Betty Davis / The Columbia Years / 2016
Politician Man
brash, playful, predatory-confident
A raw funk vamp that turns the language of politics into an extended sexual come-on, with Davis playing a swaggering seductress who treats desire as a matter of personal doctrine. The studio chatter left at the start and end frames the whole thing as unfinished, live, and unapologetically physical rather than polished.
sexual power and control satire of political rhetoric female sexual agency performance and authenticity seduction as ideology
Who's speaking
A first-person female narrator addresses a lover or target directly, using commanding imperatives; she is fully in control of the exchange and not particularly reliable as a political thinker, since the politics are clearly a pretext for sex.
What happens
The song doesn't develop a plot so much as escalate a single scenario: an invitation into a car, framed as a demonstration of the narrator's personal politics. Repetition intensifies the come-on until spoken asides make explicit that the invitation has moved into the back seat, and the track ends by breaking the fourth wall with studio talk about overdubbing.
How it's built
Built on a looping verse-and-refrain structure rather than a conventional verse/chorus/bridge arc; the same two or three vocal cells recur and mutate through ad-libbed interjections and backing vocal echoes. The lack of a bridge or resolution mirrors the song's insistence on repetition as its own kind of argument -- the political girl keeps 'practicing what she preaches.'
Section by section
Opening spoken intro
Before any music proper begins, we hear direction being given about tone and delivery, which immediately signals that authenticity here is staged rather than naive -- the looseness is a chosen effect.
First verse and refrain
“Get into my big black car”
The invitation is blunt and repeated, establishing the car as both literal vehicle and symbol of the narrator's control over the encounter; repetition here functions like a chant or pickup line rather than a narrative event.
'Political girl' refrain
By claiming to be a political girl who practices what she preaches, the narrator recasts consistency and conviction -- normally civic virtues -- as sexual constancy and appetite, satirizing political self-branding.
'Support the women' verse
“leanin' to the right”
This verse plays most directly with political vocabulary, professing solidarity with women while admitting a contradictory lean and a willingness to fight, suggesting a persona unbothered by ideological consistency as long as she gets what she wants.
Ad-libbed 'back seat' interjections
Backing vocals and asides make the metaphor collapse into literal description, confirming that the 'politics' being demonstrated all along were physical rather than ideological.
Closing studio dialogue
The song ends by acknowledging its own recording process, undercutting the fantasy scenario with a shrug of professional matter-of-factness, reinforcing the persona's confidence and control even outside the fiction.
Craft
- extended metaphor
- Political language -- practicing what you preach, political affiliation, support for a cause -- is mapped onto sexual seduction, so that 'politics' becomes a coded stand-in for personal desire and dominance.
- double entendre
- Lines about a car, leaning right, and fighting operate on two levels at once, literal political posturing and physical seduction, letting the song wink at censors while being explicit in intent.
- anaphora
- The repeated invitation into the car and the repeated self-identification as a 'political girl' function like a refrain or slogan, mimicking campaign repetition to comic and hypnotic effect.
- meta-commentary/frame device
- The spoken studio dialogue at the beginning and end breaks the fictional scenario, reminding the listener this is a constructed performance and adding a layer of self-aware humor.
Reading it
Read most persuasively, the song is a satirical strip-tease of political language, using terms like practicing what one preaches or supporting women to mock campaign rhetoric while asserting unapologetic female sexual agency. A secondary reading takes the 'politics' talk as pure wordplay with no real satirical target, existing mainly to be titillating and rhythmically catchy; the studio banter supports this lighter reading by treating the whole track as playful performance rather than pointed commentary.
Context
Betty Davis recorded material for Columbia in the mid-1970s that went unreleased until compiled decades later; her work is known for explicit sexuality and funk grit that unsettled major labels at the time, which may explain why this loose, unpolished track stayed shelved for so long. Specific biographical details about this session are not something I can verify beyond that general context.
Listen for
- the way call-and-response backing vocals turn the phrase 'political girl' into a chant
- the shift in energy when spoken asides push the metaphor toward explicit description
- the deliberately raw, unedited studio talk bookending the track
- the tension between confident vocal delivery and the loose, almost unfinished groove
About Betty Davis
Betty Davis was an American singer, songwriter, and model. She was known for her controversial sexually oriented lyrics and performance style, and was the second wife of trumpeter Miles Davis.
1944 - 2022 / United States
Full biography and catalogue