10 Songs Our Parents Probably Shouldn't Have Let Us Listen To When We Were Kids

Raising kids is often something of a weird venture. It's surprising what your kids will learn from you and your habits as they grow, and it's often totally possible for them to learn and respond to things that you would have never even thought of.

This doesn't just apply to personal habits either. When we were little kids, pretty much the only music we listened to was whatever our parents liked (often against our wishes), and sometimes I think they really didn't think things through with their song selection.

In the case of these 10 songs, we're preeeeeeeetty sure we shouldn't have been allowed to listen to these.

Lamb Chop - "The Song That Never Ends"

Okay, this is kind of cheating because unlike the rest of the songs on this list, this one is actually intended for children, and children legit love it.

HOWEVER, our parents definitely shouldn't have let us listen to this one either by watching Lamb Chop's Play-Along or by buying the cassette of it, because we learned it VERY quickly, and long family car rides were never the same.

Bob Marley - "Jamming"

Chances are if you've ever been to college, you've seen a Bob Marley poster up on a dorm room wall. It was usually the dorm room of the white guy who had deadlocks and had lots of people coming by his room with money when the RA wasn't around.

For some reason though, parents have no problem at all playing Marley's greatest hits around their kids, leaving us to retroactively wonder why we didn't all become stoners (because we totally didn't, officer).

The Clash - "Rock The Casbah"

Okay, our folks get a few strikes for this one. First of all, The Clash were some of the biggest names in rebellious, anti-establishment punk rock, and the last thing you need to be giving kids is even more of an excuse to become rebellious little punks (they're really good at doing that anyway).

Second, you all know what rocking the casbah is right? ...Sex. It's a song about sex.

Billy Ray Cyrus - "Achey Breaky Heart"

While most of the other entries on this list are there because of subject matter that kids should probably not be exposed to, this one makes it on here because the very act of listening to this song should be considered cruelty to children.

If Billy Ray's hilariously awful mullet wasn't enough to turn you off the song, then the sheer cheesy awfulness of the song itself should have done it.

Black Sabbath - "War Pigs"

I still remember my dad blasting this in the car and me absolutely loving the voice of the silly British man coming out of the stereo, but when you get right down to it, this is a song that plays off some pretty horrific war imagery.

Between mentions of bodies burning, wars destroying the world, and the line "Satan laughing spreads his wings," it's kind of amazing that we weren't scarred for life by this one.

Chuck Berry - "My Ding-a-Ling"

Chuck Berry was one of the original rock gods and the genre wouldn't be anywhere near what it is today if it wasn't for him, but at the same time, a cursory glance at his life will reveal that his habits were pretty filthy, especially when it came to women.

So of course he recorded this song that kids seem to love, which unbeknownst to them is more or less a three-minute-long dick joke. Or maybe kids do get it...

Etta James - "I Just Want To Make Love To You"

A song that one of my coworkers described as "played unfortunately often in our household," this jazz classic definitely has an infectious saxophone riff that just about everybody can enjoy.

However, this song isn't even trying to mask what it's about, and even as kids we got just a liiiiiiiiiiiiiittle uncomfortable with the looks our parents kept giving each other during this song.

The Knack - "My Sharona"

We're back into Billy Ray Cyrus-like territory here. There's nothing overly wrong with "My Sharona" in terms of its lyrical content, but there IS something wrong with it in that it's infectiously catchy but absolutely annoying, meaning that even as a kid you couldn't stop hearing it in your head for days after your mom stopped singing it while making dinner.

The Rolling Stones - "Brown Sugar"

Have you ever actually listened to the lyrics of this song? Like really listened to them? It's very much a song about black slavery, and alludes to some of the pretty awful treatment of slaves in the American south, including themes like rape and beatings.

Sure, it's an infectiously catchy song, but maaaaaaaaybe you should broach these subjects in a more careful and direct way with your kids first.

Marvin Gaye - "Let's Get It On"

I'm just going to quote one of my coworkers on this one: "I never asked my mom why she played that song a lot, and I never will." Me too, man. Me too.

What song did your parents play around you that you were probably too young to listen to?