Reminder: Baha Men Banger 'Who Let The Dogs Out' Is A Secret Feminist Banger
Ahhh, the Baha Men's “Who Let The Dogs Out.” An iconic early-aughts summertime jam, the official track of any 2000's family-friendly film featuring two or more pups, and an in-depth feminist thesis on all the ways creepy, catcalling men absolutely suck?
Yep, although touted for years as a song slamming unattractive women at parties – thanks in part to people tweeting the same joke over …
… and over …
… and over again ….
… it seems this common analysis couldn't be further from the truth.
“It's man-bashing song," explained Anslem Douglas, who originally wrote and recorded the song, then called “Doggie,” in 1998 before the Baha Men's cover garnered international success ruff-ly two years later. “The lyric of the song says, 'The party was nice, the party was pumpin,'" he continued. "When I said the word "party" I was being metaphorical. It really means things were going great."
Even the song's famous chants were more than just ad-libs, intentionally included to paint a picture of this summertime rager. “The ‘Yippie-Yi-Yo,’ that’s everybody’s happy, right? ‘And everybody was having a ball.’ Life was going great,” he recalled in an interview posted to his website.
Despite this grand time, it seems catcallers, in all their annoying glory managed to ruin the evening. “'Until the men start the name-callin’ / And then the girls respond to the call,'" Douglas continued, citing the lyrics of the first verse. “So the men started calling the women ‘skank’ and 'skettel,' every dirty word you can think of. The men started the name-calling and then the girls respond to the call.”
Amid this degradation, one brave partygoer finally had enough, taking a stand against these annoying fellas in the catchiest way possible. “And then a woman shouts out, ‘Who let the dogs out?’ And we start calling men dogs. It was really a man-bashing song.”
So folks, as the world opens up and catcallers begin reigniting their reign of terror, take a page from the Baha Men's book and ask them the question for the ages – “who let the dogs out?”
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