The baby boomers are trotting out the celebrations for the 40th
anniversary of the "Summer of Love," complete with all that soggy and groggy
Woodstock nostalgia. Perhaps the singular statement of that summer was the
music and the open celebration of "free love."
All of which, believe it or not, is preferable to what is on the
air this summer.
Start with the big hit "Birthday Sex," which brought quick fame
(which is to say, infamy) to a singer named Jeremih. (Why must these people
always celebrate illiteracy?) His basic lyric is "Don't need candles and
cake / Just need your body to make / Birthday sex." But Jeremih also
elaborates about how he wants sex in the kitchen, on a waterbed and so on.
It's an audio porn movie.
Interestingly, and sadly, few can be found to disapprove of
foisting these "adult situation" lyrics on children. Radio station managers
are, as a group, completely apathetic. But school administrators? The
Chicago Public Schools enlisted their newly famous alumnus Jeremih in an
online Twitter campaign to urge Chicago teens to go back to school this
fall.
At least the Chicago Sun-Times was bold enough to disagree with
this campaign. "We know CPS kids will listen to 'Birthday Sex' and far
raunchier tunes whether Jeremih is a CPS spokesman or not," the paper
editorialized. "We also know CPS must do all it can to deal with its
horrific dropout problem. But that shouldn't include implicitly promoting
the message in 'Birthday Sex,' no matter how appealing the messenger."
Jeremih was not alone in the gutter. The rapper who calls
himself Flo Rida unleashed a big hit with "Right Round," which celebrates
oral sex: "You spin my head right round, right round / When you go down,
when you go down, down." He's not talking about spinning his eyeballs
around.
Dirty lyrics don't keep an "artist" from appearing on the
network morning news programs. They're fine with it, too. On the Aug. 14
"Today" show, the rapper also performed a previous hit song, "Low," with
lyrics like this: "Shawty was hot like a toaster / Sorry but I had to fold
her / Like a pornography poster."