Movies Babylon number 'My Girl's P---y' is, in fact, a real song from 1931 Move over Cardi B. By Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker Maureen Lee Lenker is a senior writer at Entertainment Weekly with over seven years of experience in the entertainment industry. An award-winning journalist, she's written for Turner Classic Movies, Ms. Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. She's worked at EW for six years covering film, TV, theater, music, and books. The author of EW's quarterly romance review column, "Hot Stuff," Maureen holds Master's degrees from both the University of Southern California and the University of Oxford. Her debut novel, It Happened One Fight, is now available. Follow her for all things related to classic Hollywood, musicals, the romance genre, and Bruce Springsteen. EW's editorial guidelines Published on December 21, 2022 12:22PM EST Damien Chazelle's Babylon is a Hollywood narrative of excess and debauchery, but if you think he didn't do his research, well, he's got you licked. The film, which hits theaters Dec. 23, is full of nods to the era of Hollywood's transition from silents to talkies, some more surprising than others. Babylon opens on a massive party, full of champagne, drugs, sex, and of course, entertainment. As part of that entertainment, Lady Fay Zhu (Li Jun Li) takes the stage, clad in a top hat and tails à la Marlene Dietrich in Morocco, and offers up a sultry song. The lyrics are suggestive in the utmost as she warbles an ode to "My Girl's P---y." Li Jun Li as Lady Fay Zhu and Jovan Adepo (back right) as Sidney Palmer in 'Babylon.'. Scott Garfield/Paramount But perhaps even more shocking than the lyrics is the fact that this is a real song from 1931 (a smidge after the events of the Babylon party, but who's counting?). British bandleader and clarinetist Harry Roy recorded the track with his band Harry Roy and His Bat Club Boys. And it's really the cat's meow. It revels in its use of double entendre, opening on a series of "meows," offering Roy and his band some barely plausible deniability. "There's one pet I like to pet, and every evening we get set," the song opens. "I stroke it every chance I get. It's my girl's p---y." Clearly, this song is not about a cat. Take a listen. Etymologists trace use of the slang word for the female anatomy to the late 19th-century, but they estimate it was in use even before that. So if the idea of this language in use in the 1920s and '30s has you snatching at your pearls, well, we don't know what to tell you. One thing we do know — we need a "WAP" and "My Girl's P---y" mash-up stat. Want more movie news? Sign up for Entertainment Weekly's free newsletter to get the latest trailers, celebrity interviews, film reviews, and more. Related content: Babylon stars detail their favorite movie magic moment on set: 'It was the best day of my life' Exploring Babylon, Damien Chazelle's star-studded new movie Babylon's Margot Robbie on making it in Hollywood: 'You need to want it more than everyone else'