“Songs of Yesteryear That You Couldn’t Get Away With Recording Today”

why doesn't anybody name their kid "Garland" anymore?

Garland Green - Don't Think I'm a Violent Guy

The theme for today’s post, admittedly, is kind of a weird one. What if I told you that I was in possession of a song that's sympathetic to domestic violence where the pro(/an-?)tagonist begins the song threatening to “tear up this place” unless his girl opens up the door. He’s just got done beating her up and now he’s outside trying to get back in. He knows she’s angry at him because he “lightly smacked [her] pretty little face”, but he didn’t mean to do it and, besides, she pushed him to it. He spends the rest of the song justifying why he smacked up his girl, saying he’s sorry and imploring his girl/the listener to not think of him as a violent guy. At the climax of the song, he tells his girl through the door that “a little smack like, it couldn’t make a baby cry. So, LET ME IN”. Won over by his empty apologies, his minimizing of her pain, and his general incorrigibility, she lets him back in.

What the hell?

My dad used to tell me that he could beat up on mom if he'd wanted to, it just meant he couldn't sleep at home. Hopefully that comes off as humorous as it was intended.

Not even Dave Chappelle, R. Kelly, or Dave Chappelle-acting-like-R.Kelly (ala “Piss on You…the Remix”) could record a song like this anymore. Spousal abuse and domestic violence aren’t crimes that inspire much sympathy these days. Where there is no sympathy, surely there is no humor. Chris Rock will at least touch the subject, admitting that he wouldn’t hit a woman, but he’d shake the sh!t outta one. Uh, let’s not dwell too long on that one. (As this post shows, it's REALLY hard to create humor out of beatin on your wife.) Sorry Garland, when you’re a woman-beater, you’re a violent guy, and everybody is thinking it.