Wet And Gushy

I offered up some lyrics this week in a co-write. My collaborator asked if I’d dirty them up a bit. (I didn’t disagree. I can be a little vanilla sometimes.) He suggested I reference “WAP” (Aka “Wet Ass P*ssy”) Cardi B’s new single which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and broke the record for the largest opening streaming week in US history. 

In the lyric Cardi B and featured artist Megan Thee Stallion ‘discuss’ how they want men to please them. Here are some of the ways: 

Put this p*ssy right in your face

Swipe your nose like a credit card

I want you to park that big Mack truck

Right in this little garage

We’ve come a long way from Faith Hill’s “The Way You Love Me” or Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody.”

I may have to tell my co-writer I’m not the girl who can channel that vibe. And I can’t fake it either. That said having given the song a closer listen, I had some thoughts. And they’re probably not what you think they are. 

The lyric may be explicit but it’s not without craft. It’s filled with never-heard-before fresh rhymes (something that all songwriters strive for), it has a point of view — a particular kind of uncensored desire which can’t possibly be conveyed with vanilla visuals. We can have a different conversation about gratuitous vulgarity, female objectification (and self-objectification) as the material may be offensive to some, but in my view it authentically represents these artists. These ladies are not faking. 

That doesn’t mean it’s the kind of track I’m gonna download to enjoy offline. I do however, appreciate it for what it is. In addition, as a constant observer of pop-music trends I’m interested in where “explicit” has come from and where it’s going.

In 1997 there was push-back on “Bitch.” Meredith and I thought we’d have to bleep it out or substitute it with “witch.” Fast-forward 20 years, the word “bitch” is rather ordinary (even though Facebook still considers it profanity and refuses to circulate targeted ads which include it in the text.)

In 2006 when my daughter Layla was 9 I remember being in the car and muting the volume when Rihanna sang “Hey boy, I really wanna see if you can go downtown with a girl like me.” I might have convinced her that Rihanna wanted her new honey to accompany her to Soho for some retail therapy but I didn’t want to lie. Truth: I wasn’t ready for the questions. She wasn’t ready for the answers. 

And here were are in 2020 with Wet Ass P*ssy. No subtlety there. Nothing vague about it. How does a mother explain that to her daughter?

There is a clean version for the faint-of-heart or for those of us who want an option for our tweens. It’s called “Wet And Gushy.” Perhaps it’s more suitable for youngsters because it evokes Play Dough or better yet Gak — that slimy stuff kids make in Kindergarten — but even with the age appropriate title and some alternative lyrics (that ‘?-word-I can’t-say’ is replaced with “baby” and p*ssy with “cookie”), much else remains the same. In fact the chant in the explicit version — “there’s some whores in this house” (a Frank Ski sample) — runs constant throughout the clean version as well. So one has to wonder whether the clean version was rendered simply to satisfy (or mock) DSP Standards and Practices because I assure you, you still won’t wanna blast it for kids in the backseat. 

A karaoke mix is also available but beware…the chant about the ‘whores in the house’ remains in the background. I never got so much use out of this emoji: 😳

But here we are in 2020. Art is subjective. Change is energizing. Nothing stays the same. Every division of the art world has gotten edgier and more daring over the years be it TV, film, advertising, billboards and of course…song lyrics. I suppose, as time goes on it will get even more shocking. That’s the way it is. I’m just wondering...where do we go from here?

(I had to replace the original official video with this one as the “vivid” original was removed.)

Thanks for reading, my friends. Have a listen to my new album, 2.0 etc... For fun stories about how my songs came to be get a copy of “Confessions of a Serial Songwriter.” If you'd like to receive my blog via email, please click here. Follow me on Twitter and Insta. Visit my Serial Songwriter Facebook Page. Stay Safe! ☮️