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The Overhead Bin: Music Appreciation

One day, as I listened to some teeth-grinding tripe from Taylor Swift on the radio, I at least felt grateful that her lyrics leave something to the imagination.
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This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

One day, as I listened to some teeth-grinding tripe from Taylor Swift on the radio, I at least felt grateful that her lyrics leave something to the imagination. Because, as a parent, I'm becoming deeply resentful that the rest of pop and hip hop music is turning into audio porn.

I pondered this new direction of music for a moment, flicked some grey hair off my face and zoomed in for a reality check. It's not new. Music lyrics have been lewd and suggestive for some time – ahhherm, Rolling Stones, ACDC, Alice Cooper, Spinal Tap, to name a very few – and I was an avid fan. But I was 17, or some ridiculous age and the outrageous reigned supreme.

The difference is, now I'm a mommy of tweens. There's been a definitive shift in my DNA, and it has morphed my fun and cool genes. The carefree nucleotides have been somehow outnumbered by conservative and prissy on my chromosome ladder. Combined, these mutations have made mainstream reference to sex and its attendant titillations an affront to my newly puritan self.

Thus, at 50, I'm no longer the demographic targeted by hip-hop artists. Meanwhile, the nascent AARP label "Hip-Hip," has yet to break into mainstream broadcasting. So, really, who am I to bemoan the music that kids are listening to?

A victim for starters. When my kids are not walking around with their little handheld torture devices, they're in my car and want to have their station on. More than anything, I would love to expose them to some feisty '80's headbanger classics, both as a point of historical reference and to demonstrate that Mom is not the rusty ol' cog they might think she is. But, like most things introduced by adults, my musical selections are rebuffed out of hand. So I let them have their Taylor Swift lolli-pop for the duration of the ride, and wait patiently for my turn to thrash. The problem with this concession, though, is just that even the most bubble-gummy of pop is trending to obscene.

Especially rap, for which I am losing patience. I don't deny rap its artistic and cultural authenticity. Surely, even a car being dragged over concrete by a semi has musical qualities, depending on the listener's level of aural sophistication. I don't hate it because it's teeming with profanity. In fact, when I hear it my instinct is to scream "Would you turn that f*&cking Sh#t off!"

I even liked the Beastie Boys once upon a time, in that they heartily encouraged selfish indulgence and immaturity when I too, embraced the same values. There was also MC Hammer who made those parachute pants cool, the ones that totally disguised my "freshman 15." And 20. Beyond that, well, I was into hair bands. Which I understand, to my parents sounded exactly like metal on concrete with language and imagery to match.

Perhaps rap is just the wrong side of melodious for me. Maybe it's because the subject matter has me on the edge of my seat, wondering what inappropriate gem of reprobate insight will next be sandwiched between "bitch" and "nigga." I propose that the homies are calling it too real for my middle-aged parental self.

The allure of the illicit is always a near and present danger, "illicit" checking in at different levels as you age, and according to circumstance. Like mothers before me who found Elvis, mini-skirts and Penthouse unacceptably vile, my "illicit" threshold now sits at the low end of the spectrum, with my antennae perking up at phrases such as "open up your gates," or anything at all "firmly in the walls of your labyrinth." My fear is that, not knowing what the words imply, my children will belt this out in front of someone who does. Like me. And it's creepy.

Rap might start out one way and you'll be humming along, when all of a sudden Nicki Minaj is talking about "Truffle Butter," a covert reference to sex. My kids don't know what a truffle is – not the food sort anyway, so I can't imagine that they're making the leap covered so eloquently by Ms. Minaj. Since being enlightened as to the other uses for these here-to-for pantry terms, I am forced to boycott the singalong.

Neither hip hop nor rap require a superior intellect to understand. In fact, much of the time, it rhymes and frequently makes about as much sense as Dr. Seuss. This comes through despite the fact that today's rap vocalists sound like they're talking in their sleep. With effort and patience, it might be painstakingly revealed that the vocalist wishes the listener to know he "Got a pocket full of hundreds and a closet full of clothes, with a phone full of hoes and they trippin."  The verses often only become clear to me as I hear my 12-year old mumbling along about the "hoes" who be "trippin'." When I do finally glom on, I want to turn into an agent for Child Protective Services. "Hoes!" In my car!


Whenever I gently suggest, "please turn that down or off, it's inappropriate (ie "Turn that F%&king Sh&t Off!"), it's heard as a request for them to recite the names of 86 friends – and their much younger siblings – who listen to the very same music, the implication being that I am unreasonable. Which prompts me to name the 86 humans and other creatures that had categorically better not hear my kids playing it. The list includes our cats, who need no further encouragement to urinate on our stuff. I also reference grandparents, who even with compromised hearing and all the mumbling, might still read the lips of their grandchildren as they mutter along and be surprised to find the kids can no longer conjugate verbs or match them with the correct pronouns.

I'm not a prude. Well, was not always a prude. Some of the music I listened to was beyond raunchy. One of the first albums I ever got – from my dear oblivious parents, no less – was Meat Loaf's Bat Out Of Hell. Though one song's narration of young and lustful car sex is swimming in metaphor and allusion, the storyline is crystal clear. Unless you're 8, like I was, and Meat Loaf was my first introduction to musical porn. Now, in front of my kids, I'm relieved that the most "educational" phrases of Despacito are sung in Spanish. Maybe I should be thankful so much of the music is mumbly and incoherent, and we can pretend that hoes are gardening tools?

Speaking of, let's hear it for the "hoes!" Not the gardening type. While much of rap's ghetto smack is busy dissing injustice, the terms used to name the genre's ever-present stage props – women – are blatantly misogynistic. "Bitches" and "hoes," rival the "N" word in its intent to demean and subjugate a group of people. From prolific use of the "B word" and the "H word" in lyrics, these two gangs, The Bitches and The Hoes, have become generally accepted caricatures in music of the real thing – women.


Swearing and mumbling aside, overlooking the discordant droning, improper grammar and the subliminal knowledge that the performer's pants are belted just above the knee, I don't appreciate the vulgarity in rap music, especially, when I'm sharing audience with my son. I'm sure there's a time and a place for tuneless smut, slurred rhythmically and often in iambic pentameter, but it ain't mainstream media.


It's hard enough for parents to cultivate and nurture in their children respect for others. Women in particular need their regard elevated just to come out even. More frustratingly, at this stage, I'm grappling with the context and vocabulary, the setting and even my own facial expressions to explain human reproduction to my kids. I don't appreciate that they are singing along to this flap, oblivious to the fact that the words they are using debase females in ways their minds could never understand at this age. Unfortunately hoes and bitches are the raging hot subjects of many rap hits, so on top of mom's wholesome sixth-grade discussion of crabs, genital lesions, and wet dreams, I need to answer "Mom? What's a ho?"


As the bad words are forbidden in speech, my children want to know, if they are present in a song, can they sing the bad words. I consider in what scenarios in which they will be listening to the mumbled subpar pornography in feeble English, through a bluetooth speaker, muttering along to Lil' Wayne, "...Swagger tighter than a yeast infection / Fly go hard like geese erection..."  That's right. And Lil' Wayne makes a lil' more money that you and I.


Can they sing along? I weigh my options. Could I enforce "no"? Meanwhile "yes" spells disaster. "I guess you can but NOT within hearing or lip-reading distance of these people!" Again, grandparents top the list, teachers, me, your dad, your younger siblings, your friends' parents,  their grandparents, the lunch lady, your parole officer – wait. I'm getting ahead of myself.

In my full answer to my child, I mime rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard belting out "...hippa to the hoppa and you just don't stoppa!..." Beads of sweat form on my son’s forehead as he looks around to see if anyone has spotted me. I offer to twerk. "STOP!" "MOM! STooooooPPPP! … ok, Ok, OK, stop," he pants. "I'll only sing along if I'm by myself and maybe if my friends are singing, too. Alone. Only when we're alone." I believe we have an understanding.

Suffice to say, I'd rather this music was unavailable to kids or that we could enforce a rule about what music they can and cannot listen to. They did it in Footloose, right? Banned music that led to lewd behavior and loose morals? That was my first introduction to the idea of music as a "gateway" artform. But I'm kind of seeing the preacher’s side of things now. At the same time, like it happened in the movie, the advent of my tweens' avid fascination with hip hop and rap has brought with it opportunities for some valuable discussions, albeit irritatingly, about hoes and bitches.

And, I have to admit, if we were all watching regular old broadcast TV together, I'd be trying to explain pharmaceutical ads for irritable bowel, bipolar depression and vaginal dryness. Actually, those make great material for music lyrics. "Geese erectile dysfunction…." Ha. By Prissy D.