nixsight

One of the things Girl One and I do for fun is to think of songs that people think of as romantic – the “our song” or “first dance at our wedding” style songs – because they clearly haven’t listened to the lyrics at all.

The best two examples I can think of of this sort of song are “You’re Beautiful” by James Blunt – not a loving song at all, because a) it’s about a love that is so far unrequited that it’s practically stalking and b) it’s by James Blunt – and “Every Breath You Take” by The Police, because it’s about stalking that has gone so far it’s practically love.

Still, everyone is prone to this sort of potentially embarrassing ignorance. Read on after the jump, for tales of my musical stupids.

3. One – Johnny Cash

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When I first heard the U2 version of this, I pretty much blanked on it – it struck me as the blandest and most “worthy” of that era’s offerings from the band, probably aided by the po-faced video that accompanied it.

However, I re-evaluated it when Fabian Nicieza – at least I think it was him – chose it as the song that “played” as Scott Summers and Jean Grey finally got married in X-Men #30. Suddenly the song seemed to make sense in that context, and I don’t know, maybe I just get a bit weepy at weddings, but it suddenly became a sweet evocation of romantic love.

I was, of course, an idiot.

Granted, there are sections of the song that are terribly poignant – and at the least, it gives a good account of a lot of relationships that we go through as real-life human beings.

But lines like:

You gave me nothing
Now it’s all I got.

and

Well we
Hurt each other
Then we do it again

speak of such a painful, sad and sadly typical co-dependant relationship that I think it has to be disqualified as an appropriate wedding song.

This was, of course, years before that union ended with him psychically cheating on her with one of their team-mates, and her plummeting into the sun. So actually, Nicieza might not have been oblivious to the lyrics.

I give you the Cash version for various reasons. The main one is that it’s better. Cash’s vocal is raw and heartfelt, and bizarrely he sounds more sincere delivering Bono’s words than Bono’s already quite lovely version. And the fact is, if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve been listening hard to this version all week, I might not have actually sussed out the song’s actual tone and intent.

2. Don’t Falter – Mint Royale

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When I first noticed and got to know Girl One, it didn’t look like anything was going to come of my attraction to her, most especially because we fast became quite good friends, and that’s seldom a good sign.

Because of this, when I put together my first compilation cd for her, I took great care not to include anything that was too heavy or carried a deep romantic vibe to it. So when I included this song, it was entirely for the pop sensibilities of it – it’s hooky tune and upbeat vocals made me feel good, and they did Girl One, too.

Later on, I listened to it properly, and I realised, as Kieron Gillen had in his blog much earlier, that it isn’t actually a happy song at all, or rather, it’s too happy – happy to the point of desperation. There’s a fidgetting edge throughout the song – a nervous knowledge that the love affair at the centre of the song is too fragile, and needs to be reinforced again and again. In fact, that’s what the song actually is – the constant, needy reminder of how good the romance is, bolstered with the reassurance that it can be held onto, if you only want it hard enough.

I mentioned this to Girl One, and she said that of course that was what it was about, and she had thought that was why I had included it, as a reminder that I was being sensibly cautious about things I suppose – she had, in fact, been impressed by the decision.

So you see, I’m subconsciously smart, even when I’m blatantly stupid!

1. Samson – Regina Spektor

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Samson is a bit of a turnaround on the whole point of this post, which is to say, it’s a pretty song, that turns out to be quite melancholy as the subject matter asserts itself, but then, I think, hidden under the text, it’s actually a pragmatic but ultimately reassuring song about a real romance in the face of the difficult things that we do to each other in love.

This is a favourite thesis of mine, really – the idea that the perfect romantic vision is not only flawed because it is unrealistic, but also actively dangerous because it creates expectations that can never be reached, leaving one or both of the lovers forever reaching, always discontent.

The more real and lovely romantic ideal for me is one where both parties are flawed – because everybody is flawed – and they do thoughtless things to each other – because no matter how in love two people are, they are still two people, and when most individuals don’t know their own feelings at any given second, it’s impossible for two of them to constantly and continually accomodate the other, without fault, and still have a personality of their own – but manage to find a path through life with each other that takes those things into account without recrimination.

In myth, the deed that has become the most common shorthand for a lover’s betrayal was Delilah’s deceitful cutting of Samson’s hair – the source of his great strength – down to the scalp. It’s also a handy metaphor for the woman’s emasculation of the man, a theme that isn’t without it’s descendants in modern popular culture.

However, when Spektor’s Delilah does the deed, the results aren’t quite as devastating, or the implications for their relationship, and in macrocosm all romantic relationships, aren’t as cut and dried, or as negative.

Oh I cut his hair myself one night
A pair of dull scissors in the yellow light
And he told me that I’d done alright
And kissed me till the morning light

Instead, the suggestion is that Spektor’s Samson doesn’t mind what she has done – is almost complicit in it – and rather than the morality play that we get in the original fable’s climax, instead, nothing else happens. They go back to bed, and the suggestion is that they get on with the rest of their lives.

There’s a suggestion of if not compromise, a coming to terms or acceptance of each other in the song. Even the final test of Samson’s strength is now shared out between the lovers:

Oh we couldn’t bring the columns down
Yeah we couldn’t destroy a single one

“We”, no longer “he”.

But Spektor isn’t idealising love, here – there’s still pain, even if it is of a much sweeter brand of bitter-sweet than you’d expect. There’s a refrain through the song that Girl One and I can’t decide on – it makes her sad, but for some reason I see it as incredibly romantic. It goes:

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first

It’s the female player in the story singing this vocal, and it turns on it’s head the central point of the Samson story – Delilah was his downfall, not the other way around. Girl One sees it as a negative, but I read it as this: It’s a given that as humans, if we’re going to be happy with each other, we have to give some things up. If you accept that a sacrifice is one made willingly, it hardly feels like a sacrifice at all – in fact, it can almost feel liberating, knowing that you did it because of the way another person makes you feel.

I suppose I don’t think downfall is such a bad thing, if I feel good about the act of surrender.

I guess the jury’s still out on what this song is actually saying.

So another long one. I’d love to know what you all think, of the songs, or what I’ve said about them.

That final Regina Spektor photo is by Word Freak and posted at Flickr, by the way.