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Which body parts are sung about the most?
The eyes. Other results vary across genre, for instance gospel and blues sing more about hands than eyes. And get this:
As for the genre that talks about body parts the most, hip hop takes the honors with more references than any other genre. Meanwhile, gospel refers to the body the least. There are plenty of other data points to peruse. It's nice to know that 23.64 percent of hip hop songs refer to the behind, while 11.83 percent of rock songs talk about eyes.
Here is a summary of the results:
Posted by Tyler Cowen on August 27, 2008 at 06:48 AM in Music | Permalink
Comments
I'm feeling another installment from the MR minstrel.
Posted by: Andrew at Aug 27, 2008 8:10:10 AM
For a society that fetishizes oversized breasts more than nearly every other contemporary and historical culture, it's surprising that songs mention them so rarely.
The pictorial diagram is way too clever for its own good. Even with a microscope I don't think I could tell what some of the dot-sized circles are supposed to represent.
Posted by: at Aug 27, 2008 9:24:22 AM
What's the ugliest part of your body?
Some say your nose,
Some say your toes,
But I think it's your mind
Posted by: megs at Aug 27, 2008 9:29:01 AM
is the guy's profile supposed to represent "head"....if so, i think many hip hop references are being erroneously counted.....
Posted by: ub at Aug 27, 2008 9:30:46 AM
ub, I was just thinking the same thing.
Posted by: d.cous. at Aug 27, 2008 9:58:10 AM
I've got to agree with ub's general point on methodology. (I don't listen to hip-hop ever, so I can't comment on his specifics.) The traditional songs I listen to (English, Scotish, Irish, Canadian, and American) have a fair number of references to a body part which doesn't even show up on the chart, as nearly as I can tell: see the song "The Cuckoo's Nest", for instance. But none of the references are by name.
Even though neither shows up on chart (I think), breasts and bellies are also mentioned quite frequently in trad -- for instance, it is scandalous how often sailor maids are given way when chance flashes their breasts before the rest of the crew, and swelling bellies give something else away.
Posted by: Sol at Aug 27, 2008 10:00:05 AM
I think they've failed to tabulate metaphorical or otherwise occluded references to body parts. Grit Laskin's "Photographer's Ballad", for example, should add some unmentioned (and unmentionable on a kid-friendly website) body parts to the "folk" index.
And a nearly endless supply of animals ought to do similar stuff for every other genre--like Gabriel's "Kiss that Frog" and the Uppity Blues Women's "Silver Beaver."
Posted by: Sarah S at Aug 27, 2008 10:01:18 AM
Hip hop artists sing about white buttocks the most?
Posted by: Bob Murphy at Aug 27, 2008 10:29:06 AM
These eyes haveseenalotoflovebutthey'llneverseeanotheronelikeIhadwith youuuu!
Posted by: David at Aug 27, 2008 10:58:32 AM
Since the blues are often written and sung by those who have lost their women/men, I wonder if there is any surprise that the hand is the most popular body part?
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Aug 27, 2008 11:13:31 AM
I don't see "My Ding-a-ling" or "The Lemon Song" represented here.
Posted by: David at Aug 27, 2008 11:29:55 AM
Best MR post ever!!! (I don't know what that means)
Posted by: noone at Aug 27, 2008 11:29:58 AM
These Eyes, Eyes without a Face, Don't it Make My Brown Eyes Blue, The Bluest Eyes in Texas, Angel Eyes, Eyes of a Stranger...that's all the titles I can think of now!
Posted by: Mary-Lynn at Aug 27, 2008 11:32:59 AM
Lyin' Eyes, Bette Davis Eyes...does Dreamweaver count?
Posted by: David at Aug 27, 2008 11:41:00 AM
Hip hop references primarily large body parts? E.g., "I like big butts"
Posted by: Andrew at Aug 27, 2008 11:50:50 AM
Don't forget:
"Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain."
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Aug 27, 2008 11:52:02 AM
Unfortunately, their results are actually organized by word, not by body part. If you click through to the more detailed results (or their glossary), you'll see (for example) that 23.64% of hip hop songs mention "ass" (or "asses"), 2.77% mention "butt" (or "butts"), and 2.31% mention "booty." Because we don't know the overlap, the number using a word related to the behind could be anywhere from 23.64% to 28.72%. And a lot of the time the word "ass" isn't really being used to refer to the behind; instead it's used in phrases like "leave your ass dead" or "I'm a Southern ass star" (which does not mean that he's an ass star from the South).
Posted by: Brad at Aug 27, 2008 12:28:44 PM
i think the profile/head must mean "hair"
Posted by: anon at Aug 27, 2008 12:30:55 PM
Note that Wired cropped the image at *just* the right point. The original is at FleshMap, and is *not* safe for work.
Posted by: Anthony at Aug 27, 2008 12:56:05 PM
To get a better picture it seems like you'd also have to control for the overall word count of the song. Most hiphop songs have at least four times as many words in their lyrics (if not more) than a typical country or rock song. With more words available, you're increasing the likelihood of mentioning a body part.
Posted by: Pops at Aug 27, 2008 1:22:09 PM
The heart seems to have been excluded from the data.
Posted by: pohl at Aug 27, 2008 1:26:26 PM
I'm still wondering about the 0.62% of gospel songs that mention the posterior.
Posted by: Peter at Aug 27, 2008 1:53:23 PM
I'm a little surprised 5% of folk songs include the knee. It doesn't seem like the sort of body part that gets glorified (Whether or not you come with a banjo on your knee.)
Posted by: Patrick at Aug 27, 2008 2:39:22 PM
Peter,
You mean you have heard of the songs "God is Going to Kick Satan's Ass" and "Jesus's Love Knocked Me On My Butt".
OK, I made those up. Or maybe I subconsciously remember them from South Park.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Aug 27, 2008 3:14:19 PM
I won't bore you with the full results from the folk song archive search I just did, but the quick version is: the knee isn't being glorified in the least. It's just a convenient body part that rhymes nicely, so there are lots of babies sitting on their mothers' knees and things like that.
For instance:
She said, "Lord Thomas, are you blind,
Or can't you very well see?
And don't you see my own heart's blood
Come running down over my knee?"
It's just a generic indication she's mortally wounded, there's nothing specific about the knee at all except how it rhymes.
If you follow Brad and Anthony's links, you'll see that for all the graphic / web sophistication of the data presentation, the actual "study" technique is pretty lame.
Posted by: Sol at Aug 27, 2008 3:28:10 PM
