Results for “double standards in dating”

Songs

Double Flash

Leftfield

"Double Flash" is an instrumental cut from Leftfield's second album Rhythm and Stealth, built from layered percussion, pulsing…

mechanization duality/doubling tension and release

Double Life

The Cars

A synth-driven new wave track that uses driving and traffic imagery as an extended metaphor for a woman leading a secret,…

duplicity and secrecy urban alienation surveillance/control

Trouble On Double Time

Free

A brash blues-rock boast about womanizing that curdles into confession, as the narrator's swagger about juggling multiple…

infidelity and desire self-awareness vs self-destruction masculine bravado

Feather

Sabrina Carpenter

A breakup kiss-off built around the image of weightlessness: the narrator cuts off a noncommittal, demeaning partner and…

emptying out a bad relationship self-respect and boundaries detachment as liberation

Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing

Salt‐N‐Pepa

A straightforward 1990s feminist-rap anthem built around a chant-like hook that reclaims female identity as strength rather than…

gender equality female solidarity double standards

Hard out Here

Lily Allen

This is a satirical pop track in which Lily Allen adopts the voice of the pop-industry woman she's critiquing, deploying…

gender double standards objectification in pop culture sexism in the music industry

The Lady Is a Tramp

Frank Sinatra

A Rodgers and Hart standard in which every socially disreputable trait ascribed to the title character turns out, on inspection,…

class satire nonconformity irony of reputation

Follow Your Arrow

Kacey Musgraves

A catalog of no-win social judgments builds into a plainspoken anthem for living by one's own compass rather than trying to…

double standards sexual and social freedom religious hypocrisy

You

Bill Withers

A confrontational, deeply personal song in which Bill Withers turns the tables on someone who has been trying to convince him…

gaslighting and psychological manipulation hypocrisy infidelity and betrayal

Slip It In

Black Flag

A sneering, title-track provocation that opens with a crude seduction skit and collapses into a chant accusing an unnamed woman…

sexual hypocrisy and double standards desire versus denial control and degradation

That Don't Impress Me Much

Shania Twain

A catalog of male vanity types—the know-it-all, the pretty boy, the car-obsessive—each dismissed with the same deflating…

vanity and self-regard female agency and standards superficiality vs substance

Doo Wop (That Thing)

Lauryn Hill

Lauryn Hill delivers a two-part sermon on sex, self-respect, and modern relationship dysfunction, addressing women in the first…

sexual double standards nostalgia for a simpler past personal responsibility

A Rose Is Still a Rose

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin plays elder counselor to a wounded young woman, using the image of a rose to insist that sexual betrayal doesn't…

self-worth after betrayal intergenerational female solidarity resilience

Not Fair

Lily Allen

Lily Allen turns a breakup-song template inside out, using cheerful country-pop instrumentation to deliver a frank complaint…

sexual dissatisfaction double standards in relationships female desire and entitlement to pleasure

A Man Ain't Supposed to Cry

Joe Williams

A torch ballad built on a single, brutal rule: grief is permitted to women but forbidden to men. Joe Williams sings as a man…

repressed masculinity heartbreak emotional stoicism

Part-Time Lover

Stevie Wonder

A slick mid-80s dance-pop track built around the mechanics of a secret affair, complete with coded signals and cover stories.…

infidelity and secrecy coded communication double standards in relationships

Cuddly Toy

The Monkees

A breezy, music-hall-ish pop song that uses toybox and Christmas-morning imagery to deliver a surprisingly cold kiss-off,…

disposability sexual double standards false innocence

I Don't Mind

Usher

A club anthem built around a single reassurance: the narrator claims not to be bothered that his partner strips for a living,…

sex work and stigma possessiveness disguised as tolerance status and money

Devil's Gonna Git You

Bessie Smith

A blues warning delivered as a curse: the narrator threatens a philandering partner with damnation, using the devil as a…

infidelity and betrayal moral reckoning female assertiveness

When I'm Gone

Mary Wells

A wronged woman rehearses the moment she finally walks out on a two-timing partner, flipping the usual breakup-song…

public image vs. private hurt emotional labor and burnout betrayal and double standards

Stuff You Gotta Watch

The Band

A blues-rooted warning song built almost entirely on one refrain: the woman you love will mistreat you, and that mistreatment is…

romantic mistrust resignation and complicity double standards in love

Rock and Roll Queen

Mott the Hoople

An early Mott the Hoople track built on a swaggering put-down dressed up as rock bravado, with a narrator addressing a woman he…

misogyny/double standards rock star posturing public image vs private reality

Don't Come Home a Drinkin'

Tammy Wynette

A wife lays down an ultimatum to a husband who comes home drunk expecting affection after a night out without her. The song…

marital neglect double standards in marriage female agency and refusal

Just One of the Guys

Jenny Lewis

Jenny Lewis turns a wry observation about aging and gender roles in male-dominated creative circles into a meditation on…

aging and the double standard childlessness and biological clock anxiety gender roles in creative/professional spaces

She Knows

J. Cole

J. Cole confesses to serial infidelity while dressing the confession in the language of fame, guilt, and self-destruction. The…

infidelity and guilt fame's corrosive pull self-awareness without change

A Roller Skating Jam Named "Saturdays"

De La Soul

A radio-skit framed jam that turns Saturday roller-rink culture into a loose celebration of release after the work week,…

leisure and release community ritual casual romance and its double standards

Velvet Green

Jethro Tull

A pastoral seduction song that turns increasingly ambivalent, using the image of a lush green hillside as both a real place and…

pastoral seduction innocence versus experience double standards around sexuality

Put It Down

Brandy

A conditional seduction song built almost entirely on one repeated phrase, this track frames romantic commitment as a…

conditional love self-worth and standards seduction as negotiation

If U Seek Amy

Britney Spears

A surface-level narrative about searching for an elusive party girl named Amy conceals a phonetic joke that spells out an…

public scrutiny and judgment sexual provocation hidden in plain sight desire and pursuit

What'll I Do

Harry Nilsson

This is Nilsson's reading of Irving Berlin's 1924 standard, delivered as part of his second collection of pre-rock pop songs.…

heartbreak loneliness memory and photographs

Coffee Blues

Mississippi John Hurt

A talking-blues that starts as an ad-jingle riff on a coffee brand and quietly turns into an extended sexual pun, with the…

desire disguised as domestic ritual double entendre longing and pursuit

Leaves Me Cold

Lush

A hazy, dissociative lyric about desire experienced at one remove, where orgasm and dream-state blur until the speaker can't…

dissociation sexual alienation doubling/split self

The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)

George Jones

A novelty-tinged story song built on a bait-and-switch: an old man's admiring description of a car turns out to be a description…

nostalgia lost youth double meaning/wordplay

At Last

Cyndi Lauper

This is Cyndi Lauper's rendition of the 1941 standard made famous by Etta James, a torch song about the arrival of long-awaited…

romantic fulfillment relief from loneliness transformation through love

Honeysuckle Rose

Anita O’Day

This is Anita O'Day's vocal-jazz treatment of the Fats Waller standard, a breezy declaration of infatuation built entirely on…

infatuation sweetness as metaphor public admiration

Jingle Bells

Joe Williams

This is Joe Williams applying his big-band jazz phrasing to the most familiar of American winter songs, leaning entirely on…

seasonal joy nostalgia vocal showmanship

Selling My Pork Chops

Memphis Minnie

Memphis Minnie turns a food-vending pitch into a blunt sexual boast, using the pork-chop-and-gravy metaphor to separate commerce…

sexual double entendre female sexual agency commerce as metaphor

The Girl from Ipanema

Amy Winehouse

This is a bossa nova standard sung from the vantage of the unseen admirer rather than the girl herself, and Winehouse leans into…

unrequited longing invisibility to the object of desire idealization from a distance

Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin'

Albert King

Albert King turns the sentimental Christmas-song tradition on its head, recasting Santa Claus as a stand-in for a husband hoping…

domestic desire disguised as holiday cheer double entendre and innuendo blues humor

Forest Whitiker

Brother Ali

Brother Ali, an albino rapper with a visible disability, turns physical self-description into an act of defiance, cataloguing…

body image and self-acceptance defiance of conventional beauty standards disability and physical difference