Under a rock

Can we just talk about how far under a rock I have lived for the past several years? Because it's a long way. The trouble with living under a rock is that you don't know you're there because if you knew about the popular culture things you'd missed, well, you wouldn't have missed them. To put things in perspective, I still think Adele is new and trendy, and I've heard of Scissor Sisters but I don't think I've ever heard them. It was sheer luck last year that I ever managed to know about Gangnam Style and Gotye and Call me maybe.

But still. There was the Miley Cyrus thing, which I heard about because it was all over my Twitter and my Facebook feeds, but I'd never heard of this other person in the striped suit that she was lap-dancing all over (much more briefly, in fact, when I finally watched the clip today, than it was made out to be by all the scandalized media outlets). And then I found out his name was Robin Thicke and that he used to go by the stagename Thicke, which I dunno maybe I'm old but that just sounds like a terrible name to me.

So I'd seen reference to his song, called Blurred Lines, which sounded to me like something ponderous and worthy like Tubular Bells (not that I've heard that either, to my knowledge, but it's all instrumental, right? Not right?). And I saw the lyrics to it somewhere and it was all terribly misogynistic and horrible and not something any right-minded feminist could condone.

Then a couple of days ago in the car, completely unrelatedly, I happened to swing by a radio station that was neither Classic Rock nor Classical NPR, and I heard an eminently summery catchy tune. I tried to remember the words so I could maybe find it again, but they seemed to be something awfully generic about a "good day" and "having fun" or whatever. I was afraid I'd never manage to remember, and, as predicted, by the time I was home I had no idea what I'd heard.

You can see where this is going. On a whim this afternoon I put "Blurred Lines" into You Tube and discovered that the nasty lyrics and the catchy tune went together like carrots and peas. And then I watched the video and was duly apalled by all those women cavorting in flesh-toned dental floss without a single underwire between the lot of them, while Mr Thicke remained fully clad, letting us know exactly what he thinks a good girl does. Gross. I feel yucky.

The thing is, if you watch the Jimmy Fallon version, the lyrics aren't nearly so egregious. Could we all just agree to do that, and maybe Thicko (as he'd be known in Dublin) will learn the error of his ways?