All Girls Want Bad Boys / Music

---

• Barbara Mandrell's "Angels Love Bad Men," a top 20 country single from 1986 about a girl falling for a career robber; guest backing vocals were provided by Waylon Jennings.
• Pretty much everything from Lana Del Rey falls into this trope. Her debut album Born to Die has "Blue Jeans" (which even namedrops James Dean), "Off to the Races" (which is more of an ode to an Outlaw Couple), "Born to Die" (which is about an abusive relationship with a macho man while living on "the wild side")... it goes on and on. It's hard to tell whether she really believes it or whether she just plays up that persona to sell records.
• The narrator in Halsey's "Ghost" admits to this.
  "I like the sad eyes, bad guys, mouth full of white lies
  Kiss me in the corridor, but quick to tell me goodbye."
• Liz Phair tends to parody this. Her debut album Exile in Guyville features the song "Soup Star Joe", about the idealization of such men in Hollywood.
• Falling in Reverse: "So why do good girls like bad guys? I've had this question for a really long time! I've been a bad boy and it's plain to see! So why do good girls fall in love with me?"
• Garbage has a song titled 'Bad Boyfriend', featuring lyrics such as "And if you can't love me honey, come on, just pretend", and "It may not last but we'll have fun till it ends". The lyrics seem to be from the perspective of a bad girl, too.
• Pet Shop Boys song "West End Girls".
• Backstreet Boys had a song with the title, "If You Want It To Be Good Girl (Get Yourself A Bad Boy)".
• Angel and the Reruns performed a song called "Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Boys?" in Bachelor Party.
• The (hilarious) DMX song "Good Girls, Bad Guys."
• 1960s Girl Group the Shangri-Las largely built their short but memorable career on this trope.
  • "Leader of the Pack", a Billboard #1 hit in 1964, was something of a subversion in that the singer claims she "knew he was sad" rather than bad, and he does seem like a reasonably nice guy from her description. (It was the 1960s; having the girl fall for a really bad boy might have been a step too far.) Then it ends tragically; apparently, rejection made him careless or reckless. Twisted Sister did a gender-flipped cover of the song in 1985, sung from Jimmy's POV, in which it's the girl who drives off and dies in an auto accident. The trope is also played PAINFULLY straight in this version.
  • "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" once again has the singer insist that the guy isn't really bad, despite what her friends have heard; "he's good bad, but he's not evil". She sounds suspiciously like a Hormone-Addled Teenager defending her own questionable judgement.
  • "Out in the Streets" (later covered by Blondie) is a song about a girl regretting that her influence has reformed a bad boy, because she thinks he's missing his old life and she preferred him when he was bad.
  • "The Dum Dum Ditty" is once again all about this trope, even name-dropping classic good girl/bad boy movie Rebel Without a Cause.
• It's part of the reason why the groupie goes off with the hot mega-rock star Pink in The Wall. And then, of course, Hilarity Ensues as she finds out just how bad he really is, as he proceeds to trash his hotel room and nearly kill her in the process.
• "Irresistible" by Stephanie:
  "I know he's wrong
  But his arms feel so right
  He's a magical potion
  Tearing up my emotions
  What if I see what this boy does to me?
  Can't I simply forget him?
  Cause I know I'll regret him
  I can't fight anymore."
• "Bathwater" by No Doubt:
  "Wanted and adored by attractive women
  Bountiful selection at your discretion
  I know I'm diving into my own destruction
  So why do we choose the boys that are naughty?
  I don't fit in, so why do you want me?
  I know I can't tame you, but I just keep trying."
• "Ruffneck" by MC Lyte:
  "I need a ruffneck
  I need a dude with a attitude
  Only needs his fingers with his food
  Karl Kani saggin', timbos draggin'
  Frontin' in his ride with his home boys braggin'
  Lying 'bout the Lyte how he knocked boots last night
  But he's a ruffneck, so that's alright."
• Taylor Swift:
  • "The Way I Loved You" is about a girl who dates a nice guy but misses the way she and her ex would "scream, fight and kiss in the rain."
  • "I Knew You Were Trouble":
    Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in
    So, shame on me now
    Flew me to places I'd never been
    'Til you put me down, oh
  • The 1989 album:
    • "Blank Space" is this Gender Flipped, inverted, and subverted. "But you'll come back/each time you leave/'Coz darling I'm a nightmare dressed like a daydream." Even features the line "I can make the bad boys good for a weekend."
    • "Style":
      You got that James Dean, daydream, look in your eyes.
    • "Wildest Dreams":
      He's so tall and handsome as hell
      He's so bad, but he does it so well.
  • Lover has "Cruel Summer":
    Bad, bad boy, shiny toy with a price
    You know that I bought it
• Cobra Starship:
  • "Nice Guys Finish Last":
    Listen kid you hear them sirens coming for me
    But when I get downtown she will already be
    Posting bail in her favorite dress
    Smiling at me because I'm no good.
  • Cobra Starship also has "Good Girls Go Bad".
• The Cheer Up, Charlie Daniels song "Too Damn Rock and Roll" plays with the trope. The girl wants him, but she won't follow through.
• Ludo's Roxy has a theme like this, although it's more like "All Girls Want Jerkasses":
  "Oh Roxy, why won't you love me?
  Is it because I'm American?
  Or maybe it's because I don't grope you and your friends
  Like the fool behind you now dancing halfway down your pants."
• Alexandra Burke likes Bad Boys.
• Lady Gaga:
  • The song "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga could be interpreted this way.
  • "Judas". Lady Gaga even admitted this was about her then-ex-boyfriend, a notorious bad boy. The video is also clearly about the bad boy—the betrayer—in the group.
  • Monster" also counts.
    "Look at him
    Look at me
    That boy is bad
    And honestly, he’s a wolf in disguise.
    But I can’t stop staring in those evil eyes."
• Britney Spears:
  • "Toxic" practically defines this trope. "You're toxic, I'm slipping under, a taste of your poison paradise"—clearly from the perspective of a bad-boy-wanter!
  • Followed by "Criminal", although its refrain sounds more like Dating What Daddy Hates.
• Professor Green's song "Just be Good to Green" invokes this.
  "I'm a bad boy, something every good girl needs."
• Kylie Minogue has a song called "Better the Devil You Know".
  "I'll forgive, and forget. If you say you'll never go. Cause its true. What they say, it's better the devil you know."
• Jewel's song "Foolish Games" is a deconstruction that analyzes this from the perspective of a girl who's been deeply hurt by her Jerkass of a boyfriend, who's described as having many of the aspects of this trope.
• "Good Girls Like Bad Boys" by Jadyn Maria.
• Bowling for Soup has "Girl All the Bad Guys Want", which is about an uncool guy who likes a bad girl who dates bad boys. So...played straight and two or three kinds of inverted?
• Can't Leave 'Em Alone by Ciara.
  "I can't leave 'em alone
  Tried that good boy game
  But the dope boy's turning me on
  So bad, I love that, I can't leave 'em alone."
• "Bad Boys" by Wham!.
  "Boys like you, are bad through and through/Still, girls like me, always seem to be with you!"
• "Be Hit" by Smog.
  "It seems that my sensitive touch
  Could be given by any old schmuck."
• "Becoming More Like Alfie" by The Divine Comedy is about a former Nice Guy who's decided to become a Bad Boy after striking out once too often with girls who like the latter over the former.
• "Biker Like An Icon" by Paul McCartney is about a girl who's infatuated with a rough-and-tumble biker and follows him around, hoping to meet him. It's deconstructed, however, since "the biker doesn't like her", and when they finally meet up, it's implied he rapes and murders her.
• "Rule Breaker" by Ashlee Simpson is this.
• "Mr. Wrong" by Mary J. Blige. In the song, she gets along with her "bad boy" boyfriend, but he hurts her a lot. She tries to leave but can't get herself to do it because she loves him. It can be interpreted either as a love song or sad song.
• Speaking of Mary J. Blige, her duet song with rapper Method Man called "You All That I need", a remake of a classic R&B song, became the bad boy anthem of the mid 90s.
• Gender Flipped in Apache's "Gangsta Bitch".
• Cascada's "Bad Boy" is sung from the POV of girl who's had her heart broken by a bad boy and doesn't want to be involved with him again but still wants to have sex with him.
• Theory Of A Dead Man's "Gentleman" is this trope with a dash of Take That!.
  "Girls don't want a gentleman
  They say they do but in the end
  Girls don't want a gentleman
  They want a loser like me."
• The Doubleclicks:
  • "Oh, Mr. Darcy" is about someone trying to overcome this tendency, inspired by early exposure to the 1995 version of Pride and Prejudice.
  • "Lasers and Feelings" advances the "bad boy" concept to the level of super-villain.
  • “Internet Troll” updates the idea to the computer age. The troll is a stupid bully with no self-control, but he has passion, probably knows how to fix a computer, and does wonders for the singer’s self-esteem by comparison.
• Celtic Thunder's Ryan Kelly, especially in the songs "That's a Woman" and "Heartbreaker". The latter even provided his nickname: "The Dark Destroyer".
• Richard Thompson seems to enjoy playing with this trope. For example, his "1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is about a passionate romance between Fiery Redhead Red Molly and Badass Biker James, which ends when the latter is gunned down during an armed robbery (leaving the former his bike). Or there's his "I Feel So Good", about a newly-released ex-con hitting the town with "a half-naked woman with her tongue down my throat". For that matter, Thompson's tongue-in-cheek but straight-faced cover version of Britney Spears's "Oops, I Did It Again" turns that song into a faintly sinister evocation of this trope.
• "Bad Boy" by the Miami Sound Machine
  "Bad, bad, bad, bad boy! You make me feel so good!"
• Billy Joel:
  • "You May Be Right" explores this trope from the perspective of the bad boy.
  • Subverted in "Only The Good Die Young". The singer is a "bad boy" who's trying to seduce a religious girl, however she isn't interested in his type.
• "Poison" by Alice Cooper is a Gender-Inverted version about a man in love with a bad girl:
  "I wanna love you but I better not touch.
  I wanna hold you but my senses tell me to stop.
  I wanna kiss you but I want it too much.
  I wanna taste you but your lips are venomous poison.
  You're poison running through my veins, you're poison.
  I don't wanna break these chains."
• Trisha Yearwood's "Walkaway Joe" shows the dark side of this trope: bad boys are usually bad for a reason, and have no qualms toying with the hearts of young girls and leaving them behind (after robbing a gas station).
• "Rasputin" by Boney M.:
  "'This man has got to go' declared his enemies
  But the ladies begged, 'Don't you try to do it, please'
  No doubt this Rasputin had lots of hidden charms
  Though he was a brute, they just fell into his arms."
• "Rich Fantasy Lives", a Filk Song by Tom Smith and Rob Balder:
  "That waitress at Pete's, who took so long to seat you
  And left you to stand in the doorway
  With her stringy red hair, and her thousand yard stare
  In her mind, she's the princess of Norway
  As she takes down your order, she's crossing the fjord
  Her white stallion spits foam like a madman
  Many vikings have died trying to take her as bride
  But her heart is reserved for a bad man."
• Deconstructed by Laura Branigan's "Bad Attitude", where the singer says she only has herself to blame for getting into a relationship with a boy like this, and dumps him. Australian Girl Group Girlfriend's cover includes the backup singers as her friends warning her that things would turn out this way, and alters one of the lines to "But Cupid's a real good liar".
• The Offspring provide a rare gender inversion in their song "Want You Bad".
  "I know your arms are open wide, but you're a little on the straight side, I can't lie
  Your one vice is you're too nice
  Come around now, can't you see?
  I want you, all tattooed, I want you bad
  Complete me, mistreat me, want you to be bad, bad, bad, bad, bad."
• Imelda May has "Big Bad Handsome Man" (on the album Love Tattoo) — see the title — and "Psycho" (on Mayhem), which is about a boyfriend who's some way beyond just bad.
• "To Catch A Thief" by Lovage is about a girl falling in love with a notorious and wanted thief.
• Henry Rollins' song "Liar" is sung from the perspective of a guy who knows this trope well, and knows that no matter how much he hurts you, you'll come back.
  "I can't believe I ever hurt you
  I swear I will never to you lie again, please
  just give me one more chance
  I will never lie to you again
  I swear that I will never tell a lie
  I will never tell a lie, no, no
  (Beat) Ha ha ha ha ha hah haa haa haa haaa
  Sucker!
  Sucker!"
• "Gangsta" by Kehlani.
  "I need a gangsta
  To love me better
  Than all the others do
  To always forgive me
  Ride or die with me
  That's just what gangsters do."
• Inverted in the second verse of "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D. when talking about a girl named Suzy, who is implied to hang out and find love with boys who don't respect her, which only feeds a problem she has of showing little self respect for herself.
  "Little Suzy, she was only twelve
  She was given the world with every chance to excel
  Hang with the boys and hear the stories they tell
  She might act kind of proud, but no respect for herself
  She finds love in all the wrong places
  The same situations just different faces
  Changed up her pace since her daddy left her
  Too bad he never told her, she deserved much better."
• Julia Michaels' "Heaven" is about a girl who falls for a "bad boy" for ends up leaving her.
  "They say all good boys go to heaven, but bad boys bring heaven to you."
• As Lil Wayne puts it in "Lollipop," "Shorty wants a thug."
• "bad guy" by Billie Eilish, also is a case of Birds of a Feather.
  "White shirt now red, my bloody nose
  Sleepin', you're on your tippy toes
  Creepin' around like no one knows
  Think you're so criminal
  Bruises on both my knees for you
  Don't say thank you or please
  I do what I want when I'm wanting to
  My soul? So cynical."
• Zig-Zagged Trope in "Terry" by Kirsty MacColl: Terry is "as tough as Marlon Brando" and "If he gets mad there's no telling what he'll do", and in the video is shown as a biker. But she also says he's "not the kind to mess around and change his mind", contrasting with the ex she's singing to (represented in the video by a nerdy Adrian Edmondson) who apparently takes her for granted. And then blown up completely in the video when on the line "Terry knows about karate" it's Edmondson who takes out the biker guy with a single blow, at which point MacColl starts dancing with him again. So maybe he was Terry all along?
• "Bad Girl" by Daya is an interesting variation AND a subversion. It's about a girl who wants a bad girl "because the bad boys just don't cut it". Strangely enough, she also has a Single Woman Seeks Good Man song "Hide Away", with the chorus "where do the good boys go to hide away?"
• Deconstructed in the music video for "Zaraza" ("Infection") by Elvira T. She falls in love with an emotionally abusive drug dealer/addict who ends up planting his drugs in her bag at a police checkpoint, framing her for drug possession.
• Gender inverted in "Bad" by Wale and Tiara Thomas, where they sing about the bad girls being more desirable depite their emotional stability purely due to being Sex Goddesses in comparison to "good girls".
  Wale: Bad girls ain't no good, and the good girls ain't no fun.
• Good Charlotte's "Break Apart Her Heart" advises a lovelorn Nice Guy to exploit this trope.
  There's something I don't wanna understand
  The only way a woman's gonna want a man
  The only way you'll ever keep her in your hands is breaking apart her heart
  Don't tell her she's the reason that you live
  Don't give her everything that you've got to give
  If you wanna keep the girl for as long as you live just break it apart, her heart
• Jasmine Rae & Kellie Pickler: "Bad Boys Get Me Good," which is pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  Looking at me, you think I'd be
  The girl with the guy who's nice and sweet
  And don't you know I'd be her if I could
  But I'm a sucker for a tall dark, flick a cigarette man
  Ramblin', gamblin', gettin' what he can man
  I don't know why but the bad boys get me good
• Discussed by Lauryn Hill in "Doo Wop (That Thing)", imparting to her female listeners to not pursue bad boys, more specifically not allowing themselves to be willfully degraded to someone where "respect is just a minimum" in hollow pursuit of "that thing". Interestingly enough, the song also warns said men to not go with women who are also only interested in "that thing", as both are equally big problems that can ruin lives.
• The All Time Low song "Bad Enough For You" is about the singer purposefully invoking a "bad boy" personality to woo a girl who's dead-set on this trope.
• The Ninja Sex Party song "First Date" is about Danny attempting to woo a girl who’s "played it safe [her] whole life" by taking her on a night-long rule-breaking spree; beginning with innocent trespassing and quickly escalating to a carjacking, museum heist, and quintuple homicide. In the music video, this ends up backfiring on him when she falls for the far more evil and violent Ninja Brian instead.

---