John Mayer revives James Brown's sexism?

I don't do the dishes... I throw them in the crib.

Just curious.

It's so nice to see
All the folks you love together
Sittin' and talkin' 'bout
All the things that's been goin' down

It's been a long, long time
Since we had a chance to get together
Nobody knows the next time we see each other
Maybe years and years from now

Family reunion (Got to have)
A family reunion
Family reunion
(It's so nice to come together) To come together
(To get together)

I wish grandma could see
The whole family
I sure miss her face
And her warm and tender embrace

And if grandpa was here
I know he'd be smiling for me a tear
To see what he has done
All the offsprings from his daughters and sons

A family reunion (Gonna have)
A family reunion (Ooh, ooh)
Family reunion
(It's so nice to come together) To come together
(To get together)

Ooh...ooh...ooh...ooh...ooh...
Ooh...ooh...ooh...ooh...
At least once a year we should have

Family reunion
A family reunion (We need to do it for the young)
Family reunion
(It'll be nice, it'll be nice to come together) To come together
To get together

Family reunion (Sister knows, heaven knows)
A family reunion (It's good to see you)
Family reunion (I said we are sinkin' hands, makin' plans)
(Maybe next year) To come together (Maybe next year)

A family reunion (Ooh...ooh...ooh...ooh...ooh...)
A family reunion (We gotta have, we gotta have)
Family reunion (It'll be nice, it'll be so nice)
(To come together) To come together
(To get together)

You know the family is the solution to the world's problems today
Now let's take a look at the family
In the family the father is like the head, the leader, the director
Not domineering, but showing love, guidance
For everyone else in the family
Now if we could get all the fathers of the world
To stand up and be fathers
That would be great
Then we have mothers
Who are the right arm of the father
There's supposed to-to-to do the cooking
Raise the children, do the sewing
And help the father to guide and direct
Then there's the son
The son, most sons are like imitators of their father
So we're back again to the father
And he is guiding in the right way
The son is definitely gonna be alright
Then we have the daughter
Watching her mother
Be-because sooner or later she's gonna be a mother
And she'll have her own sons and daughters
It don't, it don't just stop there with the family or
Of-of yours or mine
It's a universal family
Under one divine purpose
And one divine father
That is if we all come together no matter what color, race, creed
Because that's all in the head whether you wanna believe it or not
'Cause you'll bleed

Hoo...
Family, family reunion
It'll be nice, so nice, so nice

Hey, Daddy
Come over here
Got something for you
Dicknail
She liked it
You know she liked it
Well, she was asking for it
Dicknail
I said, I said stop
I did what you said
I did what you want
I was a good girl
I was a good girl
I was a good girl
I said, I said, I said, I said NO!
Hey, Daddy
One thing's for certain, baby
You have my guarantee
You won't forget me
I said, I said stop
I did what you said
I did what you want
I was a good girl
I was a good girl
I was a good girl
I said, I said, I said, I said NO!
Do you remember Christmas morning?
You know it's real because
Well, here comes Santa Claus
She liked it
You know she liked it
Fat claw on your sack
Fall on, on your sack
Claw, claw, claw, claw

Just curious.

-- John Justen (johnjuste...), April 26th, 2005.

Absolutely -- it was more the delivery than anything else that raised my eyebrow in the first place as the song wafted faintly over someone else's cubicle wall.

I mean the whole song's about how every guy should recognize he is the center of the universe, and should really figure out how to do better at living up to that role for those poor women who are just, uh, devoted satellites. That's so sensitive! I need yr noblesse oblige like I need a hole in the head.

Now THERE'S a great song title.

-- edd s hurt (eddshur...), April 26th, 2005.

Well, I usually tend to let that song slide because James Brown is awesome ...

Read Fred Wesley's book, "Hit Me, Fred," for more on this. I love James Brown's music, but when I talked to Fred about the book a while back, even he seemed, like, scared of James Brown.

this is a disease. it's called progeria.

But seriously. This is a good song. My read on it: He's a guy dating a girl. (That gets me right there - thinking of my daughter being of dating age.)

He is saying that he has tried to impress her, make her happy.

But what he realizes is that the influence a father has over daughter - as an infant all the way through adulthood - is very profound and lasting.

As a result, fathers should be good to their daughters - love them, cherish them.

And the "daughters will love like you do" line is very affecting. When my wife and I have a disagreement (read: fight), I always think of what my daughter, even at 2, is learning from how we interact.

It's a good song. Even more so if you have a daughter (as the title may imply). And it is in no way creepy.

Nor was my previous post, in which - hold on, here - I was trying to be funny.

Jeez.

-- miccio (anthonyisrigh...), April 26th, 2005.

yeah, that skit was great. plus there was that MTV footage of Mayer in the studio with Kanye, and JM bragged about the price of his watch and then smiled at the camera and said "go back and listen to 'Daughters', bitches". at least the guy is funny about his skeeviness.

or god forbid, "tip drill" (we covered that already!)

That's more accurate than what I said.

And "daughters grow up to be mothers" is as bigoted as those "Homosexuals are Gay" t-shirts.

that's not sexist at all!

That kinda made me like him more. Still a douchebag, but a funny one nonetheless.

Although "Daughters" blows. Not necessarily in a sexist/creepy way, either.

that's not sexist at all!

-- Gear! (can Jung shill it, Mu?) (speed.to.roam@gmail.com), April 27th, 2005.

I'm not making a case for him not being sexist. I don't know the dude! just saying I don't think the "Daughters" lyrics are particularly sexist.

PS: you're God to women.

courtesy of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English language, fourth edition.

um, shouldn't they be defining themselves, and not letting john fucking mayer define them? i think this whole thread is quite honestly ceding (sp?) way too much power. sisters are doin' it for themselves, dontchaknow?

xpost

but no, I was goin' more for a Lloyd Dobbler effect, which must betray something about my own psyche on this issue as well.

x-post Sugar Ray fucking rules.

But, lest I get accused of being Stalinesque again, I'd like to reiterate that the sexism in this song doesn't matter to me in the slightest. See, I actually do not care.

xpost, that "I just want to fly" song, that's my jam.

besides, Robert Plant talk would be "Oh lovely lady why'd you take the ring from me in Mordor" or some shit like that.

xxpost: damn it, damn it, damn it. I actually discovered this a week or so ago, but decided it was okay since mine was without a period after the "M" got any suggestions for me?

It IS pandering and patronizing and smug. I hate being patronized. I hate being talked down to - it's worse than being openly insulted. There is a difference between smug and patronizing songs and songs with full-out misogynist insults. The first ones can be seen as so SWEET & SENSITIVE that nobody thinks about how they view women as helpless children. It's like the difference between a screeching fascist on talk radio and a silver-tongued douchebag like David Frum - the latter has much more power AND gets to write speeches for the president.

Yo man
Yo
Open up man
Wadyou want man?
My girl just caught me
You let her catch you?
I don’t know how I let this happen
With who?
The girl next door you know
Ahh
I don’t know what to do
Say it wasn’t you
Ahhright

Honey came in and she caught me red-handed
Creeping with the girl next door
Picture this we were both butt naked
Banging on the bathroom floor
How could I forget that I had
Given her an extra key
All this time she was standing there she never
Took her eyes off me

How you fi give the woman access to your villa
Trespass and a witness all the hackling of the pilla
You better watch your back before she turn into a killer
Let’s review the situation that you’re caught up inna
Now to be a true player you got to know how to play
If she even say a night convince her say a day
Never admit to a word weh she say
And if she claim a you tell her baby no way

But she caught me on the counter¡ wasn’t me
She saw me bangin’ on the sofa¡ wasn’t me
I even had her in the shower¡ wasn’t me
She even caught me on camera¡ wasn’t me
She saw the marks on my shoulder¡ wasn’t me
Heard the words that I told her¡ wasn’t me
Heard the screams getting louder¡ wasn’t me
She stayed until it was over
Honey came in and she caught me red-handed
Creeping with the girl next door
Picture this we were both butt naked
Banging on the bathroom floor
I had tried to keep her from what
She was about to see
Why should she believe me when i
Told her it wasn’t me

Mek she know say that she really nah no right fi vex
A never you she see a mek de gigolo flex
A smaddi else whe favor you inna de complex
Seeing is believing so ya betta change ya specs
You know whe a go bring hole heap of thing from in de past
All the little evidence you better know fi mask
Quick pon you answer and know how fi talk
And if she pack the gun you better know fi run fast

But she caught me on the counter¡ wasn’t me
She saw me bagin’ on the sofa¡ wasn’t me
I even had her in the shower¡ wasn’t me
She even caught me on camera¡ wasn’t me
She saw the marks on my shoulder¡ wasn’t me
Heard the words that I told her¡ wasn’t me
Heard the screams getting louder¡ wasn’t me
She stayed until it was over
Honey came in and she caught me red-handed
Creeping with the girl next door
Picture this we were both butt naked
Banging on the bathroom floor
How could I forget that I had
Given her an extra key
All this time she was standing there she never
Took her eyes off me

xpost - it's kind of sad that a discussion of something being sexist or not makes dissenters call people feminazis

How can you read that line and be comfused as to the sexism of the song?

-- daria g (daria_gra...), April 27th, 2005.

hold on -- your problem is that the song depicts women as "helpless children"? the song is called DAUGHTERS, for the most part it's not about adult women, it's about female children.

If the whole thing's only about female children, my point stands. I just don't get it. I mean, OK, be good to your kids. Super! But what's this stuff about how boys do their own thing and girls need a man to watch over them and be the centers of their lives? Plus the verses really bug me.. verse one, "this isn't working and it's not about me, so it must be about her.. her father!" I just find it severely reactionary and tedious and maybe that's my real beef; we've heard this stuff so many times before, a hundred million times before. Why do it again.

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy 'cause man makes them toys
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He's lost in the wilderness
He's lost in bitterness

XPOST

I always took Neil Young to be singing that song *in character*. I don't really picture young hippie Neil getting a maid.

you'd be wrong, dude! read Shakey. Young was fessing up to the fact that he needs someone to take care of him more than an actual partner - broadening it to his entire gender. Tre offensive unless you see it as a cry of vulnerability and possibly even then.

"A Man Needs A Maid" has probably caused feminists a good deal of pain over the years, but it's so transparent that you'd have to reject it on principle. A man may not need a maid, and a woman may not need a dick, but a lot do, and Neil (and Mayer) are addressing those people.

-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), April 27th, 2005.

I think it's pretty clear from the song, whether I've read Shakey or not, that there's more going on than just simple misogyny.

First of all there's that (admittedly cheesy) part in the middle where he says "To live a love, you've gotta give a love/to give a love, you've gotta be 'part of'" which contradicts the rest of the song.

Second the tone of "I was thinking that I'd get a maid/find a place nearby for her to stay/someone to keep my house clean, cook my meals and go away" is nearly overflowing with embittered lonliness. It'd be downright myopic to take it at face value.

It may be true that he was *criticizing* the fact that most men don't really want partners, but that would make it much more sophisticated and less sexist than "Daughters".

I think Neil was singing in character here:
I'm a vampire, babe, suckin' blood from the earth
I'm a vampire, babe, suckin' blood from the earth
Well, I'm a vampire, babe, sell you twenty barrels worth

I'm a black bat, babe, bangin' on your window pane
I'm a black bat, babe, bangin' on your window pane
Well, I'm a black bat, babe, I need my high octane

thread turned me gay