Sexy Songs that Broke Barriers: A Short Playlist

I was reflecting on women the other night, as I have been inclined to do since the age of 12, sometimes obsessively, sometimes regretfully, often hornily, once in a while angrily. 

I enjoyed the dialogue that broke forth from the blog the other day about Filipinas and the men they attach to. 1DC asked why I hitched up with a Filipina and that got me to thinking. Why do I like Asian women? Basically because they have an exotic and feminine allure without being airheads. Nice skin. Sweet, smart, strong.

What about American women, I asked myself? What's wrong with them?

Absolutely nothing. American women come in all sizes and shapes, personalities, and sexual proclivities.  Speaking statistically, a greater percentage have really large mammaries.  Look it up. They drink better than Asians, for sure. Some have freckles, which are fun to count on a sunny day. There are more athletic women in the States than in the Philippines, judging from the joggers out at daybreak, or the enrollment list at the aerobics gym.

All that thinking eventually led my brain to music and I started reflecting on popular songs that address love and sex. Not modern songs. Almost all of them do, it would seem. The Lady Gaga video "On the Edge of Glory" is a blond crazed cat in heat. Nice song, actually.

I'm talking about the golden oldies, the breakthrough songs that introduced sex to singing in America and the greater civilized world.

Now Elvis was one sexy dude, with his smoldering sneer and swiveling hips. But he sang about blue suede shoes and hound dogs and love that is true. Not sex, explicitly.

The first breakthrough song I recall was Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay". Classic Dylan nasal twine, slow and sultry. Not only was he inviting the girl to stay for awhile, he was telling her to stretch out on his big brass bed. His hands were clean, he insisted. Grandmas and preachers shrieked in horror. Radio audiences loved it.

Lay, lady, lay, lay across my big brass bed

Stay, lady, stay, stay with your man awhile

Until the break of day, let me see you make him smile

His clothes are dirty but his hands are clean

And you're the best thing that he's ever seen.

I don't really recall the historical order of things, and won't look it up, as it is largely irrelevant. Bob Seger crooned two songs that stoked everyman's fancy. In "Roll Me Away", he rode his motorbike into the mountains, stopped at a bar and met a girl. They had a few drinks. She looked into his eyes, went out and climbed on that bike. They rode off into the mountains together. Then he did the classic of heavy-breathing sex songs in "Night Moves", telling true tales of what many young men go through in the back seat of their 60 Chevy with a willing girl "with points of her own, riding way up high". They weren't there for love, no, indeed, but for . . . um . . . educational achievements.

Three less sexual songs, but nice for their beat and the tenor of "guys and girls in the mood":

• " Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress" by the Hollies. This appeals to any man who has ever been in a bar and had a pretty, sexy woman walk into his life. Or dreamed about it. The beat is foot stomping hard. Remind me to tell you about that little dive in Hollywood sometime . . . Sha Na Na  . . .

• "American Woman" by The Guess Who. Well, we Americans get inspired by Filipinas and some Europeans find American Women attractive but too much to handle. So they dump them and flee, as reported in this fine anthem to American female allure and frustration. In the angry fade-out, you can barely hear the singer shouting "good-bye American woman, good bye American shit . . ."

• "She Just Wants to Dance" by Keb' Mo'

She can feel it in her fingers

And it moves on down her spine

And when it hits her hips

She parts her lips

And you know she's feeling fine

Oh, baby, yeah!

'Nuf said.

The real groundbreaker, though, opening the way for Lady Gaga and others, was Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" with its throbbing beat and the most incredible singing climax in music history, "You need looovvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeee" drifting deep into the canyons of music history. That was 1970. I remember it well.  I was getting some action that year, and married her in September.

You need coolin’, baby, I’m not foolin’,

I’m gonna send you back to schoolin’,

Way down inside honey, you need it,

I’m gonna give you my love,

I’m gonna give you my love.

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

You’ve been learnin’, baby, I bean learnin’,

All them good times, baby, baby, I’ve been yearnin’,

Way, way down inside honey, you need it,

I’m gonna give you my love… I’m gonna give you my love.

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

You’ve been coolin’, baby, I’ve been droolin’,

All the good times I’ve been misusin’,

Way, way down inside, I’m gonna give you my love,

I’m gonna give you every inch of my love,

Gonna give you my love.

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Wanna Whole Lotta Love

Way down inside… woman… You need… love.

Shake for me, girl. I wanna be your backdoor man.

Keep it coolin’, baby.

_______________________________

I didn't think about the Department of Education or Chief Justice Corona all night.