It seems to me that this song has something to do with gender roles. I can't really work out a meaning for the whole song, but just looking at a few of the lines, we have:
-The title pairing up "Sally," typically a girl's name, with "boy."
-"I've been told that a boy is a girl"
-Breakfast in bed is stereotypically given by men to women. (This one's a bit of a stretch, I know.)
-"Never mind the clothes you wear"--A lot of clothing is gender-specific.
-"Circle gets the square"--In Hollywood Squares, the circle is always the female contestant.
-"A fish needs a bike" is a play on a feminist slogan.
So I think there's definitely something here, but I can't really work it into anything coherent. Is TMBG saying that gender roles are insignificant? I'm not sure. Any ideas? -VoVat
The song seems to me like a sort of muffled protest against the (many) artificial and ridiculous facets of the feminist ideas that have attempted to deny and destroy modern gender roles.
So I think the above idea of the "breakfast in bed" line fitting into this is spot on; this action was once a rare reversal of gender roles as the husband made a meal for the wife. Therefore TMBG could be mentioning it simply to evoke this image of altered gender roles.
I would go even further and say that they're mentioning breakfast in bed as a way of saying: "Hey, a man making a meal for a woman isn't so special anymore because we've stupidly destroyed the gender distinctions that made us men and women. You can't treat a woman like a Queen, even for a day, when that woman thinks that men and women should all be treated the same." It's a similar protest to saying "feminists told us to stop opening doors for women; so now even the last shred of Chivalry has been destroyed."
As for the title, I would assume that "Sally Boy" is supposed to compare and contrast with "Candy Bar" somehow, but I can't think how. I would also suggest that, although it's a stretch, "Candy Bar" could be a phallic symbol; but, again, that wouldn't seem to compare/contrast with "Sally Boy" in any meaningful way (unless there's some parallel anatomical reference there that I'm not getting).
-- My sincere appologies if this is an inapropriate forum for expressing my views on this (if anyone feels it is, please feel free to delete this) but I really don't see that we have to subjugate people so that it means something when we're nice to them. How about we just be good to people (i.e. opening doors for them, making breakfast for them, etc.) regardless of their gender. Just my own feelings on this. -- MasterChivo
--I agreee with Master Chivo. I can only hope that The Johns are not as much of a chauvinist as the above poster. I feel sorry, however, for any person who needs social distinctions to tell the difference between the sexes (can't you tell by checking between the legs?)~k<p>
I think the narrator fell for a transvestite. A "Sally Boy Candy Bar" is a euphamism for, er, what keeps his girlfriend from being a girl. ~Christina Miller, July 2005
| Sally Boy Candy Bar |
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