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From milet's song "jam" (2022):
Driving in the summer with your 80's playlist
I wish this night would never end like kissing in the backseat
Hey, don't be shy, now I'm like melted ice cream
what is the meaning of the phrase "I'm like melted ice cream"? I found a definition in Urban Dictionary, but is this correct? Because it does not make sense to me.
The cited entry in Urban Dictionary is "Appearing or acting sad. The way a kid would feel if their ice cream melted." The song is using the image in a different way. The singer is not like the disappointed kid, but like the ice cream itself.
What's melted ice cream like? It's a warm, sweet, sticky mess. That's how she feels.
Why does ice cream melt? Because it's not cold any more. Especially, once it's being held and licked. That's the kind of thing which is happening in the car.
What do you do when your ice cream is melting? You carry on quickly eating it, even if you're getting messy. ("Don't be shy".)
The lyrics use this simile in order to suggest not only what's happening physically in the back seat (at the very least, kissing, which makes the singer feel hot and excited), but I'd say also to invoke certain associations of ice cream specifically. It's a delightful sweet treat, and reminiscent of innocent fun times - linking up with the 80s music and making out in the back of a car.
First, a note about Urban Dictionary. This accepts definitions from anyone on the Internet, with little or nothing in the way of quality control. Some contributors clearly compete to invent the most outrageous or absurd meanings, so you should never accept anything from Urban Dictionary without checking in other, more reliable, sources!
Second, the verb “melt” has the sense “to soften or weaken”, and this has long been used figuratively to describe weakening of resistance to love or sexual activity. The OED includes these senses:
melt, v. 3.b. intransitive. To become softened by compassion, pity, love, etc.; to yield to entreaty
e. intransitive. To become ecstatic; to yield to rapture or delight; spec. to experience sexual orgasm.
Oxford English Dictionary.
The OED quotes George Granville as an early example of sense e:
Achilles O how she clasps Atrides in her Arms!
So she hugg’d me, and with her darting Kisses
Met me half way, as now she meets his Lips.
How close she clings! and how with rapture melts!George Granville (1698). Heroick Love, act II, scene I. In Four Plays of the Right Honourable the Lord Lansdowne (1732), p. 113. London: W. Feales.
So in milet’s song the speaker says that her resistance has melted like ice cream, and asks her lover not to “be shy”: that is, to have sex with her.
(In comments there was a suggestion, now deleted, that the melting ice cream is intended to suggest the speaker’s vaginal lubrication due to her sexual arousal: although this makes sense, I think the primary meaning is the weakening of resistance or disinclination to sexual activity, as in Granville.)
