March 30

When I was still cool enough to listen to the radio and not old enough to drive, my mom would let me sit in the front seat and man the dial. Sometimes we liked the same songs, sometimes not, but I never listened to 101x in the car, since the language and lyrical content of many of the songs upset her (Uninvited's Too High for the Supermarket is one that comes to mind). Instead, I usually hung around the more commercial stations, 96.7 and 94.7, expertly maneuvering between the two.

(For those of you not from Austin, 104.3 was a very bad ass, commercial-free rock station for a while, as well. I think they ran out of money, since they had no commercials. Also, 93.3/99.7 used to be a ridiculous techno station. 102.3 used to be classic rock. Ooooh, back in the day.)

In 2001, Shaggy's version of Angel was released by Universal. My mother loved the original version of this song, and I thought that this new cover would be equally mother-friendly. I was completely wrong.

Shaggy's lyrical rewrite ran as following:

Girl, you're my angel, you're my darling angel
Closer than my peeps you are to me, baby
Shorty you're my angel, you're my darling angel
Girl, you're my friend when I'm in need
Lady

I remember sitting in the car, singing along a bit, getting my fourteen year-old groove going. My mom reached over and turned off the radio. "I don't like that song," she said. "What?!" I was shocked. It was harmless. "Why not?"

"I don't like that dirty thing he says," my mom replied. I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. She turned and faced me. "Christina, what do you think 'peeps' means?" she asked me, eyebrows raised. I tried to explain to her, "peeps" was people. "You know," I said, "Like, people. Peeps. Good friends, buddies."

She shook her head at me, and I could see how naive she thought I was. "Christina," she said, lowering her voice the way parents do when they're going to say something that makes them uncomfortable, "He's talking about breasts."