Sonic Youth Harassment Song Strikes a Chord at Geffen

Nobody likes to be reminded about embarrassing moments, right?

So, you’d think there’d be some chagrin over at Geffen Records with the news that Sonic Youth, one of the company’s most acclaimed bands, has written a song that touches on an incident at Geffen that wasn’t exactly an image booster.

“Swimsuit Issue,” a song on the New York alternative rock group’s upcoming “Dirty” album, tackles the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace.

It was a harassment suit last fall by a secretary against a top Geffen executive that triggered a storm of media examination of the issue in the record industry.

Sample lyrics from “Swimsuit Issue”:

I’m just here for dictation

I don’t want to be a sensation . . .

Don’t touch my breast

I’m just working at my desk

Don’t put me to the test

I’m just doing my best.

Kim Gordon, who wrote the song, says that the situation described (in more graphic detail elsewhere in the lyrics) is a composite of several incidents.

Among the most prominent: the Senate confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and the much-publicized case involving secretary Penny Muck’s sexual harassment charges against Geffen promotion executive Marko Babineau. A lawsuit against both Babineau, who now heads his own promotion firm, and the company is pending.

So what’s the company’s reaction to the song?

Geffen senior executive David Berman said he does not view the song as a slap at the company and sees no reason it shouldn’t be on the album, which is due in July.

“That’s perfectly appropriate subject matter for a song,” he said after hearing the record last week. “The lyric content is in no way something we would consider censoring or telling the writer to change.”

Gordon was pleased with the company’s reaction and said that she hopes attention will not be focused on the Geffen connection at the expense of the larger issue addressed in the song.

“Sexual harassment is just the most blatant example of sexism that goes on in any corporation,” she says. “I just chose the music industry because that’s the world I work in. . . . It really is to (Geffen Records’) credit that it’s the same label (where the incident allegedly happened) that is putting out this song,” Gordon says. “It is sort of unique that way.”