Today I said I was going to write more about the costs of stay at home parenting, but my big, grumpy kitty woke me up at five to go outside for 8 seconds, and I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I thought I would check out my YouTube channel instead.
And hey, looky here! A new video from Carrie Underwood! I love Carrie Underwood. I watched her rise on American Idol and cheered so hard when she won! Wait, did she win? I can’t remember. Maybe she didn’t. I could google it, but who cares. She’s Carrie Underwood now!
One of my favourite songs from Carrie is Before He Cheats. In that song, her boyfriend is stepping out with some bleached-blonde tramp who drinks fruity little drinks because she can’t shoot her whiskey (the whore!), so Carrie gets herself a baseball bat and beats the shit out of his souped-up four wheel drive. While Mr. JB is not the sort of person who gives a shit about his car (he drives a minivan!), I know plenty of men who DO, and the song is funny because, oh man, I feel your pain!
The rationale behind her violence is that she will be saving some future girl the heartache of knowing her boyfriend is a faithless slut, but every time I hear it, I think to myself “maybe you shouldn’t have carved YOUR NAME in the seats, Carrie, because your cheating little friend might not think thousands of dollars of damage is a reasonable price to pay and you could find yourself in small claims court with a nasty post-smash-up hangover”.
What can I say? I’m practical that way.
All in all, it’s a fun tune for dancing around the kitchen, and there’s something deeply gratifying about imagining beating the crap out of a car. “I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights”.
Here’s the video:
The song came out in 2009, and now, fastforward to Carrie’s new song, called Two Black Cadillacs.
And oh my. Something has changed. Same story – a cheating man – but now it’s not the car who pays. Carrie plays the mistress, and another woman who looks more or less identical to her plays the wife, and once they figure out what is going on, they hatch a plot to take revenge on the bastard.
By killing him.
Nice and slowly, too. They want him to know he’s about to die and they terrorize him for a bit before Carrie crushes him against a brick wall with the front end of her Cadillac. And they don’t even feel bad about it!
And the preacher said he was a good man
And his brother said he was a good friend
But the women in the two black veils didn’t bother to cry
Well, that seems reasonable, no? At least Carrie doesn’t pretend that she could just take her two-timing boyfriend on by herself. This is no Lara Croft, I will kill you with my bare hands kind of fantasy, because honestly, beating the tar out of a truck is one thing, but taking on a full grown man is quite another. Nope, she needs a car to do the deed, and it’s only when he’s lying crumpled and lifeless on the ground that she gets out of her weapon of choice: her Cadillac.
The wife and the mistress, shedding not a tear.
Some of you are probably saying “hold up now – you just posted a video of Eminem strangling his cheating girlfriend and called it a lovesong”, and that’s true. I did.
http://judgybitch.com/2013/01/13/judgy-bitch-music-critic/
There is a remarkable difference between the two songs, though. Eminem kills his girlfriend in a moment of frustration and rage, and then he is so overcome with remorse, he blows his own head off! The narrative of Spacebound frames the murder as something despicable, something so terrible and awful that the only reasonable response is to commit suicide. Either that or face the consequences.
Two Black Cadillacs frames the murder of a man as a moral victory, and something that was both justified and reasonable. And the women face no consequences of any kind. Why should they? He CHEATED, and we all know that the proper response to infidelity is murder. Right?
How would that song play if it were two men who decided to crush a cheating woman to death with a car? Two men who stood over her grave, exchanging knowing looks with one another while the victim’s sister wept? Would that be a triumph? A proper comeuppance? Would anyone think that was an awesome song at all?
I don’t think there are very many people who think infidelity is a really great thing. The experience of finding out that your boyfriend or girlfriend has been stepping out on you sucks, but that’s life, folks. People aren’t perfect, and it’s quite possible that if you are the sort of person to crush someone to death with a car, there may be very good reason why your partner has been looking around for someone else!
Here’s my advice: stick to beating up cars. Only don’t carve your name in the seats (you need plausible denial, people!), and make sure you have some cash tucked away to cover the new paint job, because that shit isn’t funny!
And life has consequences. Get used to it.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
The old joke being: Guns don’t kill people, spouses who come home early kill people.
Being somewhat old fashioned, to me the issue of adultery comes down to the old concept of oath-breaking. You aren’t simply lying or betraying a trust, you are violating an obligation you both voluntarily swore yourselves to.
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Because in our culture.. misandry is so prevalent and so widespread, murder when framed through the femcentric culture and mindset is funny!
Remember, woman cuts off dick of sleeping husband who is in no way shape or form a threat and stuffs it into a garbage disposal. Pure laughs on The View.
Talk about a man who’s mind snaps when he finds his betrothed in bed with another man and inflicts violence upon her… ermagherd the misogynistic beast not accepting her sexual choices is soooo not funny.
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That song is ridiculous. I’ve always wondered how out of it one can be to assume that vandalizing a cheating boyfriend’s car is going to get you anything other than the permanent label of ‘batshit crazy’ and a hefty bill.
The death’s not new either – The Dixie Chicks sang goodbye to ‘Earl’ ten years ago. though I suppose they at least came up with a little more excuse.
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Can you think of a song where a man kills his cheating wife/girlfriend? Just curious.
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Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix
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Gunpowder and Lead – Miranda Lambert
Independence Day – Martina McBride
The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia – Vicki Lawrence
Dark Lady – Cher
The Wedding List – Kate Bush
Thunder Rolls – Garth Brooks
Chick Habits – April March
Is it just me, or does it seem to be more popular to sing about killing men?
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Gunpowder and Lead as well as Independence Day are about killing abusive scumbags.
The night the lights went out in Georgia was actually committed by a little sister.
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Yeah, there was some moral context to those songs. Janie’s Got a Gun by Aerosmith. She kills her father who is abusing her sexually.
Two Black Cadillacs just seems so ….wantonly, criminally cruel.
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What is it with women attacking guys’ cars?
Anyway: I’m not sure what’s so weird about this song. Apparently in Canada it’s now legal to hire a hitman to kill your husband, or it only gets you a slap on the wrist anyway. So you know, might as well have at it and let men be on notice that this is the way of things.
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Papa loved Mama – Garth Brooks
If I recall correctly, Papa drives his truck through the hotel room containing Mama and the other man.
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Though in Papa Loved Mama, I don’t think his actions are celebrated in any way. More matter-of-fact.
Also, the Thunder Rolls is interesting.
The two verses released on the album do not include the death plan. I grew up never hearing that version. When he did the video, he had to add in the abuse backstory that isn’t in the song lyrics in order to make it sufficiently okay for her to want to kill him – the two verses about him cheating weren’t considered enough. And even with that in the video, it was pulled and not put into normal play, and he generally only includes the third (killing) verse in live versions.
Times changed? Not as acceptable from a man, even singing about a woman?
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Remember that song by Reba McEntire (think the name is ‘Does he love you like he loves me’). I always liked that song, so poignant and sad. Then I saw a video of it and a bomb exploded on her husband’s boat as he sailed away.
Robert Reiner was acting as the Director in the background and yelled, “Cut! THat was great!” as the end of the video. Guess they thought that was a funny way to wrap up the ending. Never liked the song after that.
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“Apparently in Canada it’s now legal to hire a hitman to kill your husband, or it only gets you a slap on the wrist anyway.”
Buh-whut??
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Porter Wagoner in the Cold hard facts of life kills his wife and her lover, though he does go to jail. Great song.
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On a smaller scale, it is pretty much *expected* that a girl slaps her cheating boyfriend’s face. Reverse the genders and it becomes abuse adn totally unacceptable. The first thought on seeing a girl hit a guy during a flaming row is “What did he do to deserve that? Bet the bastard cheated on her. Probably serves him right.’ But if he hits her – and everyone is immediately in white knight mode and even wondering why he did it is considered victim-blaming.
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I was just thinking about “Before He Cheats” this week. Nowhere in the song does the guy actually cheat on her. She doesn’t even know where he is or what he is doing. Everything that she says is happening is preceded by “probably”.
She judges this imagined bleach-blond tramp drinking some “fruity” drink because she can’t “shoot whiskey”. Okay, so now the singer is an alcoholic who looks down at other people (imaginary or not) who can’t drink alcohol in the same fashion that she can.
To me this song is now about an alcoholic stalker who trashes someone’s car because she has created a scenario in her head in which the object of her affection has purchased a drink for and shared a game of pool with another woman.
In this critique of the lyrics I am willing to overlook the fact that no relationship is said to exist between the singer and the car owner, but I am willing to assume that much has not been imagined.
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Ruining a car for cheating… how about shredding a childhood jacket (say 15-20 years old) because he broke up? Not a song but a tale a woman told when writing in to a newspaper.
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