Open Discussion: Mama, No!
Happy Friday!
So earlier this week the topic of conversation took an interesting turn in the comment section of the post on Solo’s dumb ass song “Where Do You Want Me to Put It.” The wonderful precious few folks who drop a comment here from time to time and I sort of started talking about uncomfortable musical moments involving our parents singing inappropriate songs, and I thought I’d take a chance and invite some open discussion on the matter. It could very well just end up being me and the wonderful precious few talking about it, which is perfectly fine with me! If this goes well, maybe we can make this a normal SC thing. Let’s try it and see!
So the question of the day: What’s the most inappropriate, uncomfortable song you’ve ever witnessed your parents/grandparents/guardians/elders sing and/or dance to? I’ve got a million, but the one that stands out most ist LL Cool J’s “Doin’ It.” My mom, for awhile, made it a point to make me hate songs that she didn’t want me listening to by pretending to like them. Whenever “Doin’ It” would come on, she’d start doing this weird little foot shufflin’, broken Bankhead bounce dance while yelling “DOIN’ IT AN’ DOIN’ IT AN’ DOIN’ IT AND DOIN’ IT AN’ DOIN’ IT” over and over and over again. No matter where we were, no matter who was there. At home. In the car. At the grocery store–not that this song ever came on at the grocery store, but if it ever did, she’d bust out in her song and dance routine.
It was VERY unnerving for me. I couldn’t really tell if she knew what she was singing about or if she just didn’t care, but this was 1995 when I was 13 years old and even listening to a song about sex with my mother in the same room was mortifying. To have her enjoy it, too? GROSS! I do NOT need my brain to be occupied by my mom and the idea of doin’ it, in any capacity.
Her other favorite was Chingy’s “Right There.” Ever heard your mom sing about staring at a woman’s hips when she walks? No? Lucky you.
Addendum – Conversely, it is also super unnerving to listen to your 7 and 9 year old nieces sing about how they’re so hot that they’re gonna take their clothes off.
What about yall??
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Splackavellie Central 
My mom found my Nelly cd, and sat me and my brother down in the living room, playing each song and giving her opinion. Now mind you, I was a conservative little kid raised by some conservative parents. It was the “edited” version of Nellyville. lol. My mom proceeds to read the song titles. “Pimp Juice??? what’s Pimp Juice? Could it be male semen Chris? You’re singing about semen nowadays? Thats how I raised you? And “Splurge?” Whatcha splurging, probably some PimpJuice, right? And “Hot and Hairy” “No ma’am, it’s ‘Hot in Herre,’ he just added an extra R.” “I can read Chris, the dam thing says Hot and Hairy! Now I can think of something that’s Hot and Hairy… something that people splurge pimp juice in… I’m disappointed in you Chris. I’m callin your youth pastor!”
I haven’t listened to Nelly since… i don’t want to repeat that night, ever.
LOL @ hot & hairy! omg i would crawl inside my skin and just wait for death. how old were you??
16-17, somewhere in there… i just remember being confused. I was kinda sad, because my mom was obviously disappointed in me, but it was humorous all the same. She had my brother and me grab all of our cds, and he brought in Outkast -Stankonia. She did the same thing to him, talking about, “So what is ‘I’ll Call B4 I Come’ about? Is he late somewhere?” my brother was like “ummmm…yeh” she looked at the rest of the cd and said “Well this doesnt look that bad.” I was just like WTF!
Mine would have to be my families (as in Mother, Father, Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents) apparent love of Clarence Carter’s “Strokin'”, lol. Not only did that song make an appearance at our weekly Friday Night Fish Fry at my grandparents’ house. But one summer they actually took myself (I was probably 11 at the time) and my 9 year old and 10 year old cousins to a…wait for it…Clarence Carter concert. Just imagine a group of 40 somethings waiting and anticipating the ever cringeworthy “Stroke it Clarence Carter, but don’t you stroke so fast, if my stuff ain’t tight enough, you can stick up my…WOO!” UUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH, LOL. One of the best moments of my life 🙂
I was just getting ready to say “Strokin”! One day me and my mom got into a discussion about the music of my time (I was a teenager and this was in the mid-90s). She tried to make it seem like our music was turrible, but she had no argument when I pointed out “Strokin” and “Turn Out the Lights”. Her face changed like she was having a flashback and all I could say was “EWWWWWWWW!”
oh dear jesus. i have never known anything other than the chorus of clarence carter’s ‘strokin.’ i really, really wish that that was still true.
😦
Stroking, Sexual Healing & Teddy P ruined my childhood. I came home from school early one day, and Stroking was blasting. I refuse to believe my mom was doing anything other than moving furniture to vacuum, but I wasn’t tryna go upstairs to find out.
DMX Y’all Gon Make Me Lose my Mind. The song wasn’t super sexual, it was just embarrassing. It was like her theme song. She also loved Tupac, which was great, but sometimes things could get strange.
lol yeah my mom liked ‘dear mama’ by tupac, but that was it. any other discussion featured her doing an impression of him that, if it were done by a white person, would be pretty freakin racist.
maaaan.
it was 1992. i was 15, with a boyfriend i wasn’t supposed to have (we couldn’t date until we were 16 in my house), and anxious, ready to test out the old wives’ tale about sex making your booty big and breasts grow. R. Kelly and the Public Announcement had just released “Honey Love,” and my hormones were jumping in tandem to the bass.
now, waaay back in the day, instead of texting and emailing, we used to talk on the phone. and we’d even go so far as to call each other to watch tv together, only talking during commercials, tying up the phone lines, listening to folks breathe and whatnot.
well, one night, i was on the phone with my beau, and we were watching video soul or video vibrations or something, and the video for “honey love” came on. the public announcement started thrusting and grinding. an anonymous lady, seemingly disembodied because we only ever saw her legs and hands, was dripping honey all over herself. the silence stretching between me and my boyfriend became a tense. i imagined he was just as wide-eyed as i was. he attempted to say something but had to clear his throat. he tried to say something slightly dirty, perhaps asking me if i liked the song or if i wanted him to do something freaky like that. i can’t fully recall because at that moment, my mother burst into the den, a bottle of champale in her hands, and exclaimed, “heeeeyyyyyyy!”
she then started to imitate the public announcement’s rhythmic thrusting, her face contorted with the grin my look of horror had caused. she bent her knees and started hunching the air and grunted in tune to her humps. “unh unh unh honey looooove. who sings this song, nicki? who are them lil boys dancin’ like that in the background? i like them! huunnnnnaaaayy luuuuuuuv! sheeiiit. unh unh unh.”
“mama, stop!”
“what she doin’?” my boyfriend’s voice came through the phone.
“i’ma call you right back.”
i got off the phone and flounced back onto the couch, torn between sulking and laughing. my mother asked, “what’s wrong?” grinning with frown lines of concentration easing into her forehead.
“you don’t like my dancin’? ain’t this whatchall be doin’ nowadays? unh unh unh unh.”
and this will forever be the memory i associate with that song- not the tentative, awkward smut-talk of my first boyfriend but the swivelhips my mama made as she tried to keep her daughter from the family cycle of teenage pregnancy.
honey love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8yWbL0KE4c
i feel like you just gave me reason to make open discussions a permanent thing here.
this. was. *awesome*
i really love that you said ‘hunchin’ too.
and that your mom drinks champale.
A+!!!!!!
I can’t breef.
“nichole”?
This is why this place Rocks the House!
Not just the account of the song, but your understanding of your mother’s deep concern for you. Let me tell ya, you think contemplating your parents sexuality is tough? Wait tell it’s your own young kids! I know, ’cause I’m “there”, lol.
And I bet yer momma was kinda sexy-lookin’ when she did that, huh? LOL!
LMBO! *Dead*
also, if you’re unfamiliar with champale:
have u ever had any??
ive never met anybody that has actually had champale.
isnt that what fred sanford used to drink all the time?
or was that champipple?
i remember sipping it a few times. it takes like an even more bitter wine cooler. blech.
i think fred sanford drank ripple.
Ms. Brokey,
Well, ya’ll gonna have better stories about this than me, for at least 2 and a half reasons.
One, my parents didn’t really do music, so no singin’ on their part (though Ms. Brokey I DID walk in on them doin’ the Wild Thing as a teenager; that is its own bonus point).
Two, I can’t sing (or dance either, but that’s a different topic), I know it, so I rarely inflict it on people (in no small part to the fact my kiddie’s always start yellin’ “NO! NO! NO! Spare us Dad!”).
The half-a-reason is because I can’t ever remember enough of the lyrics to make it worth much. I’m the King of Misinterpreted/Forgotten lyrics!
But I’ve often strung enough lyrics together to embarrass myself. I turn on the radio when I cook dinner. A great old rock classic fav of mine was playing this one time, by Led Zeppelin (who, by the way, stole about half of their best stuff from old Mississippi Delta Bluesmen of the 30’s – 50’s). It’s called “Whole Lotta Love” (if this was a current Rap song it’d be “Hole Lotta Love”, right?). So there I am, wok gettin’ hot on the stove, spatula in hand, cut veggie’s and chicken ready to go, belting out what words I can remember when I get my one and only complete line, at total-full volume …
“Give you every Inch of my Love …”
I look up to see the kiddie’s have stopped the homework at the table and are just staring at me … “Wazz that again Dad?”
Then the usual Dad-hilarity began, all centered around “An INCH?! That all you workin’ with?!” I never quite got over the fact it was my youngest daughter who popped that one out, like Dad’s thinkin’ “What SHE know about that subject anyway?”
Ok “Fiqah” … White-Out that one! LOL! You the best …
Oh, and I once had too much Pink Champale … nothin’ like malt liquor kickin’ yer be-hind. It was at a backyard BBQ … where I was the only 2520 …
@ Lite Bread: Nothin’ doin’. That’s…pretty white. LOL.
God. The song I remember that my mama made permanently uncomfortable? The Grace Jones classic “Pull Up To The Bumper.” Now, mind you, when this song was brand spankin’ new, my mom LOVED this song. Buuuut I was a kid, so the anal sex double-entendre went right over my sweet widdle head.
However, during a holiday visit home in 2004, when I was 26 and decidedly more worldly, I had the pleasure of hearing my mother sing along to this while whipping up some bean pies. Now, maybe some fokes are okay with seeing their 60-something mama two-step around their kitchen whipping a bowl of bean pie filling and warbling at the top of her Marlboro-scarred lungs about how she wants you to pull up to the bumper in yo’ big black limosuine, but not I.
Not. I.
omg.
that song was about anal sex?!
shut the front door!
@ Fiqah and nichole,
LOL! “Shut the front door” … I’m died!
AND, good ol’ Led Zeppelin had one of those too, called “In Through the Out Door”
I. love. it. These are great!
OMG i didnt know that was abt anal sex either!!
lol oh i have a BUNCH of fantastic misinterpreted lyric stories. that might could be our next open discussion topic!
and um
how old were ur babykids, talkin bout some inches??
Ms. Brokey,
Misinterpreted lyrics are Great!
And she was all of 13. I’m like, “Uh … uh … uh” (Fail)
I willingly bumped “Nobody Move” by Eazy-E in my car with my mom a few weeks ago. She was in the backseat mumbling things like, “hmmm” and “What in the world?”. My brother was in the passenger seat giving me evil looks. I did this because I’m an a$$hole.
lol she didn’t smack u in the back of the head or demand that u change to the gospel station?? my mom wouldnt have a piece of that!
Surprisingly, she didn’t do either. I had to sit in the backseat and listen to the junk my parents listen to for years, so she kinda had that coming.
I have a couple. One was 3 6 mafia’s chicken head, which my mom only knew the chorus to, and at one point she took to calling the kids in the house (age 2-16) chicken heads as a silly phrase. We had to explain that’s not exactly a *good* thing to be callin your children and nieces and nephews…
Then my aunt would sing “too close” by next, which you brilliantly covered. Only she thought he was saying “baby no more cryin, I get so excited.” which kinda makes the song worse. We still tease her about that.
LOL. i was 11 when my niece was born and when she started talking, her mom (who was about 7 years older than me) thought it would be funny to have her call me a chickenhead. being 11/12 and still having fairly virgin ears, i didn’t know what it meant.
fast forward to when i actually DID know what it meant… i was NOT pleased!
I still stand by my original comment – listening to my stepmom belt out 112’s “Anywhere” and infuse it with gospel riffs will remain in my Top Five Awkward Moments of LIFE forevermore.
My mama knows better.
I do however, remember the time when I was about 8 years old & ‘I’ll Make Love to You’ by Boyz II Men came on. I belted the HELL out of that song, had my chin quivering, arm in the air tryna catch a witness talmbout, “I’LL MAKE LOVE TO YOU, WHEN YOU WANT ME TO AND I’LL HOLD YOU TIGHT, BABY ALL THROUGH THE NIGHTTTTTT – ” *Radio channel changes* I tried to call myself snapping my neck & being like, “WHAT’D YOU CHANGE IT FOR?” & my mom says (tryna keep her composure, “I am not going to listen to my 8 year old sing about making love.” {end of discussion}
Ok, I was driven here to read the “Strokin” story because we all have them. One of mine involves karaoke at my family reunion and my Uncle Wendell with light blue polyester pants on the mic. My family doesn’t drink, so the episode was stone cold sober and still enough to make you just about die.
The other unfortunate “Strokin” incident involved the wedding of my roommate from business school, her husband’s cracker-ass Canadian relatives, and LOTS of beer. Its embarrassingly funny when Black folks do it, but trailer-park, drunken Canadians is a whole other level of embarrassing. For them. I was laughing my Black ass off and wishing I had a video camera b/c that stuff would be on You Tube right now!
Fiqua, how come I only just found out what “Pull Up to My Bumper” is about by reading your comment! Well, damn! Don’t matter, though, the song is still hot.
Not quite as bad, but my 60-something Dad’s favorite hip hop song is Trick Daddy’s “Baby I’m A Thug”. He just sings the chorus and lecutres in between about how “this n*gga can’t really be a thug. Real thugs don’t tell people that. How you ‘posed to rob anybody then?! Dummy.”
Growing up my parents had this rule: I couldn’t sing it if I couldn’t spell it.
That rule changed when I turned 9 and started carrying a dictionary.
Their strategy changed to: we’ll sing it and embarrass you in the car where people can see if you like horrible and inappropriate songs.
That changed as well when I turned 14 and started listening to their old music and caught on to the innuendos about sex & drugs. I started calling them out on trips & they stopped chastising me about my musical tastes.