And talked the same,
And thought the same;
Safety in conformity.
And
the music that we listened to
On
the AM top forty stations,
Helped
us learn what to say,
What
to think,
For
there’s safety in conformity.
Girls
were girls,
Boys were boys,
And never the twain shall meet
(except in the backseat
listening to the
backbeat
On
the AM top forty stations.)
The
Beehive Hair-do’s were hard as a rock,
The
BMOC was always a jock,
The
ROTC was a favorite club,
And the military an honorable goal[1].
American
Bandstand set the trend
And
enforced the gender lines-
Sweet,
young, nubile girls
Entranced
by singing of American Heroes[2]
And My
Boyfriend’s Back
He’s the Leader of the Pack[3]
And the boys really danced like boys[4]
With
their well-groomed cuts
And button-down shirts
Twisting
for
Every
girl took her cue from the teen idols of the day[5],
And every idol let them know
What to be in every way.
Not
only how to dress and dance,
But even how to think.
To
agree to be objectified
Let
me explain to you the link.
Girls
were merely possessions
Obsessed
with high school minutiae,
Busy
with being worshiped afar,
Being
owned, then driven away.
The
girl was an object of desire
Or
frittered her life away
With
Will he love me tomorrow
And dreaming of One Fine Day.
So boys will be boys and their ears always show
Girls
will be girls getting ready to go
(Do
you hear the backbeat
while sitting in the backseat
On
the AM top forty radio?)
Sitting
up in the backseat
Listening
to a new sound on the AM dial
Sunday
night there comes a roar
That
screams out of every door
Four lads from
And the girls shriek and faint
It
starts a new wave
On
the top forty radio dial.
All
of a sudden,
Moptops were all
the rage
For
both the boys and the girls
While
the parents hoped it was just a stage
In development
An
androgynous angst,
A
Bohemian delusion,
A bit of gender confusion.
Hear
the changing backbeat
From
the front of the backseat
On
the top forty AM station
1966
The
chicks are diggin’ softly
With
the power that they have now
In
the music of the Rubber Soul
With
a group that’s known as NOW[7]
With
a movement gaining steady,
Can
you say “Norwegian Wood” now?
The
girls they strut with self-assurance
Maybe
you can drive my car
They say,
These
songs are about chicks being strong
Out to make it their own
way.
Don’t have to marry to move out
From your mom and dad.
And for once a boy is saying
As
you kick him out of your pad.
And listen to that backbeat
Get
you out of the backseat
To
really hear what’s on the station.
The
four lads from
With
their frou-frou frocks and long hair-dos
Saw
the birds as more than things
Saw
the chicks for what they’re worth
Singing
hurt and praises to the moon.
The
mother’s are reading The Feminist Mystique[8]
The
girl’s aren’t going to take anymore
The
Beatle’s just released Rain[9]
Getting
down with the rhythm
Going
inside the mind
We’ve gone transcendental
Doing pot instead of wine.
The
counter culture blossomed
The
girls took off their bra’s
The
boys wore beads and flowers
Singing Ob la di Ob la da[10]
No longer an object
The
man-
No longer restrained,
There’s a blending of the sexes
A
blurring of the gender lines
We
are now retrained.
Being
driven by the backbeat,
No
longer driving from the backseat,
The
girls can rock and roll.
