Soon you’ll need a man: Four oldies for dirty old dudes
Neil Diamond
Before pop songs became Petri dishes for sex, drugs, and debauchery, musicians had to be a bit more sly. Grabbing your crotch and singing about wanting someone’s sex was unheard of on the radio throughout most of the ’50s and ’60s. The period was, in essence, host to a cultural epidemic of psychosexual suppression; unable to get blatantly naughty lyrics past record-companies and mass-media gatekeepers, songwriters had to wink-wink, nudge-nudge their more suggestive material onto the airwaves and into record stores. But the veneer of chastity was peeling away; bands like The Doors and The Rolling Stones started getting brazen with their thinly veiled metaphors, pushing open the cracks that Elvis Presley’s pelvis had inflicted on Postwar prudence a decade earlier. As with any swing of the pendulum, though, pop music’s newfound boldness sometimes went a bit too far in the golden age of oldies—occasionally even degenerating into sheer Lolita-ism, years before The Police confronted such taboos head-on in the Nabokov-inspired “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” With Super Diamond playing the House of Blues tonight, Decider took a look at four of the oldies canon’s creepiest, dirty-old-man pop hits.
Neil Diamond, “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon”
Grunge-era second-stringer Urge Overkill put a debatably ironic edge on “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” when the band covered it on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. But Neil Diamond’s 1967 original seems to play it with a straight face. The singer-songwriter was only 26 when the single climbed the charts, but still, unless you live in Appalachia, that’s a little old to be pining for a girl who is clearly yet to reach the age of consent—or perhaps even yet to reach puberty, depending on how you want to read the song. “I’d die for you, girl / and all they can say is, ‘He’s not your kind,’” croons Diamond, who later admits, “I’ve been misunderstood all of my life.” A touchy-feely uncle couldn’t have said it better.
Grunge-era second-stringer Urge Overkill put a debatably ironic edge on “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” when the band covered it on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. But Neil Diamond’s 1967 original seems to play it with a straight face. The singer-songwriter was only 26 when the single climbed the charts, but still, unless you live in Appalachia, that’s a little old to be pining for a girl who is clearly yet to reach the age of consent—or perhaps even yet to reach puberty, depending on how you want to read the song. “I’d die for you, girl / and all they can say is, ‘He’s not your kind,’” croons Diamond, who later admits, “I’ve been misunderstood all of my life.” A touchy-feely uncle couldn’t have said it better.
Gary Puckett & The Union Gap, “Young Girl” and “This Girl Is A Woman Now”
Unlike Neil Diamond, ’60s pop star Gary Puckett at least appears to feel a bit of guilt about his pedophiliac impulses. His band’s 1968 hit caused a controversy on its release, due to a lyrical scenario in which a teen-tempted Puckett sings: “With all the charms of a woman / you’ve kept the secret of your youth / You led me to believe you’re old enough to give me love / And now it hurts to know the truth.” And the song just gets more skin-crawling with lines like “You’re just a baby in disguise,” not to mention the chorus itself, in which Puckett advises his underage paramour, “My love for you is way out of line / You better run girl.” Hey, at least he’s giving her a head start; the jury might even go easy on him. A year later Puckett had a lesser hit with a song titled "This Girl Is A Woman Now"—a song that's hard to interpret as anything other than the softly crooned story of a girl's first period.
Unlike Neil Diamond, ’60s pop star Gary Puckett at least appears to feel a bit of guilt about his pedophiliac impulses. His band’s 1968 hit caused a controversy on its release, due to a lyrical scenario in which a teen-tempted Puckett sings: “With all the charms of a woman / you’ve kept the secret of your youth / You led me to believe you’re old enough to give me love / And now it hurts to know the truth.” And the song just gets more skin-crawling with lines like “You’re just a baby in disguise,” not to mention the chorus itself, in which Puckett advises his underage paramour, “My love for you is way out of line / You better run girl.” Hey, at least he’s giving her a head start; the jury might even go easy on him. A year later Puckett had a lesser hit with a song titled "This Girl Is A Woman Now"—a song that's hard to interpret as anything other than the softly crooned story of a girl's first period.
The Ames Brothers, “The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane”
The Ames Brothers’ gee-whiz wholesomeness catapulted them to the top-10 throughout the ’50s—the perfect example of the kind of white-bread vocal combo that rock ’n’ roll rightly sought to topple. But The Ames’ first hit, 1950’s “Rag Mop,” proved the group could be a bit demented—and their 1954 song “The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane” crossed over into the realm of downright unsettling. A goofy, bouncy, semi-novelty tune, “Naughty Lady” is the story of a young woman who moves to town and gets the entire male portion of the populace panting with excitement. “She throws those ‘come hither’ glances at every Tom, Dick, and Joe / When offered some liquid refreshment, the lady never, never says no,” the Brothers sing, adding, “Beneath the powder and fancy lace, there beats a heart sweet and pure / She just needs someone to change her, and she’ll be nice as can be.” Then comes the punch line; as the final line of the song reveals, the naughty lady is, in fact, “only nine days old.” Um, ew?
The Ames Brothers’ gee-whiz wholesomeness catapulted them to the top-10 throughout the ’50s—the perfect example of the kind of white-bread vocal combo that rock ’n’ roll rightly sought to topple. But The Ames’ first hit, 1950’s “Rag Mop,” proved the group could be a bit demented—and their 1954 song “The Naughty Lady Of Shady Lane” crossed over into the realm of downright unsettling. A goofy, bouncy, semi-novelty tune, “Naughty Lady” is the story of a young woman who moves to town and gets the entire male portion of the populace panting with excitement. “She throws those ‘come hither’ glances at every Tom, Dick, and Joe / When offered some liquid refreshment, the lady never, never says no,” the Brothers sing, adding, “Beneath the powder and fancy lace, there beats a heart sweet and pure / She just needs someone to change her, and she’ll be nice as can be.” Then comes the punch line; as the final line of the song reveals, the naughty lady is, in fact, “only nine days old.” Um, ew?
