old sings Rack City. The clean version, obvisouly.. but still.
He doesn't understand. He likes the music and it's repetitive.
I think it's cute.
barbie girl. i used to rollerblade at the roller rink to this song and holy cow did i love it... a couple of years ago i listened to it and it's talking about undressing her whenever he wants. i just think it's hysterical because my little 6 year old mind had no clue.
My parents only allowed me to listen to classical music when I was a child. It wasn't until I was 11 that I started listening to popular songs on the radio, so thankfully I was spared of singing songs I didn't really understand. Even then I didn't understand the meanings, and I only paid attention to the music, since I had a hard time telling what the words were. My classmates always made a big deal of the part of "Torn" that goes "lying naked on the floor." They also sang the Barbie song and songs by the Spice Girls. I doubt they knew what those songs really were about.
Now I work with kids and I think it's funny that six and seven year-olds are singing Adele's "Someone Like You." I don't think they've even been in love before.
oh goodness
Boom Boom Boom Boom - Vengaboys
One Night Stand - Mis-TeeqHorny - Mousse T (this tune is so catchy, i used to sing it all the time - i was only around 7 at the time)& that's just to name a few
Thought I knew TLC's "Red Light Special" was a song about sex at a young age, I didn't think too much about it because I just liked the way the song sounded. I was listening to it the other day and I was like, "Oh my gosh!!!! Why didn't my mother turn this song off?!?!?!?!"
I listened more to classical music as a child, so that didn't really come up much. But when I started junior high, I started listening to other music, too. I had the opposite problem.
I was raised in a fairly religious home. And I went to a religious school that basically gave me the idea that anything "sexual" was "bad" unless you were married. So because of that, I thought I was supposed to avoid songs that were sexual. So I started hearing sexual meanings in songs where there weren't any. For example, the song "Oblivion" by Terrorvision had a line that said, "would you grab a tent and join 'em?" I honestly thought they were singing "would you grab a girl's vagina?" So the desire to keep me "innocent" really backfired!
it wasn't me - shaggy
i knew it was dirty, but in retrospect i can see that it was unbelievably dirty considering the demographic nsync was shooting for: "digital get down"
also, "genie in a bottle." that song is out of control sexual.
awesome stuff.
i remember my parents wouldn't let me listen to spice girls because of "if you wanna be my lover...", which was especially ridiculous since at that age i honestly thought lover just meant someone you love.
I grew up listening to Kiss (and their solo albums). Most of it went over my head. Some of it was like, "I know this is dirty... somehow... but I don't get it."
@Nushirox2@xanga - it sounds like britney says, "sleep" but she actually says, "what would it take for you to just "leave" with me. I thought it sounded like sleep, too, until I looked up the lyrics.
@P0RCELA1N_D0LL@xanga - Oh, well I feel a little better about my years of singing that in the car.
When in my teen years used to listen to late-night radio shows there were some records played that were very melodic yet had some progressive lyrics in them. One such recording was called 'Readers Wives' it had a very hard Northern English accent and the playing was very nice listening - the lyrics seemed to roll off each and every listen to the platter.However, years later when I knew the song enough to be able to sing it some bright spark came and told me what the song was all about..I hated it right there and then and haven't listened to it since..even though I can still sing it. Some folk can put you straight, or take you down..music to me was an uplifter..though..this was a let down and has left me music-less since the truth came out. I sometimes put on a record though its not the same any more and my perspective of anything sounds more like pure porno and then some. Vile stuff really. I often wonder why I listen to instrumentals these days... LOL