Country singer Keith Urban (image via Shutterstock).
I don’t listen to country music, that would be obvious to anyone paying attention to my musical choices every day. Bluegrass, sometimes. Rockabilly, yeah. Keith Urban’s choice of a song to perform just added yet another reason onto my pile of reasons for not listening to country music. The song was not written by him, it was written by Shane McAnally, Ross Copperman, and Nicolle Galyon. Yes, it took three whole people to write this…song.
When you hear somebody say somebody hits like a girl
How does that hit you?
Is that such a bad thing?
When you hear a song that they play saying you run the world*
Do you believe it?
Will you live to see it?
*A reference to a Beyoncé song.
[Chorus]
Sister, shoulder
Daughter, lover
Healer, broken halo
Mother nature
Fire, suit of armor
Soul survivor, Holy Water
Secret keeper, fortune teller
Virgin Mary, scarlet letter
Technicolor river wild
Baby girl, women shine
Female
Ummm, some of those words don’t belong together. A whole lot of those words just don’t belong, period. ‘Baby girl’? Really? Hmmm. Oh look, it’s the madonna/whore thing again. Gee, that’s all kind of old and tired. I can’t imagine these people patting themselves on the back for this dreck. How was this written? Mad Lib Songwriting?
When somebody laughs and implies that she asked for it
Just cause she was wearing a skirt
Now is that how it works?
When somebody talks about how it was Adam first
Does that make you second best?
Or did he save the best for last?
Sigh. I think I’ll go pound my head into a concrete block.
Repeat the awful chorus here.
[Refrain]
Yeah
Female[Bridge]
She’s the heart of life
She’s the dreamer’s dream
She’s the hands of time
She’s the queen of kings
Yeah, no. No, no, no. Just a different version of making women less than real, mystical, and up on another weird-ass pedestal. We’re people. Regular, typical people. We even fart and burp, oh my! And if I’m the hands of bloody time, why can’t I turn the clock back? I’m staring at 60 here.
Repeat the awful chorus again.
[Outro]
Mhm
Female
This um, song, was supposedly written in response to the Weinstein allegations. I, uh, I can’t even. Just can’t. As for Mr. Urban, who I had never heard of until today:
I think it’s just time for a recalibrating of the past, you know? Things have been a certain way for a long, long time, and I think you’re seeing a turning of the tide for that. This song just spoke to me. I just wanted to get in and record it right away. I am surrounded by females in my life. I grew up in a house with boys, no sisters. Now I am in a house that’s all girls. So this song speaks to me on a lot of levels.
Oh gods. No. No, you’re not helping. That ‘song’ is not helping. Not at all.
From all over the internet. Lyrics from here.
Thank you for posting the lyrics so I didn’t have to listen to it.
You’re welcome. I listened to a small sample. *shudder*
Is it sung in a Ferengi accent? Reads like it should be.
My I offer, as an antidote to this K. Urban, another, far better K. Urban?
https://twitter.com/karlurban/status/773692785375358977?lang=en
I have nothin’ but love for that Mr. Urban.
The “song” quoted in the OP vaguely — very vaguely! — brings to mine an effective song on the subject, but I simply cannot, at the current time, recall either the artiste / band or title(of part thereof) the song, and my memory of the lyrics is far too fuzzy…
Whilst searching for what I only very vaguely recall in @5, I stumbled on this (off-topic), Witches Brew — The Dark Side of Morris (video). The dancing is worth the watch, it is not, as one commentator put it, “skipping old men wearing pyjamas and waving hankies and dildos everywhere” (which is quite possibly among the best descriptions of modern-day “traditional” morris dancing I’ve ever read).
My guess is that the lyrics have been assembled by a bot with an algorithm trained on male feminist Twitter
I am not going to listen to country even if you paid me. But this has reminded me of a former (female) coleague of mine who insisted, adamantly, that women do not, in fact, fart or burp.
Charly @ 8:
Yeah, there’s always a woman somewhere who insists on that nonsense.
Oh! But when they fart, it smells like flowers! :-D
I always thought of “C&W” as COW music. After all, it was originally written for cows. (To quiet the herd, as the cowboys worked around the cattle.)
Poor cows.
At least like flowers that made it through the digestive tract of a cow.
To convince yourself of that obvious a lie that your own fucking body disproves several times a day you must either be a very good liar or a very gullible person.
Many yonks ago I attended a concert given by a three-person band, who told an amusing story about a previous concert on that tour: They had cracked a few jokes about the sheer awfulness of most “country” music, and also the stereotypical appearance of the stereotypical fan (ten gallon hat, cowboy boots, &tc). After that previous concert, there’s a knock on the dressing room door. “Come in.” The door opens The tip of a ten gallon hat appears. And keeps appearing, growing longer and longer. Must be at least a hundred gallon hat. Then the tips of the boots appear. Eventually, so does the person. Wearing the full classic stereotypical kit. (Huston, we have a problem thinks the band.) “Ya guys is totally right about dem country music. It’s cow pats. I hates da noise. But it’s da noise I grews up with, so I gotta…” and then slugs the band.
(No-one was hurt. I got the impression it was more a theatrical slap than an actual punch.)
I had a female clerical assistant many years ago who did not fart, she only defaecated about once a fortnight so I don’t think it was possible for any gas to get past the solid lump of faeces that built up over that time. I could not convince her that this was seriously unhealthy.
I’m going to go hang out on Karl Urban’s twitter feed instead.
rq:
Good idea.
I have it on good authority that women don’t sweat, either.
This passage reminds me of this gem from Key and Peele.
I read the lyrics and now my eye won’t stop twitching.
OTOH, I saw a commenter on Jezebel suggest pronouncing female like tamale in such instances as this and I really enjoyed that.
Ugh, what a load of cliched tripe. I wish people like him didn’t give country music such a bad name by writing this and other songs like “God Bless Al Queda” where apparently we should be grateful that god blessed us with terrorists and endless war because it saved us from the sin of non-belief.
I will listen to Johnny Cash any day. “I’ve got stripes, stripes around my shoulders. I’ve got chains, chains around my feet. “
Don @ 17:
Yeah, we glisten and shit. That actually brings up a mild peeve. Even among writers I really like, there’s so much sweating when it’s women characters. I remember wondering to myself when reading Jim C. Hines’s Princess series (which I love) when the hell these women were ever dry. Every other sentence: sweat, sweat, sweat. I get the reason for it, but still.
TMM @ 19:
That’s a joke in the 1980s version of Cat People. “Female. Fee mah lee. The nurse at the hospital, she didn’t speak English, she thought it was my name.”
I prefer the missing:’s take on the madonna/whore thing in their song “In Two.” I’ll post the lyrics, because I’m not sure I can link to the video on YT without it showing up here, but it’s worth a listen if you can. I’d swear you can almost feel DM punching you when she sings “beat the smile from your face,” and that’s a quality I admire in a singer:
I am split in two
Sometimes I want to be a saint I wanna wallow in my sleaze
One minute I’m a goddess and the next a bitch diseased
Today I want to save the world and tomorrow watch it burn
I come by my lessons painfully, then forget all that I’ve learned
When I want to
I want to I want to when I want to I want to
I know what I want, I want everything
I know what I want, I want nothing
I want to make you happy then beat the smile from your face
I will become your downfall and your saving fucking grace
I want to be a virgin I want to fuck you till you bleed
I will worship you then spit in your face
I don’t want who I need
But I want you
I want you I want you when I want you I want you
I know what I want, I want everything
I know what I want, I want nothing
I wish for happiness when my mind becomes my hell
But sometimes there’s comfort in my pain ’cause I know it so well
I want to slay the demons that still haunt me day and night
But sometimes I’m grateful for my fear, it reminds me I’m alive
But I hate too
I hate to I hate to but I hate to be afraid
No matter who you think you see, it’s only ever half of me
Inside my head, is deafening please help me
All I want is for this to stop, I need for this to stop
I want is for this to stop I need all this to stop please god
Just make it stop god damn it
Never stops fuck me just make it (screams)
And I pray for some silence
Why am I two I’s?
The pain is slowly killing me
The war that others cannot see
It’s what I go through
‘Cause I am
In two (x3)
I am split in two (x2)
I am in two
Oh, and when I read the “daughter, lover” part of the lyrics to “Female,” I threw up in my mouth a little bit. Tuna salad with pickles, onions, cheese, and extra mayo does not repeat well.
Horses sweat.
Men perspire.
Women glow.
Vucodlak, I haven’t thought of that in a long time! The song, for those who aren’t familiar.
Tell that to me in tae kwon do class. I come out of there dripping, sorry about that but I won’t be ashamed just because it’s not lady-like. Kicking other people isn’t lady-like, either, but it’s an enjoyable way to spend an evening.
(Sorry, DonDueed, that wasn’t aimed at you but it sure came across that way. I take your comment as it was meant, I was responding to the sentiment of those who say that seriously.)
The mildly deranged penguin disagrees. Especially if they are between her and the cheese. Of course, it isn’t just people she kicks in that situation — there are many penguin-shaped holes in fromagerie walls throughout France.