This morning, I caught my 10-year-old daughter singing Murder She Wrote, a 90s hit she likely discovered on YouTube or TikTok. Like her, as a teenager, I too had danced to this song, captivated by its syncopated rhythm and irresistible energy. But hearing it today from my child's lips awakened a sudden curiosity in me. I listened to the lyrics again, carefully this time, and what I found there literally stunned me. The song Murder She Wrote, performed by the Jamaican duo Chaka Demus & Pliers, is one of international dancehall's classics. Released in 1992, this track, with its apparent musical lightness, became a dancefloor staple, driven by catchy choruses and an relentless groove. But behind the festive carefree attitude lies a brutal, accusatory, and deeply gendered narrative. The very title of the song is a direct nod to the famous American television series Murder, She Wrote (known in French as Arabesque), in which Jessica Fletcher, an aging but perceptive novelist, solves criminal cases in a society often dominated by men. A strong, intellectual, and independent female figure, she stood out as an exception in popular culture. However, in Chaka Demus & Pliers' song, this same title becomes the name of a cruel indictment launched against another woman: Maxine. Throughout the track, Maxine is presented as an attractive but morally corrupt woman: “Yuh face is pretty but yuh character dirty.” This chorus, repeated ad nauseam, establishes a simplistic opposition between appearance and virtue, beauty and decadence. Far from being a simple comment on human relationships, the song elevates Maxine to a symbol of the moral decay attributed to certain women. Her only crime? Existing outside the traditional frameworks of docile femininity. She is accused of infidelity (“Yuh run to Tom, Dick and also Harry”), repeated abortions (“Now every middle of the year dis girl go have abortion”), self-serving interethnic relationships (“Make love with a coolie, Chinese, white man and Indian”), and emotional opportunism. In short, she is stigmatized for having exercised a form of sovereignty over her body and her choices. The song offers no counterpoint, no alternative perspective: it is unilateral, all-encompassing, and without appeal. Maxine is reduced to an incarnation of feminine vice, a figure of disorder. The chorus “Murder she wrote” acts as a sentence. But what is this crime of which she is supposedly the author? That of having emancipated herself from a masculine social order? The question that then arises is one of perspective: is this a sexist perspective, meaning an unconscious reproduction of gender stereotypes? Or are we facing a form of deliberate misogyny, meaning structural hostility towards women who defy the normative assignment socially prescribed to them? Insofar as Maxine is not only criticized, but methodically disqualified, mocked, and condemned, the analysis clearly leans towards the second hypothesis. This song, still broadcast, remixed, and celebrated in festive spaces, highlights a persistent tension in popular cultural productions: between musical pleasure and symbolic violence. It powerfully reveals the paradox of a culture that, while elevating rhythms to a universal rank, continues to make them a vehicle for a normative and punitive discourse against women. Today, hearing Murder She Wrote resonate in my daughter's innocent voice, I understood that some songs don't just age musically, but ideologically. Behind the veneer of the groove lie narratives, judgments, forms of power. And Maxine, she never had the right to explain herself. Murder she wrote, they say. But who truly wrote this story, and in the name of what justice? Scranton PA, July 18, 2025
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Note: This article is part of my ongoing series titled « Text and Pre-Text: Don't Play with Music ».