some of you out there in cyberspace-land were not born in 1971 when today’s

guilty pleasure monday

came to the fore. so let me school you, sistahs and bruthas, on this groovy tuneage by the cornelius brothers and sister rose.

the cornelius brothers and sister rose, a family act from dania, fl (motto: we let 13 year old girls dressed like ‘hos like a young wreke in to watch jai alai), had their biggest hit, too late to turn back now, in 1972. the song is an utterly forgettable and annoying ditty. but treat her like a lady? admittedly, i, too, missed this one the first time around.

lucky for me, i am related to none other than my middle brother larry (motto: no 1970s song is too sappy; no fiscally conservative wingnut is too crazy), dean of 1970s muzak music. one time, my darling big brother made a CD mix for me which included a crazy semblance of songs. one of them was treat her like a lady. i imagined at first the song made it on the mix simply because the lyrics are so uncomfortably sexist. see, the singer is giving his man-friends advice on the allegedly weaker sex:

All my friends had to ask me

Somethin’ they didn’t understand-a

How I get all the women

In the palms of my hand, now

And I told them, to treat her like a lad-ay

(You got-to, got-to treat her like)

Um-hum all the best you can do

(Treat her like, you got-to, got-to treat her like)

You got to treat her like a lad-ay, she’ll give into you

Ah-hum now who can see, you know what I mean?

oh, so THAT’S what those guys are doing in those classes! you know, the ones where they learn to pick up women? (oh, that’s going to give me all sorts of strange search results. all i need to use are words like naked and off we go into wacko land.) what a novel concept: listen to a woman and she might start to feel appreciated. only, silly girl, you thought he really was interested in you!

(of course, if we are the weaker sex, then how come you don’t see women going to classes learning how to pick up men?)

ahem.

anyway, back to the song. i thought at first my brother had put that song on the CD just to piss his feminist sister off. but no, he hadn’t. it’s just a song with a killer hook. no malicious intent. how it didn’t become a bigger hit, i just don’t know.

yep, i guess larry isn’t so bad. he also introduced me to the dead kennedys. [punk alert, punk alert: offensive language. don’t put on the speakers in front of the kiddies or the boss.] so sometimes, no matter how different, brothers and sister can work together and even learn from each other. maybe we never had a hit record, and maybe he’ll never see eye-to-eye with me on political issues, and maybe i’ll never forget how he used to use me as the human punching bag during 1971; but larry and i actually get along now.

just something i’ll have to point out to BC the next time she wants to put her brother in a headlock.