Here is Dion’s signature hit, 1961’s “The Wanderer”…
The song is ranked #243 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.The lyrics (the song was written by Ernie Maresca) , for those of you who are lyrically challenged, are as follows…
Oh well, I’m the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are, well you know that I’m around
I kiss ’em and I love ’em cause to me they’re all the same
I hug ’em and I squeeze ’em they don’t even know my nameThey call me the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, aroundOh well, there’s Flo on my left and then there’s Mary on my right
And Janie is the girl well that I’ll be with tonight
And when she asks me, which one I love the best?
I tear open my shirt and I show “Rosie” on my chestCause I’m the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, aroundOh well, I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
And I’m as happy as a clown
I with my two fists of iron but I’m going nowhere..Oh yeah, I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
Yeah, I hop right into that car of mine and drive around the worldYeah I’m the wanderer
Yeah, the wanderer
I roam around, around, aroundOh yeah, I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place, I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
I hop right into that car of mine and drive around the worldYeah, cause I’m a wanderer
Yeah, a wanderer
I roam around, around, around, around, around, around
Cause I’m a wanderer
Yeah, a wanderer
I roam around, around, around, around, around, around, around
Cause I’m a wanderer
I’m, a wanderer
I roam around, around, around, around..
Dion, needless to say, is a bad boy; in fact, he sound like a pussy-grabber to me. The song is played fairly frequently on oldies channels. Would it be unethical to play it or sing it in a concert today? If so, how is different from current hip-hop lyrics that celebrate similar conduct?
Your musical Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is this woke-ness test:
Ethics Alarms 
Ah ha ha ha this should be good!
Do you know that as much as I love Dion, every time I have heard this song, from the very beginning, decades ago, my reaction was “What an asshole!”
And maybe that was the intent. Dion has said that the song was about the kind of bad boy that women were somehow drawn to—isn’t that a legitimate subject for a song?
“isn’t that a legitimate subject for a song?”
I think it is. If it’s not, then wouldn’t it similarly be wrong for an actor to act out a ‘bad boy’ role in the movies?
A great example of the slippery slope of PC and ethics when it gets applied to art.
I guess I’m coming down on “it’s a song,” as an answer. Who’s to say you can’t write a song about bad boys? And if it’s said in the first person, well what’s wrong with that mode of story-telling?
”Who’s to say you can’t write a song about bad boys?”
Or about bad ♫Before I Put Another Notch ♫On My Lipstick Case♫ grrrlz?
+1 Pat Benatar reference
charlesgreen wrote, “Ah ha ha ha this should be good!”
I was just about to post the exact same thing!
The lyrics suggest that the females are aware of his behavior and therefore accept it.
There are many songs with lyrics that can be considered abhorent by the perpetually offended. Nothing in the song suggests that Dion advocates other should behave similarly.
Where exactly does Van Halen’s Hot for the Teacher fit in to this question – Naked Teacher Principle?
”Where exactly does Van Halen’s Hot for the Teacher fit in to this question”
Not yet woke?
Anywho, I’ve had me some real, and reoccurring, “Hot For The Teacher” moments, for which I’ll never apologize.
Along those lines? Bobby Goldsboro’s “Summer (The First Time)” which debuted the same year I exhausted my HS eligibility.
In all fairness, Dion saw both sides of this:
Here’s my story, it’s sad but true
It’s about a girl that I once knew
She took my love then ran around
With every single guy in town
Yeah I should have known it from the very start
This girl will leave me with a broken heart
Now listen people what I’m telling you
A keep away from a Runaround Sue
I might miss her lips and the smile on her face
The touch of her hair and this girl’s warm embrace
So if you don’t want to cry like I do
A keep away from-a Runaround Sue
Ah, she likes to travel around
She’ll love you and she’ll put you down
Now people let me put you wise
Sue goes out with other guys
Here’s the moral and the story from the guy who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool that she ever knew, they’ll say
Keep away from-a Runaround Sue
Yeah keep away from this girl
I don’t know what she’ll doe
Keep away from Sue
She likes to travel around
She’ll love you and she’ll put you down
Now people let me put you wise
She goes out with other guys
Here’s the moral and the story from the guy who knows
I fell in love and my love still grows
Ask any fool that she ever knew, they’ll say
Keep away from a Runaround Sue
Stay away from that girl
Don’t you know what she’ll do now
Reminds me of a gorgeous song by Nils Lofgren, “Baby’s in the Black Books Now,” which was picked up for a Sopranos episode, bemoaning a more modern “runaround Sue.” Similarly anti-today’s-culture, but that would never have occurred to me outside this blog thread.
And then my generation upped the ante and produced Mambo No. 5. But that one’s not in danger of landing on any Top 500 lists.
I admit I had trouble deciding which NO to pick. Mocking PC won.
How about the ethics of playing WW2 songs? Is it OK to play “Der Fuhrer’s Face” or “We’re Gonna Have to Slap the Dirty Little Jap,” or is it only OK to use them in context of a reenactor event or something like that?
Coincidentally I stumbled across an article along this theme recently.
https://spinditty.com/playlists/Popular-Songs-That-Absolutely-Wouldnt-Fly-Today
There are some real bad ones in there, including John Lennon singing about abusing his partners. Imagine that. (Pun intended.) The Beatles have a number of songs that wouldn’t be acceptable today.
Oh and who can forget Randy Newman’s greatest hit Short People.
Randy Newman’s ability to satirize and skewer is a rare thing indeed.
Here’s his first verse from “My Life is Good”, which is about some folks he knows in Hollywood:
A couple weeks ago
My wife and I
Took a little trip down to
Mexico
Met this young girl there
We brought her back with us
Now she lives with us
In our home
She cleans the hallway
She cleans the stair
She cleans the living room
She wipes the baby’s ass
She drives the kids to school
She does the laundry too
She wrote this song for me
Listen
Yeah
Second try…ahhh, nice to know that SOME things NEVER change!
My poll answer was “Gee, can I sing it to myself, Big Brother?”
One song I have heard fairly often lately on one radio station is George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone.” I enjoy the song, even though it contains the following nonsense (I use ellipses…to try to illustrate the blues-y phrasing…and to highlight the absurdity of the train of thought…):
I broke a thousand hearts…before I met you…
I’ll break a thousand more, baby…before I am through…
I wanna be yours, pretty baby – yours and yours alone…
I’m here to tell ya honey…that I’m bad to the bone…
Doesn’t EVERY girl want a guy who talks to her like that?
The same station plays “Money” by Pink Floyd, and leaves the “shit” out of the “bullshit” at the end of one the song’s phrases, so you just hear “bull…” Annoying! But wait, there’s more: When they play the Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane” – “…been up and down this highway, haven’t seen a [cut/silent]-damned thing” (and that, AFTER they play “…lines on the mirror…lines on her face…”). Go figure: Do take the drugs, but don’t curse God. But the most annoying is when the station plays “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits; “…that little [cut/silent; “f-word” for a homosexual] is a millionaire…” (along with a couple other cuts-to-silence). Despite all that annoyance, I stick with that station, because it plays haunting tunes like this – I dare believe even Jack can relate well with much of this:
Jack can relate to Seger – minus the hair references, of course.
And here’s the girl The Wanderer was looking for – from “T’aint Nobody’s Biz-ness If I Do” first recorded 1922, latest hit on the charts 1990, a few of verses, Bessie Smith version (lyrics now in public domain), fodder for the feminist mob:
If my man ain’t got no money
And I say “take all mine, honey”
‘t ain’t nobody’s bizness if I do, do, do do
If I give him my last nickel
And it leaves me in a pickle
t’aint . . .
———————————–
I’d rather my man would hit me
Than to jump right up and quit me
t’aint . . .
I swear I won’t call no copper
If I’m beat up by my poppa
‘t’aint . . .