Amy's Problematic Playlist

With Bad Photos and Memorabilia

In November 2020 I posted Amy’s Pandemic Playlist, which still has zero hearts, and all my pride. Back then, did Substack even have hearts? I don’t remember. I remember people reaching out to me and thanking me for writing it and telling me it should be in the New Yorker (thanks, Dad!). Affirmations aside, that playlist on my phone and what I wrote about it both mean a lot to me: the music and the writing helped get me through the pandemic unshattered.

For a while I was thinking I should start building a “Post-Pandemic Playlist” (not to write about, just to listen to), but instead I kept adding songs to my Pandemic Playlist, so that now it includes many songs added after the times of mask-battles zoom-scrolling doom-meetings jumble-jumble what year is it?

My final addition to Amy’s Pandemic Playlist was “Cupid” by Sam Cooke. It somehow got stuck in my head, and I like singing along to it in the car, so it got the add. But this song from 1961 is about “lov[ing] a girl who doesn’t know I exist” and asking Cupid to shoot her through the heart with an arrow. As I sing along to this sweet tune I smile to myself: problematic. Stalking, violence against women.

I’m turning 48 this year, and finally (coincidentally?) after years of avoidance, I decided to get a little nostalgic about the music I listened to in my wayward youth.

In the days of disposable film cameras, there were no re-takes. Me at left in glasses, my friend Heather at right being gorgeous (as usual).

Quick disclaimer: my musical memories are defined in part by my being an English-speaking South-Floridian who had many friends and family members from or living in Europe. If you were living in Texas, Guatemala, Australia, Russia, Japan, Sudan, etc., or had connections thereof, your musical landscape was different. If your language was different, your music was different. I’m not speaking for anyone but myself. Full Respect.

Important Facts: in the 1990s, there was no easy access to written lyrics. In fact, when we had songs on tape, we’d often lay on the floor with pen and paper, rewinding over and over, playing bits of the song and trying to figure out what the lyrics said. If the song was on the radio or live or being played by someone else or you didn’t have pen and paper handy, you couldn’t even do that. The internet “existed” (kind of) but it was not full of song lyrics. There was no music app to play the song and let you watch the lyrics scroll. SOME albums had the lyrics written in the “liner notes,” but those were still designed for LPs, and so on both CD and cassette, were extremely tiny, sometimes so blurry they were literally unreadable. And anyway, that would only help you if you actually bought the album.

90s Marketing: Back in Ye Olden Days, Yon Bars Were Plenne Fulle with Postcards!

MOST of the music we listened to in the 1990s was not purchased by us. We heard these songs in the car, at the bar, at the club, from the cover-band, at a friend’s house, on the radio at home, on loudspeakers at the pool or on the lawn, and so on. Oh, and let us not forget karaoke night. I heard my friend Heather sing “No Rain” at karaoke night at least 20 times before I actually heard Blind Melon sing it. I prefer her version.

All this means the music that you listened to didn’t really “say” anything about you. What you heard, over and over, had little to do with your own personal taste or preferences. You could say “I hate this song” but you were still going to listen to it. My own musical memories of the 1990s span several genres because I went to different kinds of places and heard all kinds of things. It was not uncommon to go from crunchy distortion peddles to techno dance music in the swing of an a/c-frosted door. How many times did I go for beers and NTN trivia only to hear half the bar singing along with David Allen Coe’s “You Never Even Called Me By My Name”?

Well I was drunk the day my ma got out of prison
And I went to pick her up in the rain
But before I could get to the station in my pickup truck
She got ran over by a damned old train.

These lines are engraved into my brain tissue, whether I want them there or not.

At center is not a picture of me, but of Stephanie, but no 90s pic in my heap better expresses the moment. Stephanie is an artist, she’ll understand. Pics of me gratuit at top and bottom.

That said, any individual person’s memories of music will have a lot to do with their personality and experiences, because what sticks with you or me will be different.

So I both accept and reject blame for my problematic musical memories. Which is, itself, problematic. However, I would argue that judging the past by the standards of the present is both problematically and anachronistically… just what we do.

In 1990 Jesus Jones released “Right Here Right Now” (not to be confused with Fatboy Slim’s 1999 “Right Here Right Now”) and, as I remember it, the song was popular throughout the decade.

A woman on the radio talks about revolution
When it's already passed her by
Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about
You know it feels good to be alive

I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history

The music video made it very clear they were referencing world political events: we were somewhere between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union, and the song is a celebration of revolution and change, of having something to sing about that didn’t already seem to “belong” to the Gigantic Baby Boom Cold War Vietnam Generation that loomed over American/Anglophone culture for, like, EVER. That last “wake up from history” line is reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama’s famous 1989 paper “The End of History?” and hey, maybe these blokes used to read academic papers for fun? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Or maybe the idea was just in the air? This song summons the unbridled optimism of the 1990s — everything was changing and it seemed like everything was possible. It was inconceivable that the human race would fail to tackle climate change. It was inconceivable that societies would slide back into authoritarianism. The Cold War was over, James Bond was unemployed, I’m telling you, today’s 21st Century semi-dystopian status-quo was in-con-ceiv-able.

(The Princess Bride came out in 1987.)

When I hear this song now, I’m stuck between reliving that innocent / ignorant optimism and just embarrassed disappointment. My generation wanted something to sing about that our parents didn’t have, but we were completely unprepared to do anything about it. In the parlance of that time, we were a bunch of fucking posers.

“Shoop” by Salt-N-Pepa is just damn fun to listen to — it’s so catchy your ears learn to dance off the side of your head. It’s sex-positive in a way that the world of 1993 REALLY needed: because the 90s was a very sexy time, yet it was sex slathered in SHAME because you’re a “slut” and also AIDS. Yet this song has a line so offensive, I can’t bring myself to quote it here or even post the video. If you’re curious, go find out for yourself. But yeah, you’re really enjoying the hell out of this song and then they drop that “R” bomb and you’re like, whoa whoa, who the fuck ever thought that was okay? (Answer: literally everyone in the 1990s)

“People Are Still Having Sex” came out in 1991 but you’d hear it on dance floors throughout the 90s — it was an evergreen nightclub hit.

Have you noticed, that people are still having sex?
All the denouncement, had absolutely no effect.
Parents and counselors, constantly scorn them.
But people are still having sex and nothing seems to stop them.
Do you realize that people are still having sex?
They've been told not to, perhaps they are perplexed.
When you see them holding hands, they're making future plans to engage in the activity.
Do you understand me?
People are still having sex.
Lust keeps on lurking.
Nothing makes them stop.
This AIDS thing’s not working.
People are still having sex.
It's been going on for quite awhile.
Perhaps it's quite fashionable.
It hasn't gone out of style.

As much as I love this song, the implication that HIV/AIDS was a plot by uptight anti-sex moralists is, indeed, a little problematic. But you know what? It kind of felt that way. Like, hey there was this whole sexual revolution and women had the pill and gay men were making strides and building a vibrant culture (please note other queer people barely existed in the public consciousness at this point), and then along comes a deadly horrifying disease that targets gay men and more broadly recreational sex?! Oh, fuck you!! (Is how ALL people of horniness felt.) This song is funny, though, because it’s about this supposed plot failing. It’s defiant and therefore joyous. Because people are NOT going to stop having sex. Until, like, the twenty-tens or so.

I first heard Blur’s “Girls and Boys” around 1997, but it came out in 1994. I really liked the chorus:

Girls who want boys
Who like boys to be girls
Who do boys like they're girls
Who do girls like they're boys
Always should be someone you really love

All the back and forth girl-boy bendiness spoke to my ever-ambiguous feelings about “gender.” It wasn’t until much later I realized this song was actually criticizing this gender-blending.

Street's like a jungle
So call the police
Following the herd
Down to Greece
On holiday
Love in the nineties
Is paranoid
On sunny beaches
Take your chances
Looking for

Girls who want boys
Who like boys to be girls
Who do boys like they're girls
Who do girls like they're boys
Always should be someone you really love

Herd? Paranoid? Chances? Oh. Bummer. Turns out this song is almost from the point of view of the voice lamenting that “people are still having sex.” Boo.

But that said, I still feel very much like a girl (or a boy) who wants boys who like boys to be girls who do boys like they’re girls and do girls like they’re boys. And in this way I have found true love. :)

“Doll Parts” by Hole (1994) is a one-and-a-half minute song that for some reason they stretched out to three-and-a-half minutes through sheer, malign repetition. I love the lyrics:

I am doll eyes, doll mouth, doll legs
I am doll arms, big veins, dog beg
Yeah, they really want you
They really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you
They really want you and I do too

I want to be the girl with the most cake
I love him so much, it just turns to hate
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache

It reminds me of the poem “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.
She went to and fro apologizing.
Everyone saw a fat nose on thick legs.

She was advised to play coy,
exhorted to come on hearty,
exercise, diet, smile and wheedle.
Her good nature wore out
like a fan belt.
So she cut off her nose and her legs
and offered them up.

In the casket displayed on satin she lay
with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on,
a turned-up putty nose,
dressed in a pink and white nightie.
Doesn’t she look pretty? everyone said.
Consummation at last.
To every woman a happy ending.

Marge Piercy did it better, but “Doll Parts” is catchy and angry and I love to hear it — at first. But in that last two minutes of churning repetition I always find my mind wandering and ruminating on why Courtney Love didn’t have more to say, and how Kurt Cobain was probably a trans woman, and that Cobain ached as much as Love ached, and then I just want to listen to Nirvana’s 1993 “All Apologies” and I’m not in the song anymore and there’s still a minute to go.

“Your Woman” by White Town (aka Jyoti Prakash Mishra), is a four-and-a-half minute “one hit wonder” that should have been novel.

On his website Mishra answers the question, “what is ‘Your Woman’ about” with this:

Ummmm…well, that’s a toughie. When I wrote it, I was trying to write a pop song that had more than one perspective. [ . . . ]

So, these are *some* of the things it’s about:

• Being a member of an orthodox Trotskyist / Marxist movement (as I was for three years in the 80s).

• Being a straight guy in love with a lesbian (ditto).

• Being a gay guy in love with a straight man (not tried this one yet).

• Being a straight girl in love with a lying, two-timing, fake-ass Marxist.

• The hypocrisy that results when love and lust get mixed up with highbrow ideals 🙂

This song is catchy as all-get-out. The voice of the singer presents as male, and the chorus repeats “I could never be your woman.” One finds oneself searching the words for unambiguous clues. The lyrics are longer, though, and tell a story with a lot of gray spaces. There’s only one line that always catches me:

When I saw my best friend yesterday
She said she never liked you from the start
Well me, I wish that I could claim the same
But you always knew you held my heart
And you're such a charming, handsome man
Now I think I finally understand
Is it in your genes? I don't know
But I'll soon find out, that's for sure
Why did you play me this way?

Well, I guess what you say is true
I could never be the right kind of girl for you

I could never be your woman

Asking “is it in your genes?” and following it with “I’ll soon find out, that’s for sure” suggests that the speaker is both pregnant and planning on birthing and raising the child (otherwise they would not observe the resultant personality).

So I have to amend Mishra’s list for him. If the speaker has a uterus, and the object “you” of the song has the ability to impregnate, then it should read:

• Being a straight trans-guy in love with a lesbian trans-woman

• Being a gay trans-guy in love with a straight man

The other option would be that the speaker of the song is planning on a rebound relationship with a near-relative of the object-“you,” and would therefore experience the personality of another individual with similar genes. But that feels like a stretch. Glad we cleared that up.

That’s me on a payphone at Graceland with the audio-tour apparatus around my neck: behold the past and wonder, present-day people!!

Quick Hits:

Oh, these songs I loved (and maybe still do) are problematic as fuck and they don’t really require vast interpolation.

“Sundown” Elwood — based on Gordon Lightfoot’s sadly less rappy version, this song nonetheless inherits its problematic lyrics about physical violence, possession of women’s bodies, and uses the term “sundown” which is shorthand for the idea better known from racist “sundown towns” where the darkness of night is employed for violence and murder.

“Inside Out” Eve 6 — actually a pretty cool song imho, with more original and vivid lyrics than most popular songs, but it was frequently covered by a friend in bars who had an accent that made “rendez vous then I’m through with you,” into “rendez vous then I’m true with you,” which me and my friends liked better. However, I made the mistake of telling him this, and he interpreted it as accent-shaming and altered his pronunciation, and now he’s dead, and so I always remember that and feel bad when I hear this song. And I want to be true with you. Not through with you.

“My Own Worst Enemy” Lit — super catchy and unfortunately very relateable, this song portrays death-tempting behaviors like drunk driving, B&E, abusive shit-starting, and smoking while too impaired to contain one’s cinders.

Can we forget about the things I said when I was drunk?
I didn't mean to call you that
I can't remember what was said, or what you threw at me
Please tell me

Please tell me why
My car is in the front yard
And I'm sleeping with my clothes on
I came in through the window last night
And you're long gone, gone

It's no surprise to me, I am my own worst enemy
'Cause every now and then, I kick the living shit out of me
The smoke alarm is going off, and there's a cigarette
Still burning

Super catchy and (unfortunately) really relateable tho.

“Jump Around” House of Pain — problematic lyrics from start to end, it’s all bunch of provocations to conflict and it keeps referring to women as “hos.” Here’s a sample:

I'll serve your ass like John McEnroe
If your girl steps up, I'm smackin' the ho
Word to your moms, I came to drop bombs
I got more rhymes than the Bible's got Psalms
And just like the Prodigal Son, I've returned
Anyone steppin' to me, you'll get burned

But it’s just so bouncy and catchy and me and my friend Heather routinely made utter asses of ourselves jumping around to this song. It’s too fun for (its) words. Omg.

“The Way” Fastball — love this song, but it’s about abandoning your children to wander off drunk and die in the desert. Now that I have children, that doesn’t seem as funny. (Still love the song tho.)

“Rump Shaker” Wreckx-n-Effect — “All I wanna do is zoom-a-zoom-zoom-zoom In a pum pum, just shake ya rump,” this is just a song about fucking, in detail. But it’s fun to dance to! (“Just shake your butt!”)

Yes that is an actual real-life boarding pass from the 90s. Laker Airways flew from Fort Lauderdale to London Gatwick from 1996 to 1998.

Bonus Feature: The Offspring — less problematic than you believed.

When I put together my 90s nostalgia playlist, I apparently included four songs by The Offspring: “Come Out and Play (Keep ‘em Separated),” “Pretty Fly for a White Guy,” “Self-Esteem,” and “The Kids Aren’t Alright.”

Until Brian, my hubs, looked at the list and informed me, I didn’t realize that I was (am?) apparently an Offspring fan. Who knew? Seriously, I didn’t even realize all these songs were by the same band. Like I said, in the 90s you just listened to what was on.

And without lyrics sheets, I was pretty sure all these songs were probably pretty problematic.

“Pretty Fly for a White Guy” requires little explanation, it’s satire, yes, and it’s “problematic” right in the title. My hubs pointed out to me that this song has the unique honor of being a musical satire that inspired a musical parody, because Weird Al Yankovich made “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi” based on it. But I’d only ever heard the original:

Our subject isn't cool but he fakes it anyway
He may not have a clue and he may not have style
But everything he lacks well he makes up in denial

So don't debate, a player straight
You know he really doesn't get it anyway
Gonna play the field, and keep it real
For you no way, for you no way
So if you don't rate, just overcompensate
At least you'll know you can always go on Ricki Lake
The world needs wannabes
Hey, hey, do that brand new thing!

This really is Peak 90s. The worst thing you could be in the 90s was an attention-seeking poser who’s Trying Too Hard, a wanna-be who hops on trends and would actually go on one of those humiliating daytime talk shows (eg: Ricki Lake) to air your dingy panties. At the time it felt a little “too” edgy and insulting; now it feels just damn right.

“Self-Esteem” is just a relateable song. Who hasn’t been in a completely dysfunctional relationship? Oh, I guess some people. But I’ve been both the victim and the villain in this song.

When she's saying, oh that she wants only me
Then I wonder why she sleeps with my friends
When she's saying, oh that I'm like a disease
Then I wonder how much more I can spend
Well I guess I should stick up for myself
But I really think it's better this way
The more you suffer
The more it shows you really care, right? Yeah

The very concept of self-esteem is a VERY 1990s concoction: if you were a school-age child in the 1990s, everyone was concerned about you having it, and building it, to the extent that you got a trophy for showing up and you were very, very special.

I’m a little older than that. When I was in school, what we heard (all the time) was “YOU’RE not special!” Meaning: you’re just like everyone else; you have to follow the same rules as everyone else; you don’t get special privileges. In the 1990s I was 15-25, just young enough to get tickled by the tailwinds of the self-esteem movement, but just old enough to be firmly trained in the suck-it-up and don’t-think-you’re-special moral philosophy.

It would have been confusing, if I gave a shit. #GenXdontCare

“Come Out and Play” is a song about toxic masculinity from before “toxic masculinity” was a phrase. It’s a “don’t be a dumb fuck and get yourself killed over bullshit like ‘disrespect’ and color” kind of song.

Like the latest fashion
Like a spreading disease
The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom
Getting weapons with the greatest of ease
The gangs stake out their own campus locale
And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal
If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix
They're gonna bash it up, bash it up, bash it up, bash it up

Hey, man, you talkin' back to me?
Take him out (you gotta keep 'em separated)
Hey, man, you disrespecting me?
Take him out (you gotta keep 'em separated)
Hey, they don't pay no mind
If you're under 18 you won't be doing any time
Hey, come out and play

The “if you’re under 18 you won’t be doing any time” line is very white-privilege-centric. In the US, kids of color are far more likely to end up behind bars for street fights than white kids. Problematic. That said, the line is in the voice of the person who wants to fight, and so it comes from an unreliable character, not the narrator / speaker who disapproves of the violence.

“The Kids Aren’t Alright” is the Offspring song most “ahead of its time,” although it’s absolutely OF its time too. But before “deaths of despair” was a well-known phrase, they wrote a song about it.

Jamie had a chance, well, she really did
Instead she dropped out and had a couple of kids
Mark still lives at home 'cause he's got no job
He just plays guitar and smokes a lot of pot

Jay commited suicide
Brandon OD'd and died
What the hell is going on?
The cruelest dream, reality

You wake up, and it’s the 21st Century.

Thank you for joining me on this long wander down Memory Lane. :)