horrendously inappropriate pop songs of my youth
A random memory popped into my head this week: in Year 7, we were sitting on the gym mats at school, ‘exercising’. We were discussing the lyrics to the smash-hit pop classic Boom Boom Boom Boom by The Vengaboys.
Which, in case you hadn’t remembered, goes like this:
‘Boom boom boom boom!
I want you in my room.
Let’s spend the night together
From now until forever.
Boom boom boom boom!
I wanna go boom boom.
Let’s spend the night together
Together in my room.’
So we had an impromptu karaoke session right there in the PE hall. A group of eleven-year-old girls, happily singing about two people having explosive sex for all eternity. Fun!
At least we knew it was about something vaguely naughty. I mean, we weren’t idiots. That’s better than when we used to sing the following with no idea of what it meant:
‘I need some love like I’ve never needed love before
(Wanna make love to ya baby)
I had a little love, now I’m back for more
(Wanna make love to ya baby)
Set your spirit free
It’s the only way to be.’
(Thinking about it those last two lines are a bit of a wildcard.)
Anyway, when this song came out, I was mega into the Spice Girls. It was 1996.
I was eight years old.
I have a tag-along memory to this: me and my friends performing another Spice Girls song (thankfully not that one) in front of our whole Year 4 class. I remember it because I stubbornly refused to be typecast as Ginger Spice and my friends relented and let me be Baby Spice instead as I was the shortest.
Remembering that has broken me out into a cold sweat.
Anyway, 2 Become 1. Back then I had no idea what I was singing about. I just liked the song.
I can’t talk really, because I let my kids listen to some weird songs sometimes. For a long time, their favourite song was Late Night Feelings by Mark Ronson, and I couldn’t figure out whether to laugh or feel guilty listening to them bellowing it in the car.
This is something that I find quite tricky. Allowing my kids to see or hear things that aren’t 100 percent appropriate vs. keeping them in a safe, purified cultural dome ala Bubble Boy.
Decided that, upon reflection, song lyrics are not the worst thing. If they’re as stupid as I was as a kid, the innuendo will fly miles over their heads for the time being. Secondary school will introduce them to a whole world of mad things so I can’t be worrying about song lyrics on top of everything else.
Music videos on the other hand can just get in the sea.
Luckily my kids can just ask Alexa for music, so when they’re at an impressionable age, they won’t have to sit in front of video after video of beautifully tanned, unfairly proportioned popstars grinding against each other and sweating in an improbably attractive sort of way just to catch a glimpse of Simple Plan’s Welcome to My Life.
And they won’t have to deal with watching these videos whilst gazing defeatedly at their own pudgy bellies and flat chests and pale skin.
So maybe this parenting thing isn’t so hard after all? Just make off-the-cuff decisions and hope that everyone comes out relatively unscathed at the end of it. That’s what people do, right?
Also, I found out today that the Vengaboys are currently on tour.
Not gonna lie, it’s quite tempting.
