I Hate My Fat / Yeah Yeah Yeah
Here are some songs to help you lose weight… with terrible poetry! A CD featuring songs like “I’m A Hottie Now” and “I Think I’ll Go To Saks.” Put aside the Shakira and the Kelly Clarkson and self-loathe your way to being thin with lyrics such as…
Thin! — I don’t deny it. Thin! — I wanna try it / Thin! — but I can’t buy it. Guess I’ll have to di- di- diet /
Thin! — not telling you lies. Thin! — I want smaller thighs / Thin! — but I realize, I guess I’ll have to exercise
That’s it now, get off your duff / No more fat, we have had enough / Gotta do a little huff and puff / so that you can strutt your stuff
I’m here to remind you / That you da boss, not da food / Stick that in yo’ attitude / And show that you got fortitude
[W]ho the hell is that? ‘Cause it sure ain’t me! / how’d I get so fat? It’s a shame to see
I could go on and on. The punchline? They wanted to send me a free CD to review it for this website. Well here’s your review: It sucks.
Posted by mo pie
Filed under: Exercise, Humor, Music, Weight Loss
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*headdesk*
You know what that reminds me of? In “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” when she takes an exercise class and they listen to a song that goes “Give that chicken fat back to the chicken: Go you chicken fat, go.”
That book was written 30 years ago.
Some things never change.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t make fun of them!
Oh wow, my mom had the “chicken fat” record in the early 70s! Robert Preston, of “The Music Man” and “Victor/Victoria”. His voice could make even “Go, you chicken fat, go” listenable.
srsly? I knew that I had a lot of capacity for surprise and outrage at fatphobia and skinnyphilia – but I did do a double take on this one.
Excellent review!
I remember my gym teacher playing that “Chicken Fat” song in the 1980s while we were running laps. Is it any wonder I still don’t like to run? I remember being so mortified by that song.
The song dedicated to losing weight for the skinny jeans, and the other one about losing weight so the woman could fit into designer clothes irritated me to no end. That’s probably because I work in retail and I hear crap like that all the time, and I want to say, “BUY CLOTHES THAT FIT! YOU WILL LOOK GREAT!” I do get into conversations with customers about finding decent plus sized clothing. Usually, customers are refreshed to hear someone else say, “No, seriously, designers need to stop punishing fat people,” instead of “If I could just lose 30 pounds I’d be back in conventional sizes,” which is normally how the conversation goes. My favorite incident, though, was this one:
Customer: I’m buying this in two sizes because I’m losing a lot of weight these days.
Coworker: Good for you! What’s your secret?
Customer: Um, chemotherapy.
I got the same offer to review, but I accepted and now the CD is lying as a coaster somewhere. I intended to do a deconstruction of it but its not high on my list of priorities.
What’s even funnier is how they tried to present the CD as empowering for women at all sizes. Kind of like Slim-Fast’s “Find your thin” campaign. But yet the entire CD is dedicated to songs that specifically mention size 6 and size 8 and define these sizes and weights as thin.
Plus, as my musician husband says, the music just sucks.
I totally thought I would be the only old bat racing in here to discuss the Chicken Fat record (yes, children, a vinyl record! rotary phones! conestoga wagons!) that I too was subjected to in elementary school. Our teacher coaxed us through an accompanying dance that, in all likelihood, was just the chicken dance from every wedding band ever. I seem to remember a lot of flapping, hands in armpits, elbows flying.
@ Alyssa…isn’t it a Betty Miles book, not Margaret? I’ll be damned if I can remember which one, though. The girl has a paper route and longs to take a…tennis class, I think?–both boys-only pursuits at the time. The Dark Ages!
Well here’s your review: It sucks.
You are awesome.
That chicken fat song can be found on YouTube, for anyone who wonders what the heck it is we’re talking about. WARNING: google at your own risk. Safe for work, but not for sanity.
I’ve listened to bits of all the songs and read all the lyrics. The music is horrible, and the lyrics could only be written by someone who is still on the “high” of losing weight (she’s only some months into losing it.) Sad, and pathetic, but funny as well. I did a parody of one of the songs set to “Billie Jean” which I think was better lol. (It’s on shapely prose on the skinny songs entry.)
Oh my. The ability of some to be complete idiots is overwhelming.
Wow. I’m another vintage lady who remembers the chicken fat song. The teacher used to play it all the time during calesthenics in eight-grade gym. I freaking hated that stupid song, and back then if you turned me sideways, I disappeared. All I could think, though, was that a) I didn’t have any damn chicken fat and b) if I was fat, I’d want to smash the record over the teachers’ head.
I’m still not sure if it was mammoth self-restraint or complete demonralization that kept the fat girls from smashing the record. I do know if I had a TARDIS, one of the first things I’d want to do with it is find a way to stop that recording being made. I know something at least as offensive would have been done at some point, but it really pisses me off to this day.
Iread the Margaret book 11 times when I was a kid, and I only remember:
We must!
We must!
We must increase our bust!
With accompanying arm flapping.
I got asked to review that too and right away I said NO.. I was offended to no end.. by the way I love this blog.. and read it every day.. I am working to get healthier and lose weight myself and when I come over here.. especially when I have felt really bad about myself I always leave this blog with a smile on.. and You are so absolutely dead on with the review…. absolutely pathetic if you ask me.
The book it appears in is The Real Me by Betty Miles. I remember the class she had to take in the book was called slimnastics and she really hated the name of the class. I didn’t realize the chicken fat song was a real song though. I’m sorry to find out that it wasn’t fictional.
La Wade sang the chicken fat song to us one night during one of our podcasts. That was the first I’d heard of it!
They. . . What? I. . . What? They’re tryin’ too. . . What?
Ok-Ok. . . . . . . . . . . . What?
RESET *headdesk* RESET *headdesk*
Excellent review. Covers all the salient points.
I dimly remember reading the Myers book at an impressionable age. I think I blocked it out, or threw it across the room, refusing to believe such madness existed.
Remedies for soothing the madness: Beverly Cleary, Louise Fitzhugh (author mom of Harriet, Emma, Jennifer, and, I believe, Claudia), Madeleine L’Engle, Ursula K. LeGuin.
As I read back the author’s list, I think I started getting into science fiction and fantasy early because after choking down whatever the equivalent of “Sweet Valley High” was at the time (I told you, I’ve blocked it out) I think I believed there had to be a better world out there somewhere than this one.
Oh, and Robert Cormier.
Proof that boys, unfettered, can be just as cruel to each other as they were to us.
In what I will admit to be a twisted way, it made me feel much better. That it wasn’t me, or my friends that were built like me — those XYs were just wired that way.
Oh, I remember that book The Real Me! It was about how this girl was fighting sex discrimination at her school because all the fun PE classes were for boys only and the girls had to take crap like “slimnastics,” hence the chicken fat song.
And I got hit up to review that damn Skinnysongs thing, too. Don’t these PR firms who do this blog marketing stuff ever actually read the blogs?
Just to clarify, when I sang the chicken fat song to Mo et al. it was to demonstrate how awful it was (we also had that record in my elementary school P.E. class), not because I felt my friends needed to give the chicken fat back to the chicken!
The funny thing is, though, I actually liked doing the “chicken fat” calisthenics a lot better than our usual P.E. class fare like dodgeball and kickball.
Better yet –
send ’em back a copy of Spinal Tap’s incomparable “Big Bottom”.
That’s right. *nodnod*
Show those kids what righteous classology they should be listening to.
best… review… ever…
*headdeskx10* They can’t be serious.
On the plus side…your review is great. :D
Is that a real CD as in a real song or is it a parody of something? Someone actually made that song? Hoping that people would listen?
This is just what makes me love Mika even more. With songs like Big Girl (You are Beautiful) and Grace Kelly, I know where my music shopping dollars are being spent and it sure as heck isn’t on the tripe they’ve asked you to review.
Sorry. If looking in the mirror doesn’t shame me into losing weight, what makes them think listening to their garbage will. Um, yeah, I love myself just the way I am.
I have never heard of the chicken fat song. It was never played while I took gym. We did do that awful “Superfit” crap that was the rage of the 70s and 80s.
I read on one of the blogs that the author of Skinny Songs was a 14 when she decided to make the CD. Size 14 is really just a regular large. That’s hardly something to get depressed about unless you are very body and food disordered.
Your review was perfect.
OMG!!!! “The Real Me” by Betty Myles! Slimnastics! YES! You guys are so right!
I must have read that book a dozen times! How could I forget it was in that book?
I never read “Sweet valley High.” Couldn’t even pick them up. So I read a lot of science fiction and watched “Dr. Who.”
I was totally prepared to say that everyone should be able to express themselves however they feel they need to in regards to their bodies. However, I can’t even offer any support for those songs because they do indeed suck. The writing is bad, the music is horrific and the singing sucks. It isn’t empowering (even to those of us who are fat and are actively trying not to be). My review? YUCK!
As a professional musician, I must concur with your precise, concise review. The lyrics suck. The music sucks. The singing sucks. The concept sucks. The whole thing could not be more banal. Or sound more like it was written by a middle-aged white chick who desperately wants to be “cool”.
We should come up with our own mix album. Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”, anyone?
What’s that, CindyS? Have you not seen this post yet? Hee.
I would’ve emailed them back and asked if they were making a joke CD. I mean seriously, they write lyrics like they’re in 2nd grade. They make Puddle of Mudd sound like freaking geniuses. I mean that as in, I don’t like Puddle of Mudd, but even they’re better than these clowns.
Actually, Mo Pie, I hadn’t seen that post. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!
*shaking my head*
I’m off to listen to Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls”….
Ayep. I accepted their free CD, listened to it, and then wrote my own review, because it was HORRIBLE. Ugh.