Pet Please #77: Learning That an Innocent-Sounding Song Is Actually Quite Naughty

Have you caught yourself bobbing your head to “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes lately? It’s that peppy song with the whistling. Just an innocent little ditty about coming home with someone you care about, right?

“Bobbing” might be the only accurate modifier for that song, because apparently that song is about oral sex.

If this is news to you, join the club. I just found out yesterday. I really need to start listening to the words of songs. [Update 10/4/12 at 6:03 pm: “Home” is NOT actually about oral sex! The actual song that people were talking about is “Whistle” by Flo Ri Da. Which makes much more sense. Let’s simplify things and pretend that “Home” is also dirty.]

But even for those of you who know every word of every song, I’m sure there’s been at least once that someone has told you that the innocent-sounding song you’re singing along with is actually quite naughty.

Isn’t it kind of awesome when that happens? It changes your entire frame of reference. And you probably realize that you’ve been singing/playing the song at completely inappropriate times.

One such song that I particularly connect with is “Afternoon Delight.” My parents used to play it all the time when I was young, and so for me it was just a fun song about being playful in the afternoon.

Then one day as an adult I was watching the episode of Arrested Development, and there’s a hilarious scene in which Michael realizes how naughty “Afternoon Delight” is during a duet with his niece. And that’s how I learned what that song is really about.

The only other song that comes to mine is that Superman hip-hop song. Can you think of any others? Hopefully you’ll have a good story about when you realized what the song was really about.

9 thoughts on “Pet Please #77: Learning That an Innocent-Sounding Song Is Actually Quite Naughty”

  1. So when I was a kid, I really liked the movie Grease and listened to the soundtrack all the time. One of my favorite songs on the record was Greased Lightening. I liked the beat, it was a cool car, I sang it a lot. In retrospect, I don’t know why my extremely strict, conservative parents let a six year old watch this movie and listen to the record all the time but maybe they just weren’t paying attention. Anyway, I hadn’t heard the song for a long time when as a sophomore in college, my roommates and I were hanging out listening to old records and stumbled on the record for Grease. I smiled a huge nostalgic grin and told them “That was my jam when I was a kid” as the song Greased Lightening cued up. My smile quickly faded as I listened to the words of the song as an adult and realized that they weren’t just talking about a cool car to transport cats.

    Reply
    • Melanie–That’s awesome. It really is quite a dirty song, and I’m sure many kids made that mistake. 🙂

      I didn’t even know that Dirty Dancing was a dirty movie when I was a kid…and it has “dirty” in the title!

      (I laughed out loud at “they weren’t just talking about a cool car to transport cats.” That might need to be the new title for my future autobiography.)

      Reply
  2. I liked to listen to the song “Easy Money” by Billy Joel on the way to pre-school. I did not realize it was about gambling. I thought it was just about a quick buck. Then again, in pre-school, I may not have understood gambling anyway.

    In reference to “Home,” I have now read the lyrics and listened to the song. If there’s a sexual reference/innuendo it’s buried too deep for me to identify it, even while looking.

    Do the tenants of decorum allow you to be more specific on this assertion?

    Reply
    • Sorry John! There was a misunderstanding in the conversation I had about the song. “Home” was playing on the radio, and I thought people were talking about it, but they were talking about the Flo Ri Da song. I corrected it in the post above.

      Reply
  3. The song More Than Words by Extreme… it’s about a dude trying to get his girlfriend to put out. I wonder how many girls fell for that one.

    Reply

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