rock songs rejecting casual sex

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i was listening to the Feelies' "Loveless Love" & thinking, it's so great how in this song it's a *boy* who plays in a *rock band* (well, what today would be called an "indie-rock band" but at the time you didn't really have that genre stereotype so it still seemed like something anomolous) & he's saying to a *girl*, no, i don't think that stuff's cool.or ATV's "Love Lies Limp", it's not really about "I can't do it, it's "I don't wanna do it". & lotsa early Modern Lovers songs(of course). But, there aren't many, huh? & don't count early-'60s-type pop songs about monogamy & shit (still prevalent) or anything sung by a girl, i'm talking about when there's an attitude reflected that is totally out of character for the form, that's when statements like that in songs seem to have some actual integrity. Anti-drugs ones too, gimme some of those. i'm totally a real rock fan but i hate all that stupid shit about guys who have to stick their pud in anything that moves & take lots of drugs & shit. even tho i do it myself of course.
just kidding.
except about sticking my pud in anything that moves of course, i'm writing this with my dick inserted in a fan heater.

― duane zarakov, Saturday, 9 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I can only figure out half your post. Whatever.

"TIRED OF SEX" =w= rulz.

For anti-drug I will forward you to the whole of the straightedge catalogue.

― JM, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

'Pretty Girls Make Graves'.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off", Jermaine Stewart
"Don't Let's Start", They Might Be Giants

― tarden, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

indie rock! straight edge! jermaine stewart! ah , this's not what was asking for at all.....OK i might check out that weezer song tho', i'm told they are good (wouldn't know).

― d.zarakov, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Pretty Girls Make Graves? No, that's completely wrong. That first Smiths album is fundamentally gynaphobic - and there is a massive gulf between Morrissey's fear of women's sexuality (supposedly conquered by the time of Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others) and the considered anti-hippy, anti-drug, anti-cheap sex stance of the Modern Lovers, which is so perfectly celebrated in The Boy Looked At Johnny... I don't think there is much to compare to the Feelies/Modern Lovers position, but you can take a line from it to the eulogies to monogamy you get in Will Oldham's recent album (which Tom has written about) or recent Yo La Tengo. Not very rock, I'll admit...

― Mark Morris, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, boo-hoo, I'm sure I'm terribly sorry to get things as wrong as that. I wouldn't know about these obscure acts like 'the Feelies' (who?) or even the Modern Lovers for that matter, but I've just looked again at the question and it still looks to me like 'PGMG' - not one of my favourite Smiths songs at all, by the way - fits the particular request that was made.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Let's try this: 'I don't want a cocaine-sniffing triumph in the park/I don't want to make a rich girl crawl' - Modern Lovers, Someone I Care About

'I could've been wild and I could've been free/But nature played a trick on me... She wants it now/And she will not wait/But she's too rough and I'm too deli-cate' The Smiths, Pretty Girls Make Graves

Case 1: Guy eager to have sex with women, but wants it as part of considered, monogamous relationship rather than a drunken/wired shag.

Case 2: Fey Mancunian who finds himself scared to death when a woman - all flesh and curves and desire - launches herself at him, the panic not unrelated to the fact that the narrator is gay. He's not saying 'Leave me alone unless you're willing to spend the next forty years of your life with me'; he's saying 'Piss off, your tits fill me with a strange horror'. Big diff: no?

As for The Feelies, they were a New Jersey band of the New Wave era who were a fantastic blend of early Talking Heads, Television and - yes - The Modern Lovers. Track down a copy of their first album (Crazy Rhythms) which came out on Rough Trade in about '80s

― Mark Morris, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Big difference - yes, if you say so; but in both songs the male narrator refuses sex; which is why it roughly fits the terms of the question.

'The narrator is gay'? I'm not sure that I can remember evidence for that in 'PGMG'. Maybe you think 'Nature played this trick on me' is that evidence. Which is relatively convincing, but I've always supposed that the ambiguity / grey areas / coyness were the point in Morrissey re. sexuality. The idea that his narrators / characters are 'gay' doesn't really do that justice.

I bet Nick Dastoor agrees with me, even if no-one else does.

― the pinefox, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Yeah, I always thought the fact that the songs are largely non-gender specific contributed to the appeal of The Smiths. They're not just a band for sad blokes you know (despite what their unimaginative detractors say),in fact I know more girlie Smiths fans than blokie ones.

― DG, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I dunno if it is, but I think Alcoholiday by Teenage Fanclub is a song against sex (neutral milk hotel! :)..."Went to bed but I'm not ready"

― james e l, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Yes, I think Alcoholiday fits the bill - as I understand it ("baby I've been fucked already...") Going back to the Smiths, I still think that the sequencing of Miserable Lie and Pretty Girls on the first album screams pathological fear of vagina, although I'll admit that this didn't occur to me for a couple of years after I heard it. Yes, a lot of women loved the Smiths, but plenty of women love AC/DC and Ice Cube. And anyway, Morrissey clearly always liked women, as long as they weren't trying to have their wicked way with him... and an awaful lot of women dig ga

― Mark Morris, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Uh, that should read "an awful lot of women dig gay men"...

― Mark Morris, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Wasn't the giveaway the insouciant way he sang "Girlfriend in a coma, I know, I know, it's really serious"? As if the only reason he wanted to be seen to be caring was that not caring made him look bad...

― mark s, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

What about "I Don't Want Dick Tonight" by Lil Kim? Not rock, and not completely giving up on sex (I don't want dick tonight, eat my pussy right) but definitely worth mentioning.

― Alexis Dicks, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"Saving Ourselves for Marriage" and "I'm Not That Kind of Boy," off the incomparable Picnic of Love CD by the oh-so-lovely-and- talented Anal Cunt.

― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Those sound good.

― duane, Sunday, 10 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Harry K tel?

― -- Mike Hanley, Monday, 11 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

There's a Faint (neo-synth pop band on indie Saddle Creek Records) song that's actually called "Casual Sex", and it starts:

"Casual sex: is it irrational? YES!"

So there's another one.

― Larms, Monday, 11 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Even thought it's ostensibly an anti-drug anthem, "Kicks" by Paul Revere (and Melcher) could be interpreted as warning off all the cheap thrills of the love era. Likewise, I think that Bowie's "Young Americans" describes hot car sex, but there's something sort of sad and cautionary about it: "It took him minutes, took her nowhere..." etc.

― swelle, Monday, 11 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Oh, who can forget Minor Threat: "Don't drink, don't smoke, don't fuck, at least I can still fucking think!!"

― swelle, Monday, 11 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Never wanted to be your weekend lover
Only wanted to be some kind of friend
I could never steal you from another
It's such a shame our friendship had to end
Purple Rain, Purple Rain

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 11 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

I just realised, is it really legitimate to put in your question, Duane, 'and I don't mean songs sung by girls.' I think you're asking for pro-monogamy sentiments spoken 'in protest,' 'against expectation.' And not ALL girls, in ALL cultural circumstances, are EXPECTED to voice pro-monogamy sentiments. I thought that for instance the female reggae singers who sang pro-monogamy songs were doing so from a vantage point slightly outside of cultural expectation, or at least being a bit 'uppity.' For instance 'Melody Life,' by whom I've forgotten, and 'Take you for a ride' by Girl Satchmo; and 'Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls' by TLC, all these songs exemplify the kind of 'protest' voice I think you're asking for here.

― Maryann, Tuesday, 12 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

Tracer Hand - That Prince song plays a lot on the radio, and it's bad to hear if something sad just happened to you. Not that that ever happened to me, or anything. That's funny about Prince; cos he has that song 'Head' which is about, oh, so you're just about to get married? Don't worry, just do this with me; and Sister, speaks for itself; but then he also has some kind of moralising, anti-modern- decadance thing; AND, a sort of realist, cinema-verite 'subtleties of a deep relationship' thing, reflected in Purple Rain and 'When You Were Mine' (When you were mine/you were all I ever wanted to do . . .)

sleazy moralising realist . . .

― ms, Tuesday, 12 June 2001 00:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

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