Something 4 The Weekend # 61

It's a good thing The Knacks' "Good Girls Don't" addresses the social and sexual life of a teenaged boy, and not that of lead singer Doug Fieger himself, because the chorus of this song contains an infamous couplet about a high school girl sitting on the face of said teenaged boy. Fieger was 27 years old at the time this song was written and recorded, and as much as many adult men might fantasize about having a sexual relationship with a 16 or 17 year old girl, the reality is, of course, that it's not only illegal, but just plain creepy.

The Knack: The Knack: "Good Girls Don't" [mp3]

This song was the second single released from this album, and as such, it got a fair amount of radio play in the summer of 1979. At first, that line about the girl sitting on the boy's face was left intact, but of course, this being America, it wasn't long before enough complaints from the easily offended to the FCC led to the line being changed from "when she's sitting on your face" to "when she puts you in your place", which made sense within the context of the song, and followed the original rhyme scheme, but ultimately does nothing but ruin it, especially for a 13 year old boy such as myself.

We shouldn't be surprised by any of this, because after all, this was the era in which the same easily offended people and the FCC forced The Charlie Daniels Band to change "son of a bitch" to "son of a gun" in their big hit song, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia", which is perhaps the lamest incident of government censorship I can think of...

Anyways, I have only heard "Good Girls Don't" once on the radio since that summer of '79, probably about 5 or 6 years ago, and thankfully, the original face-sitting lyric was back on the air. That doesn't mean we've become any less puritanical over the last 20 years, but rather that the chances of offending a bunch of middle aged folks (classic rock radio's demographic) are slim to none. We've got bigger things to worry about nowadays, like hoping and praying our kids don't die in a meaningless war, or making house payments.

Hotcha! Hank