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If Your Child Has an iPod, Read This: You Spin Me Right Round Baby
Remember this tune?
Here are a few of the lyrics from the Dead or Alive version:
“You spin me right round, baby
Right round, like a record, baby
Right round round round…”
You know you’re humming along. Admit it. You are, aren’t you?
Have you heard the refrain on the new version by Flo Rida? When I first heard my son and his middle school friends singing the chorus, just the “You spin me right round baby right round,” part, I thought, “Oh, look, everything really does come back.”
And then my girlfriend asked me if I knew Flo Rida had changed the lyrics. Huh?
Ah, yes, why would Flo Rida touch a song that wasn’t about oral sex? Here, his chorus:
“You spin my head right round, right round
When you go down, when you go down down
You spin my head right round, right round
When you go down, when you go down down…”
Better yet, he pays her:
“From the top of the pole I watch her go down
She got me throwin my money around
Ain’t nothin more beautiful to be found
It’s goin down down…”
There are so many things going on here that I don’t know where to start and if I climb up on this high horse I may never come back down. So here’s what I have to say in as few words as possible:
- If your child has an iPod, it would behoove you to know what’s on it.
- If your child doesn’t want you to touch his or her iPod, you better start listening.
- Women are degraded endlessly in an incredible number of currently popular songs.
- Sex, oral sex, paying for sex, doing drugs, selling drugs, stealing and general depravity seem to be the main themes.
- I don’t care if they “just like the tune.” It’s the old “junk in,” “junk out” philosophy.
- I know you don’t have time for this. I don’t either. But making time is probably a great option for both of us.
- This is not harmless; if it’s on their iPod it’s playing over and over in their head a bazillion times a day (yep, that’s a scientific number).
- Google the title, artist and lyrics if you want to know more.
- Hang tough. You’re the parent.
And you know, back in the day, Madonna was considered racy.
Bibliophile Friday: Black & White by Dani Shapiro
“I should never call myself a book lover any more than a people lover.
It all depends what’s inside them.” -Philip Larkin
Two Basic Rules for Bibliophile Friday: Read a book. Write about it.
You can write as little as two words (Thumbs up! or Thumbs down!), you can write a short blurb, or you can go all out and give a summary and review. It all depends on how you’re feeling and how much time you have. Add your blog to Mr. Linky, below, and please leave a comment after you link.
Books suggestions or reviews are welcome for both kids’ and grown-ups’ books.
Keep it clean. Be honest.
Keep it clean. Be honest.
Bibliophile Friday is the 4th Friday of every month, so get reading!
My book selection: Black & White, by Dani Shapiro
Recommendation: Thought-provoking. Worth a read.
Summary:
As Ms. Shapiro’s novel opens we meet Ruth, a young mother, struggling to find her identity. Ruth discovers that she has a wonderful eye for photography, particularly for shooting nude, provocative, and unusual photos of her little girl Clara. As Clara grows up, Ruth documents her life and reaches glorious heights of artistic fame. At the same time, devastated and objectified by the constant glare of Ruth’s camera, Clara’s shame soars. Clara cannot separate her feelings about her mother and her feelings about being her mother’s “muse”: she comes to despise both. When she turns 18 she swiftly runs away.
Clara breaks completely from her past and creates a new life for herself in rural Maine. She refuses to look back until her terminally ill mother begs for her to return to Manhattan. When she does, she unearths the emotions of her youth, explores the many facets of her relationship with both her mother and her father–who, she feels–should have spared her, and faces the past head on.
My thoughts:
When I was discussing this book with my book club, I shared that there were many times it deeply disturbed me. One of the other women challenged me: “Don’t you do something similar with your blog?” she asked. I blanched. I thought about it. A lot. And to some degree, I suppose I do expose my children–more often my thoughts about my children, or parenting in general–but I don’t believe it’s the same kind of exposure. I’m very thoughtful and careful about what I post; I take care to consider my children’s feelings and what they will find when they inevitably Google themselves. I don’t expose them for my sake.
That said, I did stop and think about it. And any book that makes us stop and think is, I think, worth reading. Yes, it’s a bit uncomfortable. Yes, her mother is intense and her father folds. As a parent and daughter, I wanted to shout at them and cry with her. And, yet, as a woman I wanted to shake her, too. “Deal with this! Stop pretending it didn’t happen.”
Ms. Shapiro does a fine job of making the reader both think and feel. And that’s worth a read any day.
What are you reading? Add your link below.