Switched on Pop - "Manchild" and other songs about male incompetence

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

Looking for relationship advice? Skip the self-help books and turn to Sabrina Carpenter's latest single "Manchild" instead. This deep dive into the art of musical insults reveals how pop's newest sensation joins a legendary lineage of women artists who've perfected the craft of calling out incompetent men through song. From Dolly Parton's subversive "Dumb Blonde" to TLC's iconic "No Scrubs," there's an entire musical tradition of witty takedowns that reclaim power through clever wordplay, genre-hopping arrangements, and lyrical traps that expose male vanity. MORE Subscribe to our newsletter to receive your own bingo card! Songs discussed Sabrina Carpenter "Manchild" Sabrina Carpenter "Espresso" Olivia Rodrigo "Driver's License" The Beatles "Get Back" Heart "Barracuda" Dolly Parton "Dumb Blonde" Sabrina Carpenter "Please Please Please" TLC "No Scrubs" Destiny's Child "Bills, Bills, Bills" Destiny's Child "Independent Women Part 1" Shania Twain "That Don't Impress Me Much" Carly Simon "You're So Vain" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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under control. New Potion 9 of Sebastian, the secreto professional, of who don't see what they're not to who are things, but of who they're Welcome to Switched on Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist Nate Sloan, and we are holding hands. We are holding hands. We're IRL, Charles. For the first time in a long time.

I know. It's fun. You smell great. So can I start with asking you a personal question? Please. What are you most incompetent about? Oh, so many things. Where to start. Math just in general. I don't even remember my multiplication table at this point. It's embarrassed. Music and math have nothing to do with each other, it turns out. Yeah, I think that's a misconception because I am the exception to that rule. How about in your romantic life? Well, historically, there's a lot of incompetence. But I think recently I've been on a hot streak.

Oh, yeah. Married 10 years, 10 year anniversary. So, yeah. Okay. Pretty pleased with that. Well, today I want to try to learn from the best songwriters in the business about how to overcome being an incompetent man. Oh, this is a very valuable topic. Because between toxic masculinity and the male loneliness epidemic, men need work.

So let's start with our instructor for today. It's Sabrina Carpenter and her new single, Manchild. Sabrina Carpenter is back. The petite former Disney star, the blonde girl from Olivia Rodriguez's driver's license, the pop star who surprised the world with the stickiest summer hit of last year. Espresso, one of the many hit singles off her album Short and Sweet, that generated countless hits. Well, it turns out she's not done.

She has announced a new album coming in August called Man's Best Friend, and she's leading with this single Manchild, which is, I think, showing off one of her great gifts, that she can sprinkle in obvious innuendo. But there's something cravingly fun about these songs, and they are absolutely whip smart. I think that's the case with Manchild. It's a collaboration with Amy Allen and Jack Antonoff,

who worked on much of her last album. Let's dig in and see if we can decode what the main message of the song is. I have some suspicions, but let's do it, Charles. What do you think? Man child, I mean, this is male incompetence in a nutshell. You know, men are coddled. They don't have to grow up. They get to be children forever.

And they rely on the women in their lives to take care of them. And here's Sabrina Carpenter saying, I think I'm a little fed up with this status quo. All right, that's the episode. Okay. See you next week. I mean, I feel like this song has this lighthearted feeling about saying, why do all these dumb men end up in my life? I got to get rid of them.

I actually think there's a lot more going on here that subverts the narrative. Okay. And it all begins with her spectacular, lyrical approach. Because from the very beginning, she's going to take this man down a notch with a great insult. I mean, she literally is calling this guy a manchild. Like, that can't be a good thing. We're going to get more into the definition of the manchild. But she doubles down in the chorus.

It really feels like she's making a joke here. There's almost a punchline. We hear never heard of self-care. Bam! Half your brain just ain't there. Boom! It's like a rim shot. Yeah.

Some very lacerating insults here. And it's an old one. Manchild, it turns out, is a very old term. It's been around since the 14th century. Huh. Originally meaning simply a male child. Okay. You know, because like,

modern ideas of childhood are modern. Right. The adolescents didn't exist. Right. But according to Google search trends, the term manchild really took off in the 2010s. And it may have been aided by our own publication, Vulture. Here's just a few headlines. In 2011, Shia LaBouf, literal, giant manchild. In 2012, this just in, Adam Sandler plays a manchild. In 2014, the death of adulthood and the rise of pleasure, or why Seth Rogen is more serious, than Woody Allen, calling Seth Rogen the oer manchild. And finally in 2015, the man-child characters are beginning to fall flat and their movies

to over-recycle their material, the death of the man-child. What do you think of when you picture the oar man-child in the maybe acting career of Seth Rogen? Good question. Seth Rogen, going through his filmography. Knocked up. Knocked up. That's a good one. He's in 40-year-old virgin.

Yeah. And his characters are... Living in a perpetual adolescence of video games and weed and dead-end jobs. Yeah, flubby, incompetent, grown men who aren't ready to take on any real responsibilities, let alone relationships. You can think of many of the male characters of Jed Apatow films as The Manchild. So it's a great insult, been in the lexicon for a minute. And I particularly enjoy the way that she lands this insult. Because one of the ways I think she's subverting the dumb blonde narrative is she's showing

her work. She's leading up to the punchline. Check out how she does it in the pre-chorus. She's like, what should I call you? Yeah. You stupid? No, that's not enough. You slow? I got a better one. Let me see if I can punch that up. No, you're a man child. It's brutal. And well-deserved. So the song is silly. It's fun. It lands an amazing insult. But I think the wit really comes across in the way that the song is constructed. She's a real musical innovator. I mean, in the second verse, we get a whole new melody and even more cutting lyrics. New melodic material.

It's like, in this very sort of airy kind of voice. And she's like, why so sexy, if so dumb? And how survive the earth so long? She's singing in the voice of like, dumb caveman. Yeah, it's brutal. At this point, I'm kind of wondering, like, what on earth is this song? We've talked about the concept, man-child. Yeah.

But like, what are we listening to? A bop. A bop. Okay. A bop that defies categorization. Uh-huh. From the start, we get the preferred musical palette of Jack Antonoff. Yeah.

An 80s Juno synth and I think a Lynn drum programmed drum machine. Yeah. So the opening, 80s, new wave music, but they're not going to stay there for very long. Let's go further back in time into the 70s with this sort of rock-di-i guitar in the instrumental section. Well, I feel like that rock guitar is doing some rhetorical work in the song as well. Ooh. Because it epitomizes that male caveman aesthetic. Like, rock solo, yes.

Oh, so good. Shred, yes. Okay, now I'm realizing that the backing track of the chorus is doing the same kind of thing because I'm hearing a really particular musical nod. That rhythm. That sort of galloping. rhythm. Hi-ho Silver away. Does it remind you of anything? Like a galloping horse. How about? Oh, do you ding-dick-ding, dig-ding, dig-ding, dig-ding, dig-ding, dig-ding. How about those, get back,

get back, same exact rhythm and hits that we're hearing in Manchild. Perhaps, though I'd also say you could compare it to Barracuda by Hart, which is fronted by the Wilson sisters. So, depending on where you want to go, you can either read it as a repudiation of male rock adulation or Sabrina Carpenter channeling women rock gods of the past to vanquish incompetent men. Okay, so get back a song about seething resentment, Barracuda, about reclaiming a power position in a relationship. So they're working with some hollow references. And yet, she's not done. Because if these references are there to maybe remind us of the rockist male, idiot, egotistical manchild, she's going to bring us into a different musical domain where she feels very comfortable.

Check out the outro. We got country twang. We've got acoustic guitar, banjo, fiddle. Think of how far we have come. We have gone from an 80s synth wave through what is referred to in my favorite text. about pop history, major labels, as cock rock to country bop. Yeah. We've traveled a long way in this song about some stupid manchild.

But that's what makes the song more than just a seething indictment of male complacency. Yes. It's musical complexity reflects a lyrical complexity where she's also indicting herself because she can't help but be swept up by these incompetent men. Having that wrinkle to the story is ultimately what makes the song engaging, I think. I feel like that comes across most clearly in the bridge. It's so fun. It's so clever. she's complicit.

And if she wasn't, it wouldn't be as effective. Right. I like my men all incompetent. And I swear they choose me. I'm not choosing them. Almost said as like a prayer. Amen. Oh, just one of those lines.

You're like, I don't think anyone's ever written this. And they should have. Amen. Hey, man. So let's get time to business. What is the real message of this song? Some are saying that it's about her last boring celebrity boyfriend. Sure.

I haven't been paying attention to the entertainment news. So I couldn't tell you. Always skeptical of one. one-to-one relationships between personal life and song lyrics. Yeah. Others are incensed about this song and an album rollout. Some fans on social media are saying that she's playing into the male gaze, partially due to an album cover, which is very suggestive and sort of in a submissive,

sexualized image. But I think the song's power really comes through when you think about it in the inverse. This is a playful, silly song that's like, man, child, get it out of my life. Why do I keep inviting you back in? Please get out of my life. it doesn't really work the other way around. Ah, a song from a man's perspective about an incompetent woman. Oh, I just love my dumb blonde.

I mean, even saying the word dumb blonde, it's so dated. Get out of here. Doesn't work. She's claiming agency by choosing this sort of nitwit caricature. Yeah. It's always sort of saying, like, through my clever songwriting, through this journey that I'm going to take you on musically, I'm happy being the smarter person in the relationship, even if it sometimes doesn't serve me. It's a comment on patriarchy itself because this power relationship begs to be subverted in a way that a man singing about a dumb blonde is just exacerbating and existing inequity.

Yeah. So there's a really rich reclamation here, even as she's also acknowledging some frailty on her side. And it turns out the castigating shitty men who use the dumb blonde narrative is a century-old tradition that we're going to break down right after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness.

I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. No.

We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. So far, what have you learned about your own incompetence, Nate? I mean, nothing I didn't already know, but that I'm helpless, emotionally out of touch, overly reliant on mother figures and probably blissfully unaware

of my own privilege in the world. I'm charging $200 an hour right now, just to be clear. It seems reasonable. Well, it turns out that I think there's a lot more that we have to learn, not just from Sabrina Carpenter, but from the many women who've written about male incompetence before her.

And the pinnacle, the OG, has got to be Dolly Parton, and her song, Dumb blonde. And it's appropriate to invoke Dolly, for so many reasons, including that Dolly and Sabrina duetted on a version of please, please, please, that was written by the same folks, Sabrina, Amy Allen, and Jack Antenoff. So Sabrina knows the material that she's working with. She's friends with Dolly Parton. And she is evoking this idea of the dumb blonde that in many ways, Dolly has both helped create and subvert throughout her entire career.

I mean, she says it right there in the verse. Just because I'm blonde. Just because I'm blonde. Don't think I'm dumb because this dumb blonde ain't nobody's fool. Dolly spends much of her career playing into this narrative. When she's asked about how she feels with dumb blonde jokes, she says, I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb

and I also know that I'm not blonde. She wrote a book called Not Dumb, Not Blonde, Dolly in Conversations. Turns out, though, that this stereotype of the dumb blonde, As I said, goes back 100 years. Back to 1925, when the novelist Anita Luce put out a book, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Oh, yeah. Which was followed by a sequel called But Gentleman Mary Burnett's.

Later became a film with Marilyn Monroe. It is a huge part of history. Yeah. But from the very beginning, this device of the dumb blonde is a straw man. The main character, Lorley, wasn't dumb. She uses her charm in good looks to strategically move up the ranks of society. She uses her wit disguised as naivete to work up through the world of male power. So are you taking any lesson away from Dolly and Anita Luce?

I am. I'm realizing how pervasive the dumb blonde myth is. I mean, when I was growing up, kids would tell blonde jokes like during recess, you know. What did, uh, you're going to try one right now? Blonde goes to the doctor. She says, doctor, it hurts every. time I touch my shoulder. He says, yeah, your finger's broken. That's a terrible joke. I might not be telling it right. Wait a way. No redos, no molligans. Here's what I'm learning. I think that

stereotypes are often the opposite of reality. Right. They're perpetuated by the dominant oppressing class in order to marginalize and put people in a box. The other lesson that I'm learning, never underestimate Dolly Parton. I don't think anyone is. Better not be. Can we visit some other songs about male incompetence? Please. To see what we can learn. Yeah. I polled our listeners and asked my musical colleagues, what's the most important song about

male incompetence? And one of the songs that just kept arising to the very top is no scrubs by TLC. Oh, yeah. So, Nate, what is a scrub? A guy who thinks he's fly, also known as a Busta. That's right. Never quite caught on Busta, I feel like. Didn't.

Scrub definitely entered the lexicon. Oh, yeah, yeah. So another image of incompetence. Someone who thinks they have more to offer than they actually do. And I feel like that's ultimately the indictment of this character. Yeah. It's someone whose pretensions to being a lethario don't match their actual status. I don't think most scrubs would know how to use the word lethario, but a scrub really did enter the lexicon.

I think that that's due to no shortage of trying by the songwriter Kevin Shakespeare Briggs, who later went on to pen Bill's Bill's Bill's Bill's by Destiny's Child. And not only do we get the same sort of keyboard sound, that sort of fake harpsichord thing. Who knew that broke music was cool? We actually get the scrub in a line of Bill's Bill's Bill's Bills. He's trying to make fetch happen. You tripling, good for nothing type of brother. Silly me, why haven't I found another a baller?

So we're hard needs to want to help me out Instead of a scrub like you Who don't know what a man's about Can you pay my bills? Can't pay my tel on bill? So we are expanding the scrubberverse, if you will. Yes, indeed. Which I think is really resolved

by another Destiny's Child song Independent Woman Part 1. Question, tell me how you feel about this. Try to control me, boy, you get dismissed. Pay my own carno and I pay my own bills. Always 50-50 in relationships. The shoes on my beat I bought Clothes I'm wearing

So just to be clear We don't get the line scrubs again No But we get bills And I feel like Bills, Bills, Bills sort of sets up the idea that the opposite of a scrub is somebody who will take care of you

With financial independence Right This song to me is a little eccentric To the scrub averse Because it is so explicitly About my independence Right As a woman

Yes, Bills Bills Bills I was saying before though is sort of starting saying up like can you pay my bills and now she's saying wait a minute hold on I got this backwards like that is some like internalized misogyny ah okay okay no no no yeah in my relationships I'm 50 50 yeah I'm gonna support myself you're gonna support yourself we both have to be responsible adult human beings no man children here yeah I guess I just feel like the male character in this song has been so thoroughly eclips that he's almost irrelevant that's probably the lesson that we should be taking yeah we should probably just shut up now but we're

not going to. Oh, typical male behavior. Because we have to listen to Shania Twain. That don't impress me much. I've known a few guys who thought they were pretty smart, but you've got being right down to an art. You think of a genius. You drive me up the wall.

You're a regular original. No it all. Such good insults. Oh, yeah. Such a good send-off, right? I've known a few guys who think they're pretty smart. You're like, oh, okay. Oh, maybe she's talking about this other guy.

I found a smarter guy. But you've got being right down to an art. Ooh, I love this conflict we're setting up. Smartness versus needing to be right. You think you're a genius. You're just a regular old know-it-all. Oh, the indictment. Still applicable 30 years later.

Okay, so you're a rocket scientist. That don't impress me much. She doesn't have a line that says, Oh, you're a musicologist with a PhD. It's implied. I don't mean to catch you down, but yeah, it could be a good form of self-therapy. Whenever you're starting to feel a little egotistical, just draw on some Shania Twain and remind yourself that you're not really that great. That don't impress a me much.

Nope. I love that she made her own little catchphrase out of it. You know, if you really want to take someone down. Yeah. It kind of feels like you need to have a branding like Manchild scrub. And in this case, she just adds a little, ah, to impress me much. And it's stuck in my brain since childhood. It's also like what she's doing is really impressive right there.

Because she is cutting out the music, doing this spoken word ad lib. Oh, you're a rocket scientist. And then modulating the chords to land on don't impress me much. So it's like, not only are you not impressive, look at what I can do. Yes. Very impressive, Shania. Ah, in much the same way that Sabrina earlier was using the language of rock and roll to sort of invoke the caricature of this male incompetence. Very clever.

Okay, so we've learned a lot from Sabrina, from Dolly, TLC, Shania. But I feel like there's one song that captures this entire feeling better than any other in all of musical history. Yeah. That's Carly Simons. You're so vain. Some of the best writing about arrogance I've ever heard. He walked into the peaceful love. Your scarf is.

I want to pause it right there because we have to point out the creative rhyming that she's doing here. Has anyone, in all of human history, ever rhymed, yacht, apricot, and gavat? I don't think so. Turns out she's also in company with Sabrina Carpenter here because she has gone to say that, yes, there is some celebrity gossip in the song. This is old stuff too. One of the verses is written about Warren Beattie, the act. I don't know if it's this one, but one of them is supposedly inspired by him. Right. There's been a lot of speculation about who the subject of the song is.

She's been famously tight-lipped about it. But could you see the sort of cinematic quality of her writing here? It's like you're walking into the party as if you were walking onto a yacht. What a great line. It's devastating. It cuts this guy down to size. Like, I could never buy an apricot scarf after listening to this song. I would be too embarrassed.

No red scarves. No apricot scarves. Definitely. Keeping it black and gray stripes. Yeah, I won't gavot again. I mean, I'm only going to govot. Well, gavat, you know, it's funny that you mentioned the Baroque harpsichord earlier because the gavot was one of the dance styles that Baroque composers like Bach would incorporate into their keyboard music. You know, they would have an al-a-a-monde, a bouet, and they would typically have a gavut as one of their dance-style pieces.

So maybe unwittingly, Carly Simon is also tapping into that Baroque heritage. Okay, musicological nerdery over. Please continue with... I just want to point out that you were capturing something like, I don't know what it was like to live in the Baroque era. I'm assuming like plagues and everyone dying and not that pleasant. But the music is sort of associated with classical elitism at this point, whether or not that's the lived reality of Bach,

who I think was mostly hanging out like in churches. Yeah, he was the Kappelmeister, and he was taking these popular dance forms and turning them into, like, yeah, high art court music. Okay, got it. All right, back to your so vain. I think this song has the most powerful punchline of an insult of all the things we've heard so far. You probably think this song is about you. Just to be clear, in my own incompetence, I was like, isn't this a little funny? Because, like, this song is about him.

And I'm like, oh, he's so. so vain as to not realize that he's being insulted the entire song, that he's just happy to have a song written about him? Okay, I see your reading of the lyrics, Charles, but I tend to interpret it more like this chorus is a trap, because if you think that this song is about you, you are proving your own vanity, essentially. Right, right, right. And she as the songwriter, can always say, no, it's not. She holds the power. Okay, so now I feel like at this point in the conversation, all I'm doing is revealing my own incompetence. Yeah, I mean, arguably that could be said about every week you record the show, but perhaps more acutely.

I worry about being the so-called rocket scientist trying to use my wit to boost my own ego, to not seem vain, but potentially be so vain. You're looking at me like you want me to. There's no resolution. assuage your concern. This whole episode is a trap. Be essentially Sabrina Carpenter and make you feel good about yourself. Well, I'm not going to do that, Charlie. Oh, really?

I'm not going to comfort you. So I just have to sit in my own incompetence and discomfort. I think you're going to have to work on yourself. Heard. Take a hard look in the mirror. Well, if there's any consolation to me, you won't be my Sabrina. But I have a feeling that we're going to keep hearing Manchild all throughout the summer. Yeah.

And so I can at least get some comfort in getting to at least be that dumb caveman character. It will be a constant. reminder of your own inadequacy. Thank you, Nate. Charlie, I'm thinking about the outro to Manchild, the banjo, the fiddle, the country twang, and it serves as a beautiful prologue to an exciting, upcoming, unprecedented moment in Switched on Pop history, a whole week of back-to-back episodes, five in a row dedicated to the genre of country.

That's right, Charlie. It's Country Week on Switched on Pop. We're gone country. Get me to God's country. Get me to Pop's country. I don't know. Let's workshop it. Switched on Pop is produced by Rana Cruz, edited by Art Chung, engineered by Brandon McFarland,

illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our theme song is by Jossia Adams and Zach Tenario of Arc Iris. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network, production of Vulture, which is part of New York magazine. You can subscribe to NYMag.com slash pod. And of course, you can find all of our stuff at Switchdownpop.com on the social medias at Switchedon Pop, newsletter on our website and in our show notes, where you can get a little extra deep brief of each episode every single week. And most importantly, come back next week, Monday through Friday for Switched on Country.

Our own incompetence continues to beguile us. Switch on horrific. Nope. God, that was there. All right. See you on Monday. And until then. Thanks for listening.