Featured Song – Day 10
Tears, tantrums, traumas … can’t you just hear the mascara sliding down? Recorded by the 17-year-old Lesley Gore and festooned in teenage angst, the song’s subject matter deals with a steadfast refusal to buckle under and be any man’s plaything. “Don’t tell me what to do…”, “I’m not just one of your many toys”, “Don’t put me on display” … the lyric makes a serious case for ‘You Don’t Own Me’ as one of the first feminist pop statements. But the song took an even more delicious twist in 2005 when Gore publicly announced she was a lesbian who’d been with her female partner for 23 years. Atta girl.