6 Most Sexist Songs of the '60s

The 6 Sexistiest Songs of the ’60s — #3

Lightnin’ Strikes” – Lou Christie (1966)

 

Lis­ten to me, baby, you got­ta understand
You’re old enough to know the mak­ings of a man
Lis­ten to me, baby, it’s hard to set­tle down
Am I ask­ing too much for you to stick around

Every boy wants a girl
He can trust to the very end
Baby, that’s you
Won’t you wait but ’til then

When I see lips beg­gin’ to be kissed (stop)
I can’t stop (stop)
I can’t stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Light­ning is strik­ing again
Light­ning is strik­ing again

Nature’s takin’ over my one-track mind
Believe it or not, you’re in my heart all the time
All the girls are sayin’ that you’ll end up a fool
For the time being, baby, live by my rules

When I set­tle down
I want one baby on my mind
For­give and forget
And I’ll make up for all lost time

If she’s put togeth­er fine
And she’s readin’ my mind (stop)
I can’t stop (stop)
I can’t stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Light­ning is strik­ing again
Light­ning is strik­ing again
And again and again and again

Light­ning is strik­ing again
Light­ning is strik­ing again

There’s a chapel in the pines
Wait­ing for us around the bend
Pic­ture in your mind
Love for­ev­er, but ’til then

If she gives me a sign
That she wants to make time (stop)
I can’t stop (stop)
I can’t stop myself
(Stop, stop)

Light­ning is strik­ing again
Light­ning is strik­ing again
And again and again and again
Light­ning is strik­ing again
And again and again and again

****

In “Light­nin’ Strikes,” the singer is try­ing to con­vince a girl to basi­cal­ly put her life on hold while he goes around and humps any­one will­ing to let him near.  He can’t stop him­self, as is, appar­ent­ly the case with all men (which she is old enough to know).  While “Light­ning is strik­ing” (again and again and again), he promis­es her a wed­ding “around the bend” and that he’ll make it up to her as long as she keeps her legs closed and lives by his rules.  This is the skee­vi­est song on the list… and prob­a­bly the catchiest.

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16 thoughts on “The 6 Sexistiest Songs of the ’60s — #3

  1. Wow. This song flew right past creepy straight into sin­is­ter and preda­to­ry. Who­ev­er wrote this song almost cer­tain­ly has uttered the phrase, “Put the f*cking lotion in the bas­ket!” at least once in their lives. O.O

    Reply

    1. I have nev­er laughed this hard in over ten years. Your com­ment had me ROTfF­MAS: “Put the f*cking lotion in the bas­ket!” Incredible. 🙂

      Reply

  2. To hear the catchy, upbeat music, and then read the lyrics here, it is two dif­fer­ent worlds. All I remem­ber of this is the cho­rus, heard it a mil­lion times, I nev­er knew.

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  3. This was the first song, when I was grow­ing up, that I fell in love with. I did­n’t know what sex­ism was then. Now, if I could get my hands on who­ev­er wrote it, I would give them a wound in an area they would nev­er recov­er from.

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    1. Yeah, but the per­son who wrote it was a woman!

      Ain’t that a kick in the keister!

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    2. Sounds like the kind of effem­i­nate, child­ish bullsh|t response a Karen would sub­scribe to. XD

      Lady, I’d be more con­cerned with not dying alone and unloved out of inabil­i­ty to find some­one who’ll tol­er­ate your nonsense.

      Reply

    1. How orig­i­nal. Must have had to real­ly put on your think­ing cap to come up with such a wit­ty, urbane com­ment. The Bard, him­self, has noth­in’ on ol’ Com­mu­nism is Bad, here: tru­ly, the voice of his generation.

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  4. Extreme­ly sex­ist or bru­tal­ly hon­est, or a mix­ture of both? I can’t imag­ine the char­ac­ter in the song got many girl­friends, even in the sixties.

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  5. Con­text of that era is appar­ent­ly mean­ing­less with some of these picks, except the Crys­tals’ pick.. “Stu­pid Girl” and “Back Street Girl” ” by the Stones, and “Hey Lit­tle Girl” , the semi-one hit won­der by the Syn­di­cate Of Sound are more sex­ist then the inno­cence of Les­ley’s and Dusty’s hits. Lou Christie’s is more unchained lust than sex­ist. It appears the woman in the song has caught the lust as well. Not a good pick. He got him­self banned on some sta­tions with “Rhap­sody In The Rain” for the line, “Mak­ing love to the rhythm pf the wind­shield wipers.” “Wives And Lovers”? Maybe. It was aimed more at the kids’ par­ents than the kids.You could have made “I Say A Lit­tle Prayer” an hon­or­able men­tion along with the Bea­t­les’ “You Can’t Do That”. How could you leave out Jim­my Soul’s “If You Want To Be Hap­py”; still fun to sing 55 years later!

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  6. I remem­ber LOVING this song when I was younger. Then I lis­tened to the lyrics. Want­ed to tell the girl to laugh at the singer and walk away like a boss.

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  7. Yes, the lyrics are chau­vin­is­tic by 21st Cen­tu­ry stan­dards, but the hook is great! Lou Christie had one of the most dynam­ic pop falset­tos of the 60’s. When they hit the cho­rus, he’s right up there with those superb back­up girls!

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  8. Noth­ing he said was wrong save the request that she “wait for him”. If he were tru­ly con­fi­dent in him­self, he’d focus on pro­fes­sion­al con­cerns and devel­op­ing him­self as a man. He could then come back to the dat­ing mar­ket at his peak and mar­ry some sweet thing in her late teens/early twen­ties with the mind to fol­low his lead and start a fam­i­ly with him.

    By ask­ing her to wait, he was doing a dis­ser­vice to both, giv­en he did­n’t sound like he could find anoth­er girl (over three bil­lion fish in the sea and that soul-mate crap is non­sense), there­by sell­ing him­self short AND string­ing along this girl whose bio­log­i­cal clock is tick­ing and can’t afford to wait.

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