Now you know I would not let this current controversial excuse for a song pass without adding my two cents. It's called Rampin' Shop and the uproar started with a column in this newspaper from someone who was concerned about students listening to it.

With modern technology, just about everything is available at the click of a mouse. So I had it downloaded and after reading the lyrics, I felt like washing my eyes out with bleach and carbolic soap.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a prude. My sexual fantasies would make a Buddhist monk rethink his vows of celibacy. But why do these, ahem, 'entertainers' have to be so hardcore? Why are these things given airplay? Why do seemingly decent women find them worthy of singing along to, dancing to or adding to their music collection?

Is it any wonder that we lament daily about the present generation? I have since heard that the tune is now the most popular ringtone for students' cellphones. We should have banned their (cellphone) use in schools when the opportunity arose and that debate would have died by now.

Potential

But that aside, I think we ought to take education a lot more seriously. Chances are, if writers of lyrics like the lines of this song had a healthy exposure to the English language and literature and good grasp of the wonderful ways that words can be crafted into figures of speech that mean the same things as the suggestions in the trash, the students who love to listen to them would not need to have their ears sanitised after listening to it over and over again.

Take a song like Aretha Franklyn's 'giving him something he can feel, to make him know this love is real'. It states simply what two people will do without making you want to feel the guilt of a married guy fantasising about his neighbour's young son. The Mighty Sparrow's Saltfish is another example, and who can forget the one of the many provocative lines in the Fab 5 song, 'For I don't want to live in Norfolk, Virginia'? Master lyricist Lloyd Lovindeer has a number of sexually suggestive songs that are more humorous than bawdy. Perhaps he could help his fellow singers with their writing skills.

I say it's time to give some of these individuals English usage lessons. (And don't bother go jumping all over me with accusations that I have something against dialect).We all chat Patois and if you understand good grammar/usage, you will be able to write clean lyrics in any language! Finally, it's time parents, particularly single mothers, get a grip on what their children are exposed to.

lifestyle@gleanerjm.com