Damp spring and popular lyrical sexism

Tuesday, the almost Monday, is here again. Still wet and cloudy, though I was almost fooled into dropping the top on the way in this morning.  It looked like it just might be overcast more than dripping (and it's easy enough to reach over my shoulder and yank the top back over my head if it starts to drip), but something held me back.  The wipers were in use within a couple of blocks.

Specifically because of the wet, the green knob has been cranked over to the full-on position.  I noticed it especially on the drive home last night.  If I took my eyes just up above the street I saw rich (damp) green everywhere.  Rich, lush, fully-foliated spring greens.  Like the old piece of "Bronx poetry:"

Spring is sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies iz
Der liddle boids is on der wing
Ain't dat absoid,
der liddle wingz is on der boid

We so often listen to music and lyrics without really focusing on what we're listening to.  Given a good tune to harmonize with, we'll sing along full throated in the car, shower, or wherever we allow ourselves to break loose.  But stop and listen to what we're singing now and then....

The Eagles were doing a bit of stereotypical sexism in melody this morning with their classic, The Girl From Yesterday.  Here is a song most of us could sing by heart, but which posits a woman whose whole worth is defined by a guy who has left her.  Consequently, "she will always be the girl from yesterday."  Note the use of the word "girl" for woman. She is a possession, to be pitied, subject to the vagaries of the owning gender.  She has no other life value, and without him her life is essentially over.  Stop and look at it for even a minute and the song becomes both pathetic and offensive.

Martin Luther is reputed to have once said that Christians don't tell lies, they sing them (referring to the lyrics).  Not sure why these lyrics surfaced from subconscious to conscious for me this morning, but once they did the song was toast.  My first reaction was a determination to delete it from the library when I get home this evening, but I think, on reflection, I will leave it there.  Now that I know its not-at-all-subtle message it will serve as a reminder whenever it pops up in my collection.  These kinds of cultural biases and signals of power and privilege are so smoothly blended into our everyday everything that they can go unnoticed in plain sight.  Or, as Gary Howard describes it, many of us can indulge in the privilege of ignorance, not having to see or experience these cultural biases.

The rest of the playlist was quite good, and very nicely mixed:

 - Fountains Of Wayne: Comedienne
 - The Eagles:  The Girl From Yesterday
 - Mew: An Envoy to the Open Fields
 - Terence Blanchard: Ghost of Congo Square
 - Pieter Wispelwey: Sonata nr. 4 B Flat Major