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"Take your Clothes off when you Dance"

9/19/2014

When I was struggling with the conclusion for Sex and Unisex, my life partner of over forty-five years (most of them legal) suggested aiming for Frank Zappa's "Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance", recorded in 1968 It's on "We're Only in it for the Money", the album with the parody Sgt. Pepper cover, and appears again on "Lumpy Gravy". Yes, it's also in the conclusion. Thanks, Jim.

It does pretty much sum up the countercultural reaction to establishment fascination with hair and clothes, but it also skewers the counterculture for ITS fascination with hair and clothes. Zappa's message still resonates with me.

Here's Frank's son Dweezil playing it in 2012. Stylistically updated, but the lyrics are timeless.

If you want to sing along:

There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love

There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above

Who cares if hair is long or short
Or sprayed or partly grayed...
We know that hair ain't where it's at

(there will come a time when you won't
Even be ashamed if you are fat!)

Wah wah-wah wah

There will come a time when everybody
Who is lonely will be free...
To sing & dance & love (dance and love)

There will come a time when every evil
That we know will be an evil...
That we can rise above (rise above)

Who cares if you're so poor you can't afford
To buy a pair of mod a go-go stretch-elastic pants...
There will come a time when you can even
Take your clothes off when you dance

Read more: Frank Zappa - Take Your Clothes Off When You Dance Lyrics | MetroLyrics

Thanks, Frank. We miss you!

This day in hair history

9/9/2014

Yes, it was exactly fifty years ago today -- September 9, 1964, that George Leonard walked into Attleboro (MA) High School and made history. His was the first long-hair case to be litigated in court. In his honor, enjoy my original post on the topic.

Bibliographic essay: FAshion, Dress, and Gender

9/8/2014

If you are embarking on research on clothing and gender, I've recently written a bibliographic essay on the topic for the Berg Fashion Library. It is now available online -- for FREE! I tried to provide a solid foundation for anyone new to the topic, and would love to get feedback.

This week in gender

9/7/2014

Forgive the lazy post, but it was the first week of classes, I am in the middle of reviewing the page proof for Sex and Unisex, and I am being dogged by three other projects all with deadlines on or around September 15. In the meantime, the news items about dress and gender just won't take a break! Here are a few that distracted me long enough to read, even though there was not time to add commentary.

Rastafarian High School Student Sent Home From School For Ten Days For Having Dreadlocks (ThinkProgress, 9/4/2014)

School Dress Codes: The Funny-Not-Funny Video You Have to See (Soraya Chemaly for the Huffington Post, 9/5/2014)

Hear Us Roar: Finding Feminism in Fashion (Maya Singer for Style.com, 9/5/2014)

Tell Me About It: Boy who likes ‘girl’ things needs guidance, not shame (Carolyn Hax, syndicated, 9/5/2014)

OK, a little bit of commentary. Carolyn Hax's response to the concerned auntie contained brightened my dreary, ink-spattered life.

Unless someone over their shoulders is shaming them back to their side of the gender line (sadly, not a hypothetical one), children will like what they like, and that means that superheroes, bright pink and dinosaurs often live together in harmony in a child’s imagination.

That some adults, and apparently 99.5 percent of toy marketers, want to “fix” this by shaming kids into conformity is, to my mind, an obscenity long overdue for hard societal push-back.

Indeed!

Here comes "Sex and Unisex" (book update)

9/1/2014

Classes start in two days, I just got home from a blissfully restful week at Star Island (just off the coast of New Hampshire) and look what is waiting for me. The page proof for Sex and Unisex! This is as close to perfect timing as it gets. If you want to pre-order your own copy, just use the link on this page.

Work on Age Appropriate (the working title for book three, on dress, gender and age) is going slowly, as I have an unrelated large project this summer. With school starting around the country, I have also been keeping my antennae out for news about dress codes. I will be giving a paper on the topic at the Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association in November. Stay tuned!

"Take your Clothes off when you Dance"

This day in hair history

Bibliographic essay: FAshion, Dress, and Gender

This week in gender

Here comes "Sex and Unisex" (book update)

Jo Paoletti

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