I like to think of myself as an informed human being. Relatively in the know. Despite this, I’ve always been particularly late to the game when it came to picking up on blatant sexual innuendos found in my favourite 00s childhood songs.
For example, I learnt that Kelis’ ‘Milkshakes’ wasn’t about Kelis’ actual milkshakes when I was on my year 9 hike. Just last month, in fact, I discovered that Christina Aguilera’s ‘Genie in a Bottle’ wasn’t a wholesome tune about genies being in bottles.
Maybe I wanted to take my pop idols’ words at face value. Maybe I was just fucking naive. I don’t know. Either way, my journey into adulthood has been peppered with jaw-dropping realisations that my favourite prepubescent songs aren’t that innocent.
Each new revelation hits just as hard as the one prior, substantiating the belief that my childhood was a lie.
This latest discovery, though, might possibly be the most mind-boggling of them all…
Last night, at 1AM, I was Googling gay anthems, as you do. I then found myself in this Google wormhole – pressing on recommended link after recommended link – until I ended up on a page listing various songs and their sexual innuendos.
I then scrolled past Rihanna’s ‘Shut Up And Drive’ and, in that very moment, was presented with the dick-punching news that ‘Shut Up And Drive’ isn’t actually about driving.
I know. Shooketh. My naive, innocent bubble had burst.
Looking at the lyrics, it’s now pretty damn obvious that the track is a sex-fuelled, 3-minute-and-32-second tale about a steamy romping session. I mean, she does start the track with, ‘I’ve been looking for a driver who is qualified / So if you think that you’re the one step into my ride’ and, at one point, croons ‘My engine’s ready to explode, explode, explode / So start me up and watch me go, go, go, go’.
So, uh, yeah, I’m an idiot.
It’s clearly a sex song. I get it – the song may as well be called ‘let’s do lots of fucking all night long’ – but I was just so young… and ready to believe this car-driven narrative.
Now, when Rihanna sings ‘Can you handle the curves, can you run all the lights / If you can, baby boy, then we can go all night’, I will no longer assume that Rihanna and her suitor are going on a wholesome night-time drive around the block.
I’ll let myself out (of the car) now.
