"Cameltoe" and Other Songs for Which We Owe Our Kids an Explanation

FannyPack/Image via Boobypack <-- check out this product,
it's pretty cool! <-- I was not paid to say that, and I don't own
one, it just looks interesting to me.

So, I've never been quite sure if I'm classified as a 90's kid or an 80's kid, because I was born in the 80's, but spent most of my formative years in the 90's. I started kindergarten in the Fall of 1989, and graduated high school in May 2002. So my primary education took up the whole of the 90's. I think this makes me a 90's kid. I don't really remember much about the 80's anyway, except that everyone had big hair and loud makeup, and my teenage brothers had really stinky knee-length soccer socks that had colored stripes at the top.

Recently my husband and I were discussing how truly obscene the R&B songs from the late 90's were, I mean, they were really unabashed and blatantly sexual. I remember a few in particular that I used to sing along to the radio with, having no idea at all what I was singing about. For example, Ginuwine's "Pony" which in 8th grade had me singing:
   
     "If you're horny/
      let's do it/
      ride it, my pony/
      my saddle's waiting/
      come and jump on it"

Or Next's "Too Close" which starts out with the line:
   
     "I wonder if she can tell I'm hard right now?"

...and the lyrics don't get any better from there. I'm sure I made my parents cringe on multiple occasions, but don't worry mom, I really didn't have the vaguest conception what those songs were about.

It made me start thinking about all the other popular songs from the 90's and early 2000's, and some were seriously ridiculous. On an unrelated note, "Seriously ridiculous" is a great oxymoron. I just decided to compile a few here for examination and discussion, in hopes that we'll come to a consensus and be able to explain them to our kids one day when they ask.

The Thong Song by Sisqo (1999)

In 1999 Sisqo let the ladies in on the secrets of what guys talk about. Um, apparently, that is women with "dumps like a truck"... what does that even mean, Sisqo? And why do you spell your name so weirdly? You see, kids, in the late 90's and early 2000's women wore these really uncomfortable and allegedly sexy undergarments known as "thongs" (that were basically perpetual wedgie underwear) in order to avoid the dreaded panty line (scary music plays that sound eerily like the Ying Yang Twins - seriously those dudes sang about ball sweat and panty lines). Women would buy elaborate thongs and allow them to hang out the top of their super low-waisted pants (low-waisted pants are the reason "tunic-length" shirts became popular, we had to cover our plumber cracks somehow). As Maggie Smith said in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, "I don't understand having that underwear up your ass crack, they don't cover a G.D. thang."

Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65 (1998)

So listen up here's the story about a little song that made just no damn sense at all, and all day and all night they would play it on the radio, and force us all to feel blue. Da Ba Dee Da Ba Die. You see kids, people did a lot of psychotropic drugs in the 90's, which resulted in a lot of really weird and repetitive, bass heavy dance music. Hope you brought your glow sticks. The only good thing that came out of this song is all the speculation of what exactly the lyrics were. That's right kids, this was a time before the proliferation of Google and online lyrics databases. My favorite was my best friend's little sister who speculated the lyrics were "I'm blue, if I was green I would die", which makes more sense than the actual lyrics.

Mr. Tangerine Speedo by Caviar (2000)

I'm not sure anyone but me actually remembers this really odd song. I couldn't find an official video for this one, just this ghetto 300 compilation one, but that's the song alright. It really wasn't even that popular but it would get stuck in my head so bad when I was in high school. This song is just so weird that, to this day, I can't make heads or tails of it. I don't really want to take it at face value, but I can't figure out definitively what else it might be about. Apparently I'm still naive. You see kids, in the days before Michael Phelps showed us how wrong we were, speedos were largely a joke, and not considered attractive swimwear. In the 90's music just didn't make any sense, even to those of us who were around.

Tootsee Roll by 69 Boys (1994)

File this one under songs I should not have been listening to at all, because I was in fifth grade when this song was popular. My 10 year old friends and I were skating around at Skate World in Victoria to this baffling song. I'm shuddering just thinking about what debaucherous song my daughter will be dancing to in five years when she starts thinking she and her friends are cool. Aside from being extremely annoying, this song is way too damn long. I mean really, how long are you supposed to slide slide slide slide slide slide slide slide before you can start dipping? And when exactly is that "whoop" coming up? You see kids, just because a hip-hop song is "vintage" doesn't mean it's good.

Honky Tonk Badonkadonk Trace Adkins (2005) 

I don't know if this is the first instance of a country music/hip hop blend, but it's definitely the stupidest one. You see kids, in the late 90's and early 2000's, rappers started calling women's buttocks "badonkadonks" but only if they were adequately curvaceous. For some reason, Trace Adkins wanted to get in on this trend, and made that ill-conceived video featuring seriously skinny women, none of whom have anything close to what could be considered a proper badonkadonk. For five bonus points (no we're not keeping score but who doesn't like bonus points) check out this article on the etymology of the word "badonkadonk" (!!!)

Operate (Or basically any song by Peaches) 2004

I had never heard of Peaches until I saw the movie Mean Girls, and obviously I had to go download this song immediately, burn it to a CD and blast it as I was driving around in my freaking awesome 2000 silver Eclipse with the automatic sun roof. Those were the days. Nothing made sense about Peaches and I think that's why we loved her. Her vulgar and unorthodox songs came with a sick beat that made people dance even if the lyrics didn't make any sense. Ah, so um, you see kids...I got nothing on this one. Murdering a man to harvest his kidney was no more acceptable in the early 2000's than it is today.

Camletoe Fanny Pack (2003)

Don't act like y'all don't remember this instant classic. This is not one you heard on the radio, because (at the risk of sounding like an old person) you see kids, back in the early 2000's, we may have been rocking out to songs about frontal wedgies, but the FCC still didn't allow them on the radio. (Affects old lady voice and starts typing like an old person) BACK IN MY DAY PEOPLE DIDN'T TALK ABOUT SUCH UNTOWARD SUBJECTS! NOWADAYS THEY'LL EVEN SAY "ASS" ON THE COUNTRY STATIONS! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO? WHERE'S MY MILK OF MAGNESIA? I NEED TO MOVE MY BOWELS AND TAKE A NAP.