‘A song to which you know all the words’
Yet again, it’s hard to know where to start.
I do that thing. That thing that so many people do, where you think you know the words to a song but you’ve actually got it ridiculously, hilariously wrong. ‘Every time you go away, you take a piece of me with you’ by Paul Young had me imagining, as a teenager, some sort of pseudo-romantic exercise in gradual dissection. An arm today, tomorrow… a tooth? a finger? perhaps a toe or two?
I also do that thing which annoys so many people, where I over-analyse the lyrics of a song and take it on a level far beyond the superficial level on which it was probably met. ‘Fight For This Love’ by Cheryl Cole (well… lip-synched by her at least) is like this: it’s such a catalogue of cliches that listening to it actually makes me laugh out loud. It’s hard to imagine it’s not really meant ironically. Possibly the direct opposite is ‘Every Breath You Take’ by The Police, which people seem to view as a romantic song (I’ve heard of people choosing it for the first dance at their weddings) but which is really about an embittered ex who decides to become a stalker. It’s really very creepy when you think about it.
But my favourite example for this category is ‘American Pie’ by Don McLean. I remember this one from university, where it was already viewed as an ‘oldie’: I remember friends singing along to it on their stereos with all the reverence and seriousness of a cherished hymn. I didn’t like this: I liked the song well enough, but didn’t like this idea that it was too good to be viewed with the slightest levity. Honestly: with some of them you daren’t even breathe at the wrong time during the choruses.
Years later, I found out the story behind the song’s lyrics, and the subtext relating to the death of Buddy Holly. I was quite amazed by this, and, loving anything subtextual as I do, it made me re-evaluate the song completely. I even quite liked the cover by Madonna, which I gather is some sort of terrible crime of musical taste. I’ve had people wince and say they’d thought I was better than that when I’ve admitted to this in the past, but I just don’t care any more. I’m not a particular fan of Madonna - she’s ok, she’s interesting, her arms are very scary - but I thought that it was really quite novel that one musical icon covered a song by another musical icon written about a third musical icon. Like Russian Dolls. And anyway, I quite liked the synth part on the Madonna arrangement, even though the song probably owed more to the skills of auto-tune than to the beauty of the human voice. A bit like Madonna’s over-toned arms, perhaps, her voice is excessively ‘developed’ and ‘reshaped’ from the outside in.
Either way, whether it’s the mellowness of nostalgia recolouring a memory from college, or a more recent take (I remember listening to the Madonna version for the first time early one cold, sunny St Patrick’s Day years ago as I drove to get my car washed, full of the joy of a midweek holiday) - I know the words to this song and love having found out the hidden meaning behind those words.
If only the words of real life were as easy to know and had a key to help us understand the things they hide.
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