[Dixielandjazz] Songs about F......: Sex & Music

[Stephen G Barbone]

Caution X Rated. From the blogosphere. Though the writer alludes to  
the relationship between Traditional Jazz and sex, he is perhaps to  
young, or maybe just ignorant of the sexual relationship between young  
people and "Jazz". from 1917 through the 1920s and later. Time blurs  
memory as we now call it "Art" music. Or is "Art" a code word for "Sex"?

Cheers,
Steve Barbone
www.myspace.com/barbonestreetjazzband


Music
Songs about f.....g: sex & music

By Doug Bleggi
Sex and music have enjoyed a long relationship, even before the so- 
called lurid dawn of rock & roll. Both blues and jazz were rife with  
sexual energy. Whether it was the backwoods of acoustic artists like  
Robert Johnson or the jazz hall sauntering of vocalists like Bessie  
Smith, sex was an essential part of the blues. Likewise jazz music,  
from its surge to popularity in the roaring twenties through the days  
of big band and Dixieland, brought couples together, and very close.

Like all music genres, the increasing familiarity makes it become the  
norm. The emergence of bebop turned swing into ‘old man music,’ while  
rock & roll became not just a new beacon for sexuality expressed  
through music, but it was the first time a genre of music was  
specifically aimed at, and taken in by, teenagers.

Teen heart throbs existed before the ‘50s of course. The character of  
Johnny Fontaine for instance, in “The Godfather” was heavily based on  
the career of Frank Sinatra in the early 1940s, with young girls  
screaming and crying when he would sing (the notion that The Beatles  
started this trend is most definitely false). But the pop singers of  
World War II sung innocent love songs. Later, when Big Joe Turner sang  
“”I’ve been holdin’ it in, way down underneath / You make me roll my  
eyes, baby, make me grit my teeth,” there was no question what he was  
talking about. Parents collectively were outraged with the genre, a  
natural instinct – never before had children taken such a keen  
interest in a style of music. While cheery and playful, there was a  
dirty subtext to a lot of rock & roll songs and the B-film industry  
followed suit, offering cheap films that gave early rockers a place to  
lay down the dirty sax and pounding piano chords for kids who wanted  
to make out with their dates in movie theaters.

While the drive-in theaters were like the Wild West in terms of what  
it could get away with, television made a more concerted effort to  
desensitize rock & roll. “The Ed Sullivan Show” for instance was  
oblivious to the sexual power of Elvis Presley (so was Elvis  
apparently) when they first booked him in 1956, but when concerns rose  
about the singer’s “suggestive” dance moves, his third appearance  
famously featured him shot from the waist up. The plan of course  
backfired, with Presley breaking into some hip swiveling at the  
conclusion of “Peace in the Valley” (of all songs!) which given the  
tight shot on the singer’s torso, only made his off-camera gyrations  
all the more dirty.

So because the rock & rollers essentially won out over the repressive  
parents and TV hosts, have we become the lecherous fuck-obsessed pigs  
that they assured us Elvis Presley’s hips would make us? Of course not  
at all, or at least not any more than the kids back then. Rock & roll  
didn’t make teenagers have sex with each other – a natural progression  
of the teenager in society beget the need for a culture that fed those  
progressed desires. We (and by we I mean all music fans) didn’t like  
rock & roll simply because it was different. We took it in because  
it’s what we needed, and if we needed to break out of sexual  
suppression, rock was there to undo the knots.

The  sexual freedom that of today that is supposedly new is not a  
dissent but merely evolution. When Lady Gaga informs us about her  
desire to ride our disco stick, or when Ke$ha demands, “just show me  
where your dick’s at,” it’s shocking, simply because it’s a new way  
that someone figured out a way to say “I just wanna fuck” in a pop  
song. Whether or not you care for either “LoveGame” or “Blah-Blah- 
Blah” is irrelevant — it’s mainstream pop music and is completely akin  
to Arthur Mckay singing about getting a handjob in “She Squeezed My  
Lemon” nearly 80 years ago. It was lurid, disgusting, raunchy—but most  
of all, it was a sign of the times, and we as a society turned out  
fine, not in spite of it, but because of it.