It’s a mid-17th century verb that has sexy, or maybe sensible overtones, meaning to unbutton or undo, and as barely as it is in used in the language, so also is also pretty much naked in song lyrics. Or is it? Its definition has a variety of lyrical positions that aren’t just about getting undressed. Interesting, it is when someone is doing the diffibulation unto someone else that things are getting intimate, or hoped to be, but when undoing your own, the metaphors become broader and wilder.
But let’s start then with a few straight up, take your clothes off sexy songs. Neneh Cherry, first up, with Hornbeam, from the 1996 album, Man:
Won't you
(Unbutton my stuff)
Won't you
(Come and zip me up)
Hip hop has quite a few unbuttoned and unbuttoners, including 50 Cent, but a more interesting example is earlier pioneer LL Cool J whose lyrics manage to integrate a dash of the Iliad, Odyssey and some calculus into the fantasy lesson. From the G.O.A.T. album of 2000. Well, Imagine That:
You're wearing a plad skirt and long white socks
The vibe is thick baby, we both red hot
I kiss your neck unbutton your blouse
Let my fingers make circles on the edge of your mouth
Your apple's so ripe I'm your tutor for life
Got your beggin' me to put you on detention tonight
You could read the Iliad and the whole Odyssey
But no Trojan soldier scold you like me
Match the calculus then measure my frequency
Janet Jackson has lots of referencing to unbuttoning in her songs. It might even be a bit of a fetish for her. Here’s a spray of her song Moist from 2004’s Damita Jo album:
Every time you whisper in my ear I get aroused
You begin to slowly unbutton my blouse
Kissing on my skin my heart's racing now
Perhaps the king, nay prince of sexy unbuttoning must of course be Prince himself. But he was more interested in working on that zip, in Gett Off, from the New Power Generation album Diamonds and Pearls, 1991:
Now move your big ass 'round this way
So I can work on that zipper, baby
A change of pace now, and The City On Film take a slightly more metaphorical form of diffibulation before intimacy with How a Helicopter Sounds from In Formal Production, 2005:
So let's unbutton the bed undo the door and
Loosen the lights and fall about the floor
So what I said was wrong
But what I meant was so right
The American 80-90s dance music trio Deee-Lite meanwhile take diffibulation to a more cerebral, escape level on Come On In, The Dreams Are Fine from 1992’s Infinity Within:
Slip off your views
Unbutton your mind
Stay awhile 1000 miles
Light a candle to your soul
Deja vu 1000 miles old
Canadian rockers Our Lady Peace take the metaphor into more towards losing your inhibition in One Man Army, from 1999’s Happiness... Is Not a Fish That You Can Catch:
Unbutton your clothes
Undress your soul, show them your vigor
Are those inhibitions easiest to fear?
Take this gasoline tin
Head up high, walk like a winner
Let the bare feet be the last sound that they hear
Alt-indie band American Music Club use a meta-metaphor in in Ladies and Gentlemen from Love Songs for Patriots in 2004:
Ladies and gentlemen it's time
For you to flash like a dancer who aims to please
Time to unbutton every button of your embarrassment
Jom Comyn’s Change Your Mind, from last year’s album Crawl unbuttons preconceptions to clear the mind:
So unbutton your abandoned notions
Un-filter your frozen oceans
Dance over this door, it's open
Come and change your mind
And finally, perhaps the most unusual example is Jonathan Wilson’s Natural Rhapsody from the 2011 album Gentle Spirit:
When we hear you’re a friend of the road
With your rebel unbutton is tongue
Come closer where leaving
The shapes that we drew in are shifting
When is all said and done
We are condensed of the horizon
Indeed the natural rhapsody
To close however, let’s have a button, or button hole example, from the sublime Blood On The Tracks, and Idiot Wind by Bob Dylan:
Idiot wind
Blowing through the buttons of our coats
Blowing through the letters that we wrote
So, does unbuttoning your music collection reveal any further undoing finger fumblings, metaphorically or otherwise? Please feel free to share any further examples in songs, instrumentals, on albums, film, art or other contexts in comments below.
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