emilym

To continue with the playlist theme several of us have been riffing off of these past weeks, I will present a few of the many songs to which Whitman could relate.  As I was reading “Children of Adam,” I was listening to Judas Priest quite a bit, so that inspired the idea for tonight’s post.  I was sitting in Starbucks thinking “I have to read this stuff, and have something interesting to say/write about it,” when inspiration struck.  Something about the overtly sexual themes of the poems in “Children of Adam” and the sexually charged heavy metal music of Judas Priest blended really well in my mind.

So, I started thinking of songs that are obviously about sex, like Ted Nugent’s “Love Grenade” or Abba’s “Gimme! Gimme !Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” or Judas Priest’s “Turbo Lover.”  Then I started thinking about the differences between the songs.  “Love Grenade” and “Turbo Lover,” like many songs of the “hair” metal genre, are considered vulgar and bawdy, and quite possibly very offensive to some women. (There must be something wrong with me as a feministic woman because I find “Love Grenade” hilarious and ridiculous, not offensive.)  Abba’s song, on the other hand, isn’t vulgar or bawdy because it doesn’t describe or illustrate a sex act in any way; it just alludes to one.  Because Whitman openly described sex acts, he was considered vulgar and bawdy in his day.  Artists who follow in Whitman’s footsteps, like the heavy metal bands, are shunned by the dominant culture and embraced by those interested in new, edgier art.

The hyperlinks lead to websites featuring the lyrics.  I apologize for the grammar and other issues that tend to offend us English major geeks.  These are due to errors in transcribing, not the artists’ writing.  Whitman would probably approve of the various deviations of language, but I don’t.

Now that we’ve looked at the contemporary songs’ treatment of sex, we can look at Whitman’s similar treatment.   In “A Woman Waits for Me,” Whitman’s speaker does two things that were unheard of in his day—describe sexual acts, and admit to having more than one partner in life.  Whitman writes, “I will go stay with her who waits for me, and with those women that are warm-blooded and sufficient for me” (“Woman” 12).  In this line Whitman goes from a singular “woman” to a plural “women.”  This seems to be the single woman the speaker’s going to “love” in the time frame of the poem—and the other women like her, whom he’ll “love” in the future.  In any case, the speaker has no intention of marrying the woman, and the poem gives no indication of the speaker planning further nights with her.  This “one night stand” isn’t shocking anymore, but in the 19^th century it certainly was.

The next shock within the poem is Whitman’s overtly sexual lines:

It is I, you women, I make my way,

I am stern, acrid, large, undissuadable, but I love you,

I do not hurt you any more than is necessary for you,

I pour the stuff to start sons and daughters fit for these States, I               press with slow rude muscle,

I brace myself effectually, I listen to no entreaties,

I dare not withdraw till I deposit what has so long accumulated                within me (“Woman” 25-30).

These lines really don’t require much explanation.  “Pour the stuff” and “deposit what has so long accumulated within me” are obvious references to ejaculation.  The rest of the lines are aligned with the sexual theme.  Again, these lines are relatively shocking now, so it is understandable how shocking they were in the time they were written.

If you look at these lines and then look at the lyrics for the three songs above, you can see how sex continues to be a major theme in art—and can be done tastefully (Abba) or bawdily (Judas Priest and Ted Nugent).

Below are the videos for the three songs discussed.  Enjoy.

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