Am I Really Writing About 'Cherry Poppin' Daddies'?

Often, we find ourselves cursing the torrent of new music being released, and the overwhelming amount of information we need to take in if we want to feel as if we are keeping up with the events of the world. That is exhausting, and frustrating, but there are some benefits to the sheer amount of noise we are subject to. The main one is that details get lost in that haze, and we never hear about many things we would rather not ever be aware of. That's where we start today's discussion.

While nostalgia for the past continues at an nearly unabated pace, one small fragment of my youth that has not seen a revival was the short-lived swing craze of the late 90s. We seem to have collectively pushed out of our minds that we had a brief fling with horns and fedoras, which is really for the best. While we can look back and cringe at a lot of the pop music of the time, the childishness of pop/punk, and the ridiculous eyeliner of the emo and nu-metal beginnings, those were at least moments of time that were of the time. The swing revival was silly, but it was also an anachronism that makes it stand out as being worse than everything else that was terrible.

The most notable offender, and I use that word deliberately, were Cherry Poppin' Daddies. With a name that could be read as an allusion to lusting for the underage, they put out a collection of their swinging songs that concentrated on drinking, drugs, and violence. While other groups were using the old-time sound as a means of having some nostalgic fun, Cherry Poppin' Daddies were doing a gritty reboot that no one wanted. We didn't want to think about zoot suits covering up the frail figures of heroin addicts, nor the days when men could smack flappers around for daring to be independent people. That was all part of the past, but Cheery Poppin' Daddies did it without any of the wink-and-nod that told us they were in on the joke.

No, they sounded as sleazy as the characters in their songs. The creeps crept into our consciousness, but not far enough to get pushed back out when the fad died out.

Recently, I was reminded that not only are Cherry Poppin' Daddies still around, they're still putting out new music with regularity. In fact, they released an album earlier this year that features a song I feel needs to be talked about. In it, they include one of those lyrics that takes your breath away, because you cannot fathom how anyone can think it was a good idea to release when you are not known for being a comedian.

"I get boners in the street."

Yes, the band wrote a song about staring at beautiful women and getting aroused in public. Why? We could say it's an attempt to be funny, but is there any comedy in telling random women that you've gotten off to them? If you even have to think for a second about that, you might want to do some serious re-evaluating of yourself.

The song tries to frame all of this as the story of an innocent boy taking in the beauty inherent in the women of the world, but this is the story of a person trying to drink when there is no thirst trap. This is the mindset of someone who isn't saying it, but would absolutely be wearing gray sweatpants while leering so the women would be forced to see what is happening. They wouldn't be impressed, obviously, but that's beside the point to someone like that.

So we revert to the question of why someone would write this song. For me, it falls into the same category as when Meat Loaf sang, "I can barely fit my dick in my pants".

There was a genre derisively called 'cock rock' because it seemed none of the purveyors were able to think with anything else. That can also describe a pantheon of songs written by men about their manhood, all of which beg the question of who they are trying to convince. Much like how someone who is truly cool or confident doesn't need to tell you all about it, the people who are constantly talking about their junk give the impression of knowing it needs to be hyped up to make any sort of impression.

Sometimes, we can write these things off as being the follies of youth, and that we simply hadn't learned yet how to be better people. Cherry Poppin' Daddies have been around for thirty years, so that excuse is out the window. Meat Loaf was old enough to collect Social Security when he sang his lyric. And yet, we are still confronted with old men acting as if they have magic wands in their pants, apparently believing that rock and roll means you can be a lecherous creep. Given rock's history, maybe it does, but that's the problem.

I would sum it up with this quasi-joke: If the sexiest thing about a man lies in the four inches between his ears, perhaps singing about the other thing that's four inches isn't a good use of that limited brain power.