C’est La Vie – B*Witched

B*Witched, the world’s largest Irish girl pop group, burst onto the scene in 1998.  I know because a close friend of mine played their hit single “C’est La Vie” about every fourteen seconds.  He wouldn’t even allow the song to finish before starting it again.  It was non-stop.

B*Witched was a little bit lost in the mass of pop bands circulating the airwaves in 1998.  You may not remember, but there was a new pop group approximately every six seconds.  MTV, VH1 and all the other channels and magazines continually churned out the hits.  I’m not saying it was a bad thing.  Surely, worse things have happened to pop music (mostly Chingy – but I’ll get to him on another date).  In fact, B*Witched, N*SYNC, B*ackstreet Boys, and their peers are fairly strong examples of pop music.  They define a time and a place in American and international (IRELAND!) music.  While I wasn’t crazy about the songs, I will admit that they were produced well and definitely appealed to their fans.  Which, in my case, was my dear friend Adam.

Four young Irish girls looking for hot, sweaty man.

B*Witched wanted to make it big in the states.  And how does somebody make a big splash in the US?

SEX!

You think you’re better than them?  You think you wouldn’t inject sexual undertones into your music in order to sell records?  You ain’t better than B*Witched!  You ain’t good enough to spell your name with an asterisk!  Try it, try and spell your name with an asterisk!  You can’t, because you ain’t from the streets like B*Witched!  These girl come from Ireland!  Ever hear of the The Troubles?  B*Witched started The Troubles!  They can do what they want!

But seriously, this video (and song) was, in my humblest of opinions, a rather clever attempt at bringing in the young adult audience with a little S-E-X.  Nothing sells like sex, especially vaguely-hinted-at sex.

The video looks simple enough from the outset.  A bunch of girls dancing around in a techno-color nightmare always makes for a good time.  Clouds speeding by, flowers sprouting by their feet, the sky as blue as…well, a blue sky.  All is right with the world.  A shy boy, sitting in his tree, avoids the girls of B*Witched.  And why shouldn’t he?  He’s young and doesn’t understand women.  Their accents are weird.

Come get some boys.

Now take a look at these statistics.  FOUR girls and ONE nerdy little boy.  According to my math, that’s a 4-to-1 ratio of girls to boys.  Yet, the boy isn’t looking for love; the girls are.  They are going to get some action even if they have to force it.  They are ganging up on this poor kid and forcing him to grow up under the bright sky of some fictional land.

These are some of the REAL lyrics of “C’est La Vie”:

Is it very big, is there room for two
(Ah oh)
I got a house with windows and doors
I’ll show you mine if you show me yours

These girls are talking about penises and vaginas!

But wait, it’s better.  Preceding every chorus in the song is this little innocent ditty:

Gotta let me in, hey hey hey
Let the fun begin, hey
I’m the wolf today, hey hey hey
I’ll huff, I’ll puff
I’ll huff, I’ll puff, I’ll blow you away

Man, I didn’t know Irish girls were so…Irish.

Later in the song, the girls ask if boys ever get tired of playing with their “toys”? By toys I assume they mean…well, you get it.

…They mean their genitals.

This all could have been just another instance of me looking into things too much, like that time I got arrested by the cops for peeking into a woman’s purse.   However, after examining the video I’ve learned this isn’t the case.  B*Witched was horny and needed some intimate attention.  To put it lightly.

At about 1:15 into the song, the girls TIE THE POOR LAD TO A TREE!  They dance around him, laughing and singing while failing to notice how afraid he is.

However, the real gem of the video is the little dance move the girls perform immediately after, at about 1:18.  It’s just…it’s…siiiiiiiiiiiiigh.  Just watch it.

But they’re not done yet.  Before the end of the video, the boy gets sprayed in the face with a hose and smothered in kisses.  He looks terrified and scared for his life.  He will never be able to listen to a Sinead O’Connor album again without shivering.

This song was fairly successful.  Yet it was B*Witched’s (?) only hit in the United States.  Apparently, they’re all doing well.  Split into different bands, they all live productive lives performing music.  I say congratulations to them.  They deserve all the success they achieve.  Any band that is able to slip this much sexual content by American audiences deserves some sort of accolades.

I just pray that poor boy went to counseling.

Tags: B*witched, Ireland, sex