Sexist Song #2

The 6 Sexistiest Songs of the ’60s — #2

He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)” – The Crystals (1962)

He hit me and it felt like a kiss
He hit me but it did­n’t hurt me
He could­n’t stand to hear me say
That I’d been with some­one new
And when I told him I had been untrue

He hit me and it felt like a kiss (felt like a kiss)
He hit me and I knew he loved me
If he did­n’t care for me,
I could have nev­er made him mad
But he hit me and I was glad

Yes, he hit me and it felt like a kiss (felt like a kiss)
He hit me and I knew I loved him
And then, he took me in his arms
With all the ten­der­ness there is
And when he kissed me, he made me his

****

He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss) is actu­al­ly the only song on this list that I active­ly dis­like.  This song is just all kinds of wrong, sung from the point of view of a vic­tim of domes­tic abuse who excus­es the vio­lence with log­ic that’s been twist­ed to the lim­it.  It’s sad, and the fact that the song is based on the true-life expe­ri­ence (and inter­nal log­ic) of  “The Loco­mo­tion” singer, Lit­tle Eva, makes it even sad­der.  To be fair to the ‘60s, this song did receive some push­back soon after it was released, so… that’s good.  In con­clu­sion, this may be the most messed up song ever writ­ten… and yet, some­how, still not the most sex­ist song of the ‘60s…

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12 thoughts on “The 6 Sexistiest Songs of the ’60s — #2

  1. Yes, I agree. I’ve nev­er heard this song before. Interesting…

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  2. omg I nev­er heard the lyrics like that before. UGH yuck I want to wipe it off.

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  3. Omg. Know­ing it is based on some­one’s real life expe­ri­ence makes so much worse.
    🙁

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  4. I’m sor­ry, it this song that has to be even worse than the Jack Jones song. Phys­i­cal abuse, right there for all to see, yep this is the worse. I have heard this over the years and always thought, “WTF?”

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    1. I’m def­i­nite­ly with you. Look­ing good was def­i­nite­ly a part of the 60’s, phys­i­cal vio­lence against women was prob­a­bly not any more com­mon than it is today.

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      1. …phys­i­cal vio­lence against women was prob­a­bly not any more com­mon than it is today.”

        […]

        (>ლ)

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  5. I heard this song for the first time a few weeks ago on Spo­ti­fy of all places!! . I was shocked, my jaw lit­er­al­ly dropped and I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and we thought “Who would write this, and how could any woman in her right mind sing it?”

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  6. I don’t dis­like this song. It was writ­ten by the famous Gof­fin and King writ­ing part­ner­ship. Lit­tle Eva was their babysit­ter (She sat for their daugh­ter, Louise Gof­fin, who would lat­er become a singer/songwriter herself).
    In my mind it’s the wrong song writ­ten for the right rea­sons, Unfor­tu­nate­ly, women in this sit­u­a­tion do some­times see it this way, which is why some domes­tic vio­lence goes on for so long. Car­ole King said she want­ed the song to show how the vic­tim felt and at the same time make peo­ple realise just how wrong that is. She did admit that with hind­sight it did­n’t work.

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  7. It is evi­dent both par­ties are tox­ic here and this is a rela­tion­ship built on [A] promis­cu­ous womanhood
    (because vir­ginal women don’t to f*ck around to goad you into react­ing or because the rela­tion­ship’s soured) 

    and [B] incon­sis­tent manhood
    (because strong men know bet­ter than to humor undis­ci­plined and emo­tion­al­ly volatile females; know bet­ter than to become soft­ened and domes­ti­cat­ed there­by, thus loos­ing said broads’ respect; and know bet­ter than to lash out in a wom­an­ly fash­ion dur­ing a fit of rage instead of hav­ing the greater self-respect to walk away).

    Nev­er­the­less, it’s also a TRUE song, in that it demon­strates two givens of inter­s­sex­u­al dynam­ics: (1) that women are not unfaith­ful to men they respect and (2), that they respect a man who stands up for him­self (even if it is in a wom­an­ly way).

    The rea­son the woman feels “like a kiss” when she’s struck is because, in respond­ing to her (albeit child­ish­ly) instead of just bitch­ing about it and beg­ging her to stop, the guy stands up for her­self and THAT is some­thing she loved in the first place, before he grad­u­al­ly lost the behav­ioral man­ner­isms and atti­tudes that she respect­ed. Grant­ed, he’d be an idiot to take her back because, clear­ly she was­n’t the girl he thought he’d got­ten togeth­er with and “once a cheatress, always a cheatress” but, he assert­ed him­self instead of just “tak­ing it” or beg­ging her like a sub­mis­sive to keep the rela­tion­ship afloat. In an indi­rect way, that’s man­ly and, respectable.

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  8. Just found this list.. glad its still around…abominable. any song esp one mak­ing these ref­er­ences should be banned from ever been used again. 🙈

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