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On the way back from Little Gym, “Who Let The Dogs Out?†came on the radio. I started singing it and then my daughter started singing it too. And I wasn’t sure that this was appropriate. In my mind the song is associated with sexist men shout/singing this in pubs about women that they consider to be unattractive (though they are rarely using themselves as the yardstick by which attractiveness is judged). Was I inadvertently teaching something that enrage my feminist wife? Me and my wife are like Jack Spratt and his wife, except I do all the sexism and she doesn’t like it. Also I eat all the fat.With the Spratts their opposition to fat was a positive thing, but weirdly the feminism/sexist thing leads to quite a lot of problems.
But my daughter was really enjoying it, on the basic level of it being a song about wondering who had foolishly allowed the dogs to get free. If I tried to sing the main bit she’d shout me down and say she was singing it (who’s the sexist now?), but then she complained that I wasn’t joining in with the “Who Who Who Who Who?†Woofing bit, which apparently, she had decided was my part.
But anyway we had fun for about 15 minutes straight with her rather tunelessly posing the question and me adding to the question with loads of Whos? Neither of us knew the verses, so we could only do the chorus, but let’s face it, that was the good bit. Occasionally I would say “But really, who was it?†And she might give me an answer - I think Mummy got the blame for it at one point. She really wasn’t going to like this.
But I would never tell her what we’d done or that we then went on to sing Nazi Youth songs (I have to prepare her to survive in our future) and burn a visitor to our village in a Wicker Man. Some things must remain secret.
On getting home I googled the song to find out what the but that wasn’t about letting dogs out was about. And
upon checking the wikipedia page and the lyrics I discovered it’s actually a feminist song. It’s the sexist men who are called out as being dogs, by the women. I was in the clear. I could sing this with my daughter as much as I wanted and still hold my head high at the Hertfordshire Women Hating Society Meetings, because everyone there is too stupid to use google. Ironically I have never met a group of men (and one woman weirdly) who look more like dogs and who sound like they’re barking at all times. Thinking about it they might actually be dogs. Shit, I just realised, I left the door open at the end of the last meeting. Looks like the song is about me after all.
Later we went to a local fete and on the drive there I fessed up and Phoebe and me sang the song a bit more. And we free-styled a bit. Phoebe asked “Who let the cows out?†And I tried to make the Whos? Sound like moos. Then she asked “Who let the people out?†And I tried to make it sound like people were saying who. It’s a better question too. Who did let the people out? She got quite existential too. “Who put the dogs in?†Came up, I think and maybe “Where were the dogs from?†I can tell you just asking who let the dogs out over and over again is bit boring after 15 minutes, so it was good to mix it up.
