Take Off Your Clothes
Writing this at the end of 2021 I am of course highly aware, as you may be, that “Take Off Your Clothes” is a song that can’t help but raise discussions about the objectification of womens’ bodies, sexual harassment in the workplace, and toxic masculinity. You’ll get no argument from me. Even raised by as many feminist women as I was in an aggressively feminist town (Olympia, the birthplace of riot grrl) I have lived my entire life (minus a few months here or there) in the soup of American media and its effects. I have been working diligently to de-program myself for decades so, suggesting that this song reveals me as a sexist at 21 is as obvious as pointing out that a fish is wet.
But that’s not what the song was ever about or how it was generally taken by women at the many left wing activist events (some nudist) where we played this song between 1989 and 2000. I certainly can’t speak for everyone but our band was very available to criticism and we got a lot, just never about this.
If it helps, imagine this song is being sung by a curious child to a bunch of nudists.
Lyrics
TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES
Your body is a symphony
played on a Spanish flute
It would show some sympathy for you to
show up at work in your birthday suit
Oh my mind is open
and my eyes they sure ain’t closed
and I was hopin’
that you’d take off you clothes
Well you always look so fine
and smell so sweet
It would be so divine
if your body was as bare as tour feet
Oh but my mind is open
and my eyes they sure ain’t closed
and I was hopin’
that you’d take off you clothes
Take off your clothes
Please take off your clothes
I was just wondering
if you’d take off your clothes
’cause if you’d take off your clothes
if you’d take off your clothes we’d fall in love
I know I’m just an underling
and I really ain’t got no right
to yearn to see your underthings
or to bask in your
pale moon light
Oh but my mind is open
and my eyes they sure ain’t closed
and I was hopin’
that you’d take off you clothes
Take off your clothes
Please take off your clothes
I was just wondering
if you’d take off your clothes
’cause if you’d take off your clothes
if you’d take off your clothes we might fall in love
Credits
Written by Andras Jones
Andras Jones – Vocals & Acoustic Guitar
Billy Lincoln – Lead Guitar & Backing Vocals
Clay Goldstein – Harmonica
John K. Hench – Bass Guitar
Michael G. Silvester – Drums
Unknown – Female Vocalist
Produced & Engineered by Billy Lincoln
Purchase
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