Music can be a creator, supporter, and changer of moods. Music can be a state of mind or place in time that holds you close and lets you experience things in pronounced and new ways. The job of music is to transport the mind and soul into its own dimension and carry you away, enhancing your life and making memorable moments.
Some music is bad at its job.
Not every song is a hit. Not every song gets across the emotion that it was intended to. Sometimes that is okay: these instances can lead to unique experiences that weren’t intended but very much welcome.
Some music just generally fucking sucks.
In the spirit of our 69th issue, I decided to take a look at some music that is bad at its job. Specifically, songs about sex. Songs that are supposed to get people horny and ready to pound. Songs that let people know to put their phones down and dicks up. Songs that scream “cream!!!” I have compiled a list of some of my least favorite sexual songs for you all to view. If anyone comes up to me after this article is published and tries to tell me I should have included any music by Britney Spears or Rihanna I will personally gut you. With that said, let’s get into it.
“Girl, I’m a whistle man, my Bugatti the same notes / Show me your perfect pitch, you got it, my banjo”
Whistling is one of the least attractive human noises. Having a good chunk of your sexual song be made up of whistling is bold, but did not pay off. It is wildly off-putting and feels kind of icky. I get it, I get it. You want her to blow your whistle. You want a blowjob. Cool, that’s fine. But if you are putting actual whistling into said song about blowjobs, you have a problem. Flo Rida, I think if anyone was either giving or receiving head to this song, the whistling portion may cause them to stop and just sit there awkwardly, processing the whistle noises juxtaposed against their intimate moment.
Not sure why I decided to speak directly to Flo Rida, as if any of my opinions matter to him. I used to be really—and I mean really—good at dancing to his song “Good Time” on Just Dance 4, specifically the hard version of the song. I mean no ill will to him, “Whistle” is just an utterly sexless song that probably could use a second draft.
Going back to the lyrics, they’re obviously stupid. Not to be too graphic, but “you just put your lips together and you come real close” sounds like exceedingly bad blow job advice. You know the sexual move that requires an open mouth? Yeah, close that shit. Works great. Fucking idiot. Looking at the lyrics I mentioned when introducing this song, it is also clear that this song lacks a lot of decent sexual lyrics. What makes Flo Rida “the whistle man”? The fact that he has a penis? Huge news, a lot of people have penises. Also, he then immediately after refers to it as his banjo. What the fuck? Banjos don’t whistle. Where did that come from? Banjos as an instrument are sexless, why not compare your dick to any other instrument ever? I am at a loss for words, this song is such nonsense. A boner killer through and through to the point that it is almost impressive.
“She wanted me to feed her / I mixed up the batter / And she licked the beater”
This is a song from my childhood, one I would hear my family play on Guitar Hero and not think too much about. I mean, kids don’t understand metaphors, so I just assumed the guy was truly singing about cherry pie. Years later, I remembered this song and thought about it a bit more. And good god the best way to describe this song is simply this: yucky.
I have written about the idea of being sexually compared to food before in a previous piece, as it is something that can make sense in certain scenarios but can easily go too far on the icky scale. This song takes that icky scale and annihilates it horribly. A song that starts with “Dirty, rotten, filthy, stinkin’,” is not bound to be one to get people feeling randy. Honest to God, if my partner wrote an intimate song about me and started it with those lines, I would probably go off the fucking grid. I get that it is a reference to Warrant’s debut album, but there’s no way someone who isn’t an avid Warrant fan is going to hear that and not feel so gross.
This song is just about just fuckin’ wherever. Really just bangin’ it out in any place ever. In one part of the song, the singer mentions he is “thinkin’ about baseball” as he has sex, seemingly to last longer which is just hilarious to put in a song like this. Kind of obsessed with that, honestly. The way this guy sings and the lyrics are just so unsexy that it’s laughable. That is, until towards the end of the song when he mentions her dad walking in on them and saying something like “you won’t have sex with my daughter anymore!” This line makes the song infinitely worse. Why is her dad home in the first place? How old is this sexual partner? How old is the singer? Now I’m uncomfortable and not in a funny way. I hate when old songs include the girl’s dad walking in on them, it’s such an icky trope.
“Hotel Room Service” by Pitbull
“She like that freaky stuff, two in the ‘O’ and one in the eye / That kinky stuff, you nasty, but I like your type”
This song is iconic. I have heard this song as well as many other Pitbull songs over and over for years, and that is not a bad thing. But, the true strangeness of this song was brought to my attention thanks to Danny Gonzalez’s video “Pitbull’s Awful Lyrics (w/ Drew Gooden and Kurtis Conner)” in which the three dude guys discuss the strangeness of Pitbull’s lyricism. Hearing the above lyric sent me into shock. I could not believe it. Sure enough, after looking it up, it was real. I have never felt more betrayed in my whole life.
This sent me into a realization that this song is about fucking. I mean, like, I knew that, but I didn’t know it. With fresh eyes, I can look at this song and say it is sexless. From Pitbull just yelling that we are at “the hotel, motel, Holiday Inn,” to feeling like he is slithering into my ear as he tells me to forget about my boyfriend and meet him at the hotel room. It ping pongs between being scary because he is yelling to being creepy because he is vocally sliding his arm around my waist in a way I do not enjoy! Stop yelling and sliding and just have sex like normal! Also, stop promoting adultery, it is a sin and I hate those! Math is not sexy. “Two plus two, I’m gon’ undress you” put the textbook away, Poindexter, and just get horny. No one is going to spread eagle for you with math lyrics like this. Oh, who am I kidding, Pitbull must get dome on the regular. I’m so stupid!
“Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke ft. T.I. and Pharrell Williams
“I feel so lucky (Hey, hey, hey) / You wanna hug me (Hey, hey, hey) / What rhymes with hug me (Hey, hey, hey)”
Content warning for mentions of predatory behavior and SA.
This song is a predatory DISASTER. I don’t have a whole lot to say without really going in-depth about how genuinely creepy this song is. The sound of this song instrumentally isn’t anything to really critique beyond, like, surface-level pop that fits the sound of the time of its release. The lyrics, however, are what make this song not just sexless, but criminal.
Half of the lyrics to this song are “I know you want it” which I think says enough about the song already. This song constantly does two things: First, it dehumanizes women and makes them into sexual objects in need of being liberated or domesticated by a man. Second, it assumes the woman wants to have sex because the man assumes so, not involving her actual thoughts in the process at all. Looking back at this song after years of forgetting it, I was horribly stunned at just how predatory this song is towards women and just how popular it was. There are even lyrics saying “Do it like it hurt, like it hurt” which is just so revealing about who he is and how he views sex as only for his own pleasure, so fucking blatantly strange. I have severe doubts this song is about kinks—like certain kinks involving pain—so what makes you want to have sex with your partner and have them act like it hurts? If you genuinely put this on in an intimate setting, I do not trust you, especially if you are a man. Learn to think of women as people and not sexual animals.
Oh, I guess I’ll say something funny too. Bold of Robin Thicke to sing a song like this when he looks like he peaked when he won his high school’s talent show and hasn’t stopped riding the high since. Okay, I have met the funny quota for this section, thank you.
At the end of the day, whatever songs you listen to to get you in the mood are probably fine and I truly cannot judge (unless it includes songs like “Blurred Lines”). That’s between you and whoever you are sleeping with and also maybe a whole crowd of Reddit users. So, whether you will be intimate to Marvin Gaye or Flo Rida or even IceJJFish, be safe, get consent, and have fun. This is Belle, signing off, saying: enjoy yourselves, you filthy sluts!
Photo by Jefferson Santos on Unsplash
