Does your mother know that you’re out? : The problematic history of the underage female muse in popular music
“I can see that you’re fifteen years old
No I don’t want your ID
You look so restless and you’re so far from home
But it’s no hanging matter
It’s no capital crime”
— Stray Cat Blues, The Rolling Stones
Music history is littered with scores of tales of rockstars, celebrities, and underage girls. We know this. We know Sable Starr lost her virginity at 12 at a gig to the guitarist of Spirit, Lori Maddox was dating Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin at 14, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13-year-old cousin [and of course Elvis Presley] courting the 14-year-old Priscilla Presley.
Today, I can’t help but think ‘uh, mega creepy and wtf’. But over and over these stories are told like fairytales, often by the girls themselves. The history of lyrics throughout music certainly reads like a sex offender’s list in hindsight but again and again “It was a different time back then”, and “things weren’t like they are now” (under their breaths).
I’d argue that things are probably much the same in the music industry now but instead, the artists are smart (or cunning) enough to not write about it openly and keep things very much behind as many closed doors as possible. R.Kelly is a case in point.
What once seemed quite sweet and normal in the 60s and 70s, a new generation of women and some men are seeing for what it is. Predatory behaviour of minors and in many cases statutory rape. Using your power of celebrity and control to manipulate and groom underage girls.
But still, the soundtrack remains. I even find myself sometimes singing at the top of my lungs while driving the car “ And I can chat with you baby, flirt a little maybe, does your mother know that you’re out” by ABBA and not even flinch like it’s remotely weird or creepy. Now with the #MeToo movement and numerous pop stars, rockstars and celebrities being outed left right and centre for inappropriate behaviour, this soundtrack starts to take on a different tune and it’s starting to leave a bitter taste in a lot of people’s mouths. How do we address the uncomfortable elephant in the room of whether we can or should separate the behaviour and/or intent from the art itself?
“Well, I don’t care if you’re just thirteen,
You look too good to be true.
I just know that you’re probably clean,
There’s one little think I got do to you.”— Jailbait, Ted Nugent
But don’t be so misguided to think this was just some swinging 60s and 70s fad. Because the soundtrack to inappropriate sexual chorus lines continued well into the 80s,90s, 00s and even now, still.
In his 2005 autobiography, Scar Tissue, Anthony Kiedis tells the story, braggingly so, of his sexual relationship with a 14-year-old Catholic school girl which later became the subject of the Chili Peppers’ 1985 song “Catholic School Girls Rule”.
Yet, continuously during this #MeToo movement, so many male culprits have evaded outing or instead received open public disregard for their sexual misdeeds. But honey, that's not how it works. You can’t knock a few down and say we’ve won, we need a complete strikeout. Then, we can say we truly won. Outing 1 man for every 5 or 6 is hardly a trade-off but it sadly seems the best we’ve got right now. Even now with insurmountable evidence against rockstars, their escapades and untouchable history washes the dirt right off and they stand there shining like the star the public loves and adores regardless.
Do we do this because we cannot reconcile the behaviour with our investment in that personality or celebrity? Or is it that we simply choose to look the other way? Needless to say, the musical story arch continues and we sing along humming the tune and sending songs to number one. The dissociation between the impact of how language is used and represented in music specifically continues to allude me. One of my favourite songs growing up was Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” and it still is but, when I think too much about it, that narrative is well, icky.
“Hey, little girl, is your daddy home?
Did he go away and leave you all alone?
I got a bad desire
Oh, oh, oh
I’m on fire
Tell me now, baby, is he good to you?
And can he do to you the things that I do?” — I’m on Fire”, Bruce Springsteen“I slept with Sable when she was 13,
Her parents were too rich to do anything,
She rocked her way around L.A.,’Til a New York Doll carried her away…” — Look Away, Iggy Pop
“I love little girls. They make me feel so good… Uh oh (uh oh), the little girl was just too little. Too little, too little, too little, too little.”
— Little Girls, Oingo Boingo
“I don’t usually say things like this to girls your age
But when I saw you coming out of the school that day
That day I knew, I knew (Christine sixteen)
I’ve got to have you, I’ve got to have you”— Christine Sixteen, KISS
Men have been writing about, singing about, photographing and candidly painting pre-pubescent and teenaged girls all throughout history. Vladimir Nabokov’s ‘Lolita’ is still considered by many authors one of the century’s greatest works and remains on the Time’s List of the 100 Best Novels. And what is Lolita about? A middle-aged man becomes obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, who he becomes sexually involved with after he becomes her stepfather.
Let’s be real, these escapades, stories and lyrical fantasies (primarily come) from men. So how do we then, teach men and our young boys that girls and women are more than an object for sexual gratification and a sexual image to be used to simply tantalize their audience? 2020 and onwards will prove a very different political climate for gender and gender representation across all media and here’s hoping it’s for the better. We used to say love was a battlefield now it’s more like a mind field of our past indiscretions and our now consequences.
“Ooh, you come on like a dream
Peaches and cream
Lips like strawberry wine
You’re sixteen, you’re beautiful and you’re mine.”
— You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful (And You’re Mine), Johnny Burnett
