As with virtually all music once accused of inciting inappropriate sexual arousal in days gone by, 1959's "Teach Me Tiger" sounds tame today. Of course, the erosion of mores in our society is generational. April Stevens' breathy cooing was followed a decade later by Robert Plant's fake orgasms, and fourteen years after that astronauts aboard the Challenger, upstanding golden paragons of American virtue to a one, requested "Teach Me Tiger" as their day 3 wake-up call while in orbit around God's Green Earth. The "millennials" probably already think we're a bunch of lame-o's for ever getting worked up over pantomime fellatio and Trent Reznor saying exactly how he wants to fuck people. Unless "lame-o" now means "super cool" and "cool" means "hot" and whatever the hell.
"Teach Me Tiger" is still capable of provoking outrage, of course. In me. When someone insists that it's a Marilyn Monroe song, which happens a LOT. Look, even though everyone is aware that nobody had sex in the '50's except movie stars who later OD'd on pills, that doesn't mean that one lady was responsible for every media artifact from the time period that sounds remotely naughty. Quit stealing from April Stevens to feed your idiotic Bernie Taupin-esque tired icon fetishism. Marilyn Friggin' Monroe, blah blah BLAH, happy birthday mister stupid president already.
What's most infuriating is that it's such a lazy comparison. Stevens's voice is much more playful than Monroe's, coyer, more girlish. And when you hear her claim that she doesn't know how to kiss, how to tease, how to touch, all while her delivery is reaching right down the front of your pants, it's clear that she's also a much better actor than Monroe. And probably a better lay.
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