Songs where the singer/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

she is very specifically knocking poor people there

sure if you want to ignore the context that fits into and frame the song as a JP Morgan-nose thumbing, sure. and that it's directed at cocky men who pursue her and harass her aggressively and talk a big game about how big they're going to make it, but don't actually do anything but sit at home and play video games instead of looking for a job or blowing all their money on needless shit instead of saving it to get things like...a car.

If you live at home with your momma
Oh yes son, (I'm) I'm talking to you (baby)

babies can't live alone dummy

itt - ppl who know what scrubs are and ppl who don't

lol Evan

ppl who know what scrubs are and ppl who don't

Hence the song title, "Know Scrubs"

lol

"Oh Boy, Scrubs (That's Where I'm a Viking!)"

I hope those no scrubs girls eventually found some classy guys cruising up Peachtree St in Atlanta

Not to be all enlightened centrist here but I think the song can be a basically right on paen to telling overconfident sexist dudes to fuck off while still mirroring some of the poverty-as-a-moral-failing shit that was basically everywhere in the pop culture of the time.

I try to like black music, but I just can't get over how it doesn't conform to my white middle class sensibilities!

Rise up, 99%, against this classist tyranny

posts where the poster/protagonist comes off as a serious dick without meaning to

no i definitely meant to :)

I totally agree with you, fwiw

I think the white middle class is also anti-Scrub

They also dislike poors

They’re only mean Trotskyists and revisionists

They

peace man, I honestly don’t think Chilli was talking about dudes like you, you don’t seem like a scrub

One can read "no scrubs" as punching up. Like, you think you are hot shit and you have a lot to offer, but you live in your mom's basement and you need your friend to drive you places because you are actually broke and going nowhere.

One can also read "No Scrubs" as a blanket dismissal of dudes who have aspirations, but have a ways to go.

Even in this slightly more charitable reading, the dude in question still needs to up his game before he approaches someone of TLC caliber. It's not just money; it's independence and competence.

So Scrubs is like the opposite of Let’s Hear for The Boy

So Scrubs is like the opposite of Let’s Hear for The Boy

Maybe! I would rather be with the guy described in "Let's Hear it for the Boy" than the guy described in "No Scrubs."

Cf. Erykah Badu, "Tyrone."

In 2020, Chilli revealed the song was inspired by seeing Full House stars Dave Coulier and John Stamos driving by:

One day we’re out walking, and (Coulier) and Stamos come driving by, and you know, Coulier leans out and tries to holler at us from the passenger side of the car. To be honest, I didn’t know who he was at first — I just saw a bunch of hair and a bright, patterned shirt, but then it clicked and I was like, ‘Is that that corny motherfucker, Uncle Joey?’ So I started jotting down some lines, and the rest is history. He was talking like Popeye for some reason, and had this beaver puppet… that part didn’t make it in the song.

Dave Coulier is quite the muse

I was gonna say – if he truly inspired both "No Scrubs" and (as rumored) "You Oughta Know," that's like the antimatter version of some king sh!t right there.

Big Prick Energy

Alanis didn't mention the beaver puppet either!

A Scrub is a guy who thinks he’s fly/
Often carries a beaver

He was talking like Popeye for some reason, and had this beaver puppet…

I guess the Olsen Twins must have been making all the money

True of most John Mayer songs, but “you’re going to live forever in me” is a capstone song in this theme

https://thehardtimes.net/culture/tlc-confirms-that-no-scrubs-was-also-written-about-dave-coulier/

this appears to have been picked up by some AI articles, and will thus now be true forever

Dave Coulier has an album called “Songs in the Key of Beaver”

I mean look, that's why I mentioned it. I don't *think* TLC meant to come off as condescending of poor people but it kind of comes off that way

technically speaking TLC didn't write the song either, it was written largely by two members of Xscape for them to record and then they gave it to TLC instead

^^ see bringing that up is a scrub move

I could have written the song, I have amazing songwriting talent, but was too busy working on three even better songs, you're gonna love em when they come out.

In the front of the club I see this girl like, "Yo love"
Thought she said thug but she called me a scrub

This ain't my Benz there, it's my man's, yeah
But this ain't my car like that ain't your hair

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tt5DE4hbYY

Talking of Roy Orbison. I know we're supposed to feel sympathy for Roy in this song but what a whiny deluded sap he is. She's obviously not that into you, Roy, develop a backbone why don't you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtgnsOXoAVM

Lehrer notes that there was (even then) a trope of women singing about guys who they loved even though they were repulsive and unsanitary.

Is “My Funny Valentine” the origin of this trope?

First example that jumps to mind is The Crystals “He’s Sure The Boy I Love” (“He doesn't hang diamonds 'round my neck/And all he's got is an unemployment check”).

What’s great about “Give Him A Great Big Kiss” is that the Shangri-Las are clearly turned on by his “dirty fingernails”, no qualifiers needed.

Of course the male versions of this trope are the ones that are truly nasty e.g. “You Got What It Takes”:

You don't live in a beautiful place, no
You don't dress in the best of taste
And nature didn't give you such a beautiful face
But baby, you got what it takes.

Who could resist such buttering up?

Also, as mentioned upthread, the Temptations “Beauty’s Only Skin Deep” (yeah, yeah, yeah):

Now, good looks, I've learned to do without
'Cause now I know it's love that really counts

and

A pretty face you may not possess
But what I like about you is your tenderness.

You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright
And that's alright with me

…And here’s why

(You're So Square) Baby I Don't Care

(…kind of the flip of Great Big Kiss, where she loves that the guy is cool)

reminds me of the thing you can find in some old r&b tunes where the male lead singer loves his girl because she's either too fat or too skinny, thus reducing the chances that somebody will try to steal her