Year: 1975
Chart Position: #1
Last year's Worst Songs position: #50
Right smack dab in the middle of the sexual revolution, former teen idol Paul Anka recorded "(You're) Having My Baby," and promptly set sexual politics back about fifty years. We've always known Anka was square -- he wrote both the Kodak jingle "Times of Your Life" and "My Way" -- but this song makes Pat Boone look hardcore. His vision of love is straight from the Eisenhower Era: it's all about making babies. Of course, it being 1975, Anka had to get his digs in to the Roe v. Wade crowd: "Didn't have to keep it/Wouldn't put you through it/Could have swept it from your life/But you wouldn't do it." Love means never having to say "Where's the nearest Planned Parenthood?"
Fun Fact: Anka also wrote the theme to the Tonight Show -- we'll give him props for that.
3 comments:
I think the song is not as much Eisenhower era as 1079s Me era. Having a baby is not to start a family and love a child. rather, it's "a lovely way of showing how much [she] loves [him]." So said, I am glad that parents supposedly has a thing for each other when I was conceived. So there are two ways to look at at. A "LOVELY WAY OF SAYING HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME."
listening to that now, I think, your excellent point about abortion notwithstanding, 'can't she just pick up the tab for supper or something? Children ought to be more than a glorified hickey, ya know?
In signing in HTML, of which I am kinda naive, it's a tribute to your list. Very interesting choices - solid, to the point pithy descriptions, which in music is, as Frank Zappa said, is as 'dancing to architecture.'
Ian Andrew Schneider
EDITED VERSION - Apologies!
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I think the song is not as much Eisenhower era as 1970s "Me" era insofar as Paul and Odea are having a baby not to* and love a *child*. Rather, it is "LOVELY WAY OF SAYING HOW MUCH [SHE] LOVE [HIM]."
Your excellent point about abortion notwithstanding, I think: 'can't she just pick up the tab for supper or something? Children ought to be more than a glorified hickey, ya know?'
Ian Andrew Schneider
Brilliant song - a real contender for the anthem for anti-abortionists. Real love doesn't kill babies!!!!
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