999,904: The Stone Poneys/Linda Ronstadt — Different Drum

Different Drum - Linda Ronstad...

I tend to talk incessantly, with the intent to provoke. My girlfriend, being a smart and classy lady, usually just ignores the shit out of me, while I quack on and on about this or that, generally being a smartass.

A few weeks ago, I managed to punch a hole in the white noise forcefield that she has erected between my mouth and her ears, by claiming that Linda Ronstadt is a slut.

I’m a regular reader of Jezebel.com, and The Bell Jar spent a good part of last year as my daily bathroom reading, so I feel like I have my feminist credentials fully up to date.

As a feminist, let me confirm that we’re taking back the word, making it a signifier of sexual strength and freedom; the female version of “stud.”

In the early stages of reclamation, “slut” still has that tangy zing of insult, which is probably why Leah and I got into a knockdown-dragout over the honor of Linda Ronstadt, an artist that neither of us would be able to successfully pick out at a Linda Ronstadt concert.

I’d probably have to continue sleeping on the couch well into the next decade, if the song on the radio at the time of my remarks wasn’t “Different Drum.”

It’s impressive that Ronstadt (and The Stone Poneys) got away with a female singing this song in 1967, a song with themes that today’s teen-queen divas still use to court controversy: Sex. And lots of it. With multiple partners. I’m blushing just thinking about it.

It’s a coolly enumerated rejection of a clingy boy who wants to love only her. She’s just not ready to have anyone or anything pull the reins in on her. No, she doesn’t explicitly mention S-E-X, but this was the Summer of Love, so what am I to think? That she wants to hold a lot of different hands, to see which suits her best? I think not.

She wants to sample the wares of many a bearded weird-o, and not have to cook or clean or pump out babies. She doesn’t want to have to listen to some dude go on for hours crying about how his band’s not getting its due. She wants to hit the fucking party, man.

If the fellow in question was smart enough to see what was being offered (the ability to “love” Ronstadt from time to time, as well as “loving” whoever else), he could have had a good thing going.

Maybe he couldn’t, psychologically, share a woman. Maybe he wanted to pin down the obvious cash-cow that Ronstadt is, she of big voice and smooth soft-pop music, to set his future in mansions. Maybe he wanted to lower his chances of catching syphilis.

I just don’t get it. Didn’t he know about penicillin?