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Are Cheating Lyrics Taboo?

J

Jay F

On an oldies station I heard Lesley Gore-"Maybe I know". I don't think I ever heard it before. Her vocals and the arrangement of the song were very pleasing to listen to. The song was about a girl who knew her boyfriend was cheating on her and took a passive approach to it "Maybe I know that he's been a cheatin' but what can I do".

I thought back and remembered several older songs where the woman knew her man was cheating but didn't seem to care...or even liked it as long as the man was a skilled lover such as Diana Ross-Upside Down or Chaka Khan's urban crossover "Ain't Nobody". I also thought of several songs where the married man was cheating.

Am I correct that no CHR hits in the last several years have lyrics with the theme of a woman being cheated on and accepting it? Of course Country still has songs about cheating but the one I can think of that crossed over to pop...Carrie Underwood-Before He Cheats was anything but accepting of the man's cheating.

Maybe it's just a case of less CHR hits being about relationships in general. But would you say that lyrics about a woman being cool with her man cheating would be totally taboo in 2012?
Impossible to have a hit with now?

I have read theories that say due to female hypergamy there is more sharing of men (alpha males) than anytime before in Western Civilization. That we have entered a state of de-facto polygamy. What I find interesting is that if this is really true (and I'm not sure that it is) it is not being reflected in popular culture, at least not in hit music.
 
Not likely to become reflected in pop culture at this time.

In the Lesley Gore song, such male behavior was one thing, what is it now is maybe a little different.

We're seem to be 'way past equality or the expectation of for both sexes.

It now just personal perspective of whether a standard is something you live up to or down to.

That makes it a difficult subject for song material, too divisive.


For more interesting lyrics, listen to Sandy Posey singing "Born a Woman".
 
I've always loved the song "Secret Lovers" by Atlantic Starr. I think the man and woman in the song are both cheating on their spouses. The woman singing even says something that makes her think possibly her husband has a "secret lover" too. LOL
 
"Maybe I Know" has always been my favorite Lesley Gore song but I never read anything into it that would be personal.

Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" is one of those serious songs that did come out of a relationship by two people in the group (who were not married to each other). It has always amazed me that they performed this song since it had to be intensely personal to at least half the group.

But if cheatin' were omitted from song writing close to 80% of Country songs wouldn't ever have been written.
 
I thought of another one Kid Rock/Sheryl Crow-Picture. He admits to having a different girl in his hotel room every night. Yet they are apparently in some type of relationship.

Still this wouldn't qualify to meet my criteria. The song isn't new. it's around a decade old. Plus it could be considered a country song, it did in fact crossover to the country chart.
 
If Lovin' You is Wrong, I Don't Wanna Be Right by Luther Ingram, and (predictabley) C/W's Barbaral Mandrell... Torn Between Two Lovers by Mary MacGregor... pretty common fare some 30 to 40-years back. You don't hear as many confessional dirges these days. Both of If Lovin... and Torn... bore at least some notice of one's struggles with one's conscience, a concession you rarely hear in Today's music culture.
 
One of the quintessential cheating songs in recent memory is Heart's "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You from 1990. It was about a woman who has an affair with a man she saw walking in the rain. She picks him up, took him to a hotel room where they made love and she became pregnant. The woman wanted to have a baby, something that her husband couldn't give her.

Fast forward to a decade later, Uncle Kracker's "Follow Me" could be interpreted as a song about cheating ("I'm not worried 'bout the ring you wear, just as long as no one knows, then nobody can care, you're feeling guilty and I'm well aware, but you don't look ashamed and baby, I'm not scared"). I say "interpreted" because I've also read where it could be a song about drugs (though I go with the cheating aspect).
 
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