Gino Vanelli, 80s Canrock icon, he of the luxurious body hair and gritty, sensuous voice. You might know him from the new wave classic Black Cars, or the ballad Wild Horses, which still gets played every day on lite-rock radio.

Wears his passion on his sleeve - er, head - Gino Vanelli

Wild Horses is Vanelli's signature song, capturing the wild, free, fiery nature every lite-rock listener longs to release. Until you actually listen to the lyrics. Here they are:

As the sun goes down on the arizona plain
And the wind whistles by like a runaway train
Hey hey hey it’s a beautiful thing
Well it’s me and you and a flatbed truck
My heart kicking over like a whitetail buck
Hey hey hey in the middle of spring

All right, so far it's romantic, windswept - just the thing to dream about at 2:45pm, after 5 hours in the office.

You can cut me deep
You can cut me down
You can cut me loose
Don’t you know it’s okay
You can kick and scream
You can slap my face
You can set my wheels on a high speed chase
Hey no matter what you do

Wild horses could not drag me away from you
Wild horses could not drag me away from you

Vanelli likes it rough... fine, that's his business, though it's unclear whether the kicking, screaming and slapping is consensual.

As the sky falls down from the midnight blue
Spittin’ like bullets on a hot tin roof
Hey hey hey it’s a beautiful sound
Well it’s me and you in a flatbed truck
In a foot of mud just my luck
Hey hey hey a hundred miles out of town

Now we're getting creepy. His truck is stuck, his lover is kicking & screaming, no one's around to hear.

You can call me a fool
You can call me blind
You can call it quits
Can’t hear a word you say
Cause if I had you once
I’m gonna have you twice
I’m gonna follow my heart instead of good advice
Hey no matter what you do

Wild horses could not drag me away from you
Wild horses could not drag me away from you

He's not listening, he won't let her leave. If I had you once, I'm gonna have you twice - this implies some resistance from the kicking, screaming lover. Hey, can I call you 'rapist'?

At least Nirvana meant Rape Me ironically (and tried to donate the proceeds to women's shelters, once feminist activists told them not everyone would get the irony). Vanelli's quite happy with his romantic vision. And this is played on office-radio, for clerical workers who are, in their majority, women.

Am I the only one who finds this extremely sketchy? I'm not trying to ruin lite-rock for everyone. No, wait, I am.