As I jump out of my car this morning, the last song I distinctively remember listening to is Wale’s new single “Bad”. I’m not the hugest Wale fan, nor do I know many people who are, but for reason this song spoke to me. Then it came to me, I’ve been hearing a lot of girls posting the lyrics as their Twitter/Instagram status, singing it out in public etc and I began to wonder. The lyrics are as follows:
“Is it bad that I never made love, no I never did it but I sure know how to f***. I’ll be a bad girl, I’ll prove it to you. I can’t promise that I’ll be good to you cause I have some issues. I won’t commit, nope not having it. But at least I can admit.”
Then you start to think, why are so many women infatuated with these lyrics? Does every girl have a little bad in her? My theory is no, not every girl has bad in her. Every girl wishes she did. This goes hand in hand with my Olivia Pope/Scandal post. For every girl that judges women who read Baller Alert is a girl who just created her own anonymous profile for guilty pleasure. For every girl that is quick to fall in love, hates being alone and avoids being single, there is a girl within her who wishes that she could have no strings attached, emotionless sex and get away with it. For every woman who judges a side chick or a hoe is a girl inside her who wishes that she could get away with the same actions. For every conservative woman is a little skank within hoping to come out. Don’t get me wrong, there are truly some “bad girls” out there but most are not, at least not in reality.
Every woman has a little fantasy world that she retreats to. A world where she can let her hair down and live irresponsibly. A world where men are at her every beck and call. Some women, like Rihanna, get to live this fantasy world in reality. Some women get to live this fantasy world behind closed doors. Some others never get to live it outside their head and when given the opportunity to do so, they take the safe way out.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a good girl, the world needs more of them. These are just things that go through my mind as I dissect the music I’m listening to and wonder why people love it the way they do. A song like this is likely to be successful because women want to believe that it describes them, even when it truly doesn’t. It’s a lot like when Beyonce dropped “Single Ladies” and every woman thought she could tell her man to put a ring on it. Now, how many ended up with a ring that year? Probably not many. Music is certainly powerful.
