photo from FreeFoto.com
So my four-year-old daughter and I are driving in the car together this weekend and Prince’s Little Red Corvette comes on the radio. I tell her how Mommy used to love this song and dance to it when I was a teenager. She asks me to turn it up and I start singing it loudly while dancing in my seat. As I’m singing, I finally stop to listen to the words – the actual words - and my head cocks a little bit, my mouth drops open and my eyes open wide.
I had no idea what this song was really about when I was belting it out in my bedroom as a 14-year-old girl! I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t either – collectively I think we all believed it was just about a girl, a car and some horses…
Don’t get me wrong – I always knew that Prince was dirty. However, I thought that was just in songs like Cream or Kiss, or ones that I kept hidden and played on low in my room so my parents wouldn’t hear.
However, Little Red Corvette wasn’t on that list…until now…Here’s some of the lyrics…I feel like I have finally figured the punch line to a joke someone told me hours ago… Am I the only one who was this naive???
Little Red Corvette
I guess I shoulda known
By the way you parked your car sideways
That it wouldn’t last
See you’re the kinda person
That believes in makin’ out once
Love ‘em and leave ‘em fast
I guess I must be dumb
Cause you had a pocket full of horses
Trojan and some of them used
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say what have I got to lose?
And honey I say
Little red corvette
Baby you’re much to fast
Little red corvette
You need a love that’s gonna last
I guess I shoulda closed my eyes
When you drove me to the place
Where your horses run free
Cause I felt a little I’ll
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me
Believe it or not
I started to worry
I wondered if I had enough class
But it was Saturday night
I guess that makes it all right
And you say, “Baby, have you got enough gas?”
Oh yeah
Girl, you got an ass like I never seen
And the ride…
I say the ride is so smooth
You must be a limousine
Baby you’re much 2 fast
Little red corvette
U need a love, u need a love that’s
That’s gonna last
(Little red corvette)
U got 2 slow down (u got 2 slow down)
Little red corvette
Cuz if u don’t, cuz if u don’t,
U gonna run your body right into the ground (right into the ground)
Right into the ground (right into the ground)
Right into the ground (right into the ground)