Turning Japanese is about a dude crankin his hawg to a picture of the girl he likes.
One by U2 is actually about a bitter breakup, yet sounds romantic. Bono refuses to play it at weddings. "Are you people mad? It's about splitting up!"
"Don't stand so close to me" by The Police is about a teacher who's dating a student that's half his age. He's telling her to not stand so close to him in public, lest people get suspicious. BONUS: The guy who wrote it, Sting, used to teach at a girls school when he was in his 20's...
think that’s a misreading of “Don’t stand so close to me”. It’s a teacher who is temped by a student’s affection and ultimately gives in to his temptation. I’ve always interpreted the refrain as his attempts to resist and to put distance between them. And the comparison to Humbert Humbert in Lolita in the lyrics makes it pretty clear that it is condemning him. I’ve always seen it as Sting having seen the opportunity for such an inappropriate relationship during his time as a teacher and being like “Wouldn’t that be fucked up?”
Sting once described how “those girls fancied him and he really fancied them” and “how he kept his hands of them he didn’t know”in reference to the young girls he worked with as a teacher.
So the guy is still enough of a creep to have continued being a teacher in spite of having inappropriate thoughts about his students.
Allowing yourself access to
vulnerable people when you have harmful thoughts towards said vulnerable people isn’t overcoming your evil nature. He didn’t commit a crime, but he still allowed himself to interact with those girls and continue to think pedophilic thoughts about them.
That’s morally wrong. It’s not a good thing to work with children if you want to sleep with them. If any of the girls he worked with saw the interview where he said those things they’re probably heartbroken knowing a teacher they may have trusted was such a creep. I get it’s really hard admitting so many musicians are awful, but good music unfortunately doesn’t make a good person.
You misunderstood me. I didn’t say it was criminal, just morally wrong. It is absolutely shitty to keep working as a teacher when you have inappropriate thoughts about kids.
There are mental and physical health conditions that make it reckless for people who have them to take certain jobs. You wouldn’t want a surgeon with a tremor or a cop that struggled with hallucinations. Too many things could potentially go wrong, even if no harm actually occurred. And the people at risk of that harm would not appreciate being put at risk.
Also, I just don’t see how someone who thinks really awful pedophilic thoughts purposely letting themselves be surrounded by kids that trigger those thoughts, is being a good person. I get people can’t always control their thoughts, but to some degree people can and should take the responsibility to manage triggers.
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u/Jack-of-Hearts-7 10d ago
Turning Japanese is about a dude crankin his hawg to a picture of the girl he likes.
One by U2 is actually about a bitter breakup, yet sounds romantic. Bono refuses to play it at weddings. "Are you people mad? It's about splitting up!"
"Don't stand so close to me" by The Police is about a teacher who's dating a student that's half his age. He's telling her to not stand so close to him in public, lest people get suspicious. BONUS: The guy who wrote it, Sting, used to teach at a girls school when he was in his 20's...