Behind the Music

Have you noticed that we, as Americans, don't really pay a great amount of attention to the lyrics of the songs we love? If it's bouncy, catchy, danceable, whatever, we just dig it, play it over and over, and never ponder much on the words that the singer is belting out.

I got to thinking about this the other day when I was listening to to Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?" on the radio. On the surface, this a love song, and a pretty happy one, about hooking up with a dude. I'm sure it's a song many girls listen to while dreaming about their Mr. Right, or the new guy they're just getting involved with, when it's still all fresh and new. However, if you really listen to the lyrics? This is a song about a girl who's about to cheat on her boyfriend with a guy who, himself, has a girlfriend. If you're a woman, and you're like most, you just got really defensive about your beloved tune and shouted, "Nuh-uh! It's about new romance, and meeting this great guy, and it's about pure love, and...and..." Lyrics, please: "Holding hands with you and we're out at night/Got a girlfriend, you say it isn't right/And I've got someone waiting, too". It's a song about cheating on your boyfriend. With a guy who's sneaking out on his girl. Not the story most women have playing in their heads when they've got the iPod in and they're singing along happily with the chorus.

We don't have time in our lives to bother with things like reading or paying attention to the words. We just want a tune that makes us feel good and has a few key phrases in it that we can get behind. We'll process and remember those few words, and let them paint the song as a whole for us. Hence, during the 80s, many couples would be all lovey-dovey on the dance floor to the tune of Journey's "Lovin' Touchin' Squeazin'". Hey, come on! It's about lovin'! And touchin'! And squeazin'! All good things, right? No, it's about a guy who's near suicidal because things have gone bad with his gal, and she's out banging someone else, and he's consoling himself with the thought that the guy she's banging is going to be cheating on her soon and she'll want to die as well. Is that the song you really wanted to be dedicated to your sweetheart on the local radio station? Well, I guess it had a lot of "na na na"'s in it, so that makes up for the other stuff.

Aerosmith. "Dude Looks Like A Lady". It's just so darn catchy and rocktastic that countless head-banging rocker dudes have cranked it loud or thrown their devil-sign high in the front rows of Aerosmith shows to the hard-hitting beat of it. If you were around for that bizarre hair-band era of American music history, you'll probably recall that rocker dudes were not particularly tolerant when it came to things in the, uh, alternative lifestyle arena. It was all about the macho and the misogyny and all things testosterony. And yet, there they were, bouncing their thick manes of hairsprayed locks to a song about scoring with a tranny. And oddly not seeming to know this at all. Even today, those dudes (now with shorter hair because they eventually had to get jobs after they knocked up that gal who looked so good in the ripped jeans at the Dokken concert) will deny that, saying that it's common knowledge that the song was written about Poison's Brett Michaels, he of the heavy makeup and Breck Girl 'do. Hence, about a dude that looks like a lady. Okay, guys, that works for the title. But the rest of the lyrics? If it's about Bret Michael (or Vince Neil, as other say), then Steve Tyler is obviously quite fond of Bret - "Let me take a peak, dear/Do me do me do me all night/Turn the other cheek dear/Do me, do me, do me, do me". If you're a 'Smith fan who has no qualms about cross-dressing hook-ups, then power to you. I'm just saying - seeing as how the average late 80s rocker dude used every opportunity to call Depeche Mode fans "fag", Cure fans "fag", and just about every other male who didn't have really long hair and eyeliner on (?) "fag", the irony of their lack of notice of these lyrics is quite funny.

Suzanne Vega. "My Name is Luca". Hands-down the #1 feel-good ditty about child abuse EVER.

Third Eye Blind. "Semi-Charmed Life". Used for just about every movie trailer in the 90s. An anthem for a generation. And why not? Who doesn't love a jam about crystal meth and oral sex? Do do DO, do do DO do...

Heart. "All I Want To Do Is Make Love To You". I just want a baby. Bone me, and get out.

Tony Robbins said that we are "deletion creatures" - we selectively ignore some things and focus on others. It's how we keep ourselves from mental overload in a society with so much sensory avalanche. It's why the Rolling Stones can sing lines like "You make a dead man come" and Bill Gates will go, "Yes! That's the song we want to push the new Windows!". It's how Republican candidates can decide to use "Born in the USA" as a campaign song, thinking it's an intensely patriotic song, and get sued by Bruce. Paying attention to lyrics is occasionally interesting, but really, why let it get in the way of enjoying a memorable melody?

All we hear, by and large, is radio ga-ga. So don't worry, radio - everyone still loves you.