Sirius XM satellite radio recently introduced The Beatles channel.  This iconic rock band created a huge catelogue of timeless pop rock songs and over the last couple of weeks I have been listening on and off.

I grew up with Beatles music, it was new and fresh.  Today it is still new and fresh, even though some songs I have heard numerous times over the years and never get tired of.

Mysoginy Incarnate

One of the hall marks of Beatles songs are the lyrics.  Typically they are clever and thought provoking.  The words can create pictures in and of themselves, often greatly enhanced by the tunes.

So you can imagine my surprise on listening to “Run for Your Life” from 1965’s Rubber Soul album and realizing how politically incorrect the lyrics were.

I have heard the song many times in the past, starting from 1966, but not recently and not in the car on a relaxing drive home. As I heard the line, “I’d rather see you dead little girl, than to be with another man” I thought wow, this is on the radio.

Back in the sixties such a line was okay.  In fact, that line captures the sentiment of the entire song and taken in the context of “You better run for your life, little girl” even I am appalled. In todays world, this kind of thinking is unacceptable.

I cannot image the level of social media outrage such a line would cause if this were a current issue.  The  Beatles reputation would have taken a hard hit, as it did back in the sixties on occassion.

In the sixties though the bad stuff in song or public behaviour related to sex, drugs and comparing themselves to Jesus Christ.  Nothing that bothered me.

Times have changed, thank goodness.