CDZA: The history of wooing women (music video)

[Video Link] The latest from Joe Sabia's CDZA project: a chronology of "wooing women" in pop music, which subtly points out the arc from sweet ballads to "I want to fuck you like an animal." Where has romance gone?

• [Joseph Ware]

  I was waiting for 50 Cent “Candy Shop”. So disappointed.

• [katkins]

  Most elaborate Rick-Roll evar.

• [yupgiboy]

  I think the romance in pop music has gone the way of no one wanting to appear soft anymore. Soft = weak. I suppose it’s much ‘cooler’ to sing/rap about how they’re gonna do ya rather than woo ya. I do think romantic songs are out there, just not on the so-called pop charts.

  • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

    I suspect that it doesn’t help that we are trying to make a comparison between periods with different legal/social standards on what you could get away with performing and selling in public(‘obscenity’ prosecutions in the US aren’t that ancient history…)

    Also, since slang mutates so quickly, the further back you go the less likely you are to realize how innocent the material isn’t. 

  • [EvilTerran]

    “like”d for “do ya rather than woo ya”. that’s quite a turn of phrase.

  • [Navin_Johnson]

    It’s funny that they started in the 50s.  There are plenty of pretty filthy prewar songs, mostly blues of course, but even though they’re double entendre, their meaning is clear.  A lot has to do with censorship, and what was tolerated during those times as well, you can bet that many people pitching woo on tape were swearing up a storm when the record button was off.

    See Lavern Baker & Jackie Wilson’s alternate take of “Think Twice” where they pretty much cover everything in the book..

    http://youtu.be/iA64mhwfoZc

    • [ocker3]

       Such a righteous recording!

    • [Kimmo]

       Thanks for that : D

• [Matthew Bergman]

  Ugh this is just bad. You’re picking and choosing your way through music for a gag. Seriously NIN was not a woo song in any sense of the word. Also you go this direction you need 2 live crew and Baby Got back else I will not take you a bit seriously. 

  • [Peter]

    Yeah, I mean, there’s plenty of current songs out there that have the same type of romantic tone as the early ones on the list, and, although there are probably fewer the farther back you go (because of community standards), plenty of non-romantic ones in the past.

    Hell, in the 70s Chuck Berry sang a song outright telling people he wanted to play with his Ding A Ling!

    • [nixiebunny]

      The blues songs back then were just as raunchy, they just had to use double-entendre and implication instead of outright bleepable words. Look up any blues song with a lemon in it, for starters.

      And there were a bunch of sixties rock n roll songs with less subtle themes, such as Whole Lotta Love and Let’s Spend the Night Together.

• [swankgd]

  Three words.  ”Under the Boardwalk”

  Nothing new under the sun.

• [GuyInMilwaukee]

  Yeah.. I could easily tell the reverse story of how music and society have gotten so sweet over they decades from the rancid days of Snatch and the Poontangs to the glowing sweet songs of Jack Johnson and Bruno Mars. Polls, charts and selective editing and “prove” anything you want.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhpRAe0YGeY

• [pineapplecharm]

  That had to be the single most inept champagne bottle opening it’s ever been my horrified misfortune to witness.

• [Nagurski]

  Another brilliantly ignorant retrospective.  These guys can squeeze my lemon ’till the juice runs down my leg.

• [wysinwyg]

  Focus on the thread is on censorship, but let’s be real.  What about Buddy Holly singing:
  “I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be,
  You’re gonna give your love to me.”
  A lot of old love songs are actually kind of creepy and suggestive of abusive relationships. 

  • [fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

    Every breath you take, I’ll be watching you…

    (which, in fairness to The Police, wasn’t actually intended as a love song; but the same interpretive talent that somehow turned “Born in the USA” into a stirring nationalist anthem has apparently caused it to become one…)

• [Amelia_G]

  *helpless laughter, augentränenwisch*

  Song by the divine Hildegard Knef:
  “Er war nie ein Kavalier, nie ein Kavalier…”
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKw5ORayylM

  (Cavalier in Germ has sort of the opposite meaning as in English. For some reason, they use it to mean a gentlemanly gentleman, not a careless… hussar?)

• [mattcornell]

  This is not a linear phenomenon, as countless dirty songs from the olden days attest. 

  http://youtu.be/heYxa6yX2os

• [Eve]

  They also left out a huge chunk of actual pop music (as opposed to rap, R&B, alternative etc.) that goes against their theory- the boy bands of the 90′s. ‘Nsync, Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block- all as softly sweet as the 1950s classic slow dance songs.

• [rAMPANTiDIOCY]

  ^^^Rick rolled?^^^

• [Ladyfingers]

  Romantic music is nearly always rightfully critically reviled pap.

  • [Antinous / Moderator]

    Tchaikovsky’s okay, but Elgar certainly fits that description.

    • [Ladyfingers]

       Symbolists FTW!

• [Cap’n Lee]

  Interesting that they didn’t pick “why don’t we do it in the road” for the Beatles song

• [kiptw]

  Oh lord, I’m so out of it. Ninety seconds in and it was songs where I recognized the title or the snippet, but not both. Another minute and I didn’t recognize anything. Except for Tenacious D, of course. Well, gotta go see if any kids are on my lawn yet, and those clouds won’t yell at themselves.