Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Cyndi Lauper (1984)-I hate to over-rely on words like “classist” or “feminist” but this song is practically begging me to. Overtly this song is under the guise of a girl power anthem. The plural here-“girls” instead of “girl”--makes the biggest difference: In songs, the relationship is the celebration and it’s not a song of self-discovery, but rather a song to the “ladies out there” like Beyonce often targets her audience.
There is one explicit reference to the narrator being underclass in the song:
“Oh mommy dear, we’re not the fortunate ones.” But within a larger scope, “when
the working day is done” and the pressure from the narrator’s parents to do
something with their life, indicates that fun is a rebellion from what could be
a more dire need to produce money than someone of higher status. In other
words, Lauper is a fiery proletariat who wants to team up with Marx to burn
shit down: Only, through partying.
Give it Away, Red Hot Chili Peppers (1992)-This song is very direct please about altruism which sounds not particularly grunge (honestly, I’m not too familiar with that genre). I love how in the sense that rap is about bragging, this song is about being selfless. At the same time, he’s bragging at the same time about how he can’t tell the difference between “being a kingpin and a pauoper” The song is also structured like a square dance where a series of instructions is shouted to the audience in a participatory manner and there’s a certain amount of repetition.
No More Tears Left to Cry, Arianna
Grande (2018)-Released amid one of that year’s most public celebrity
break-ups with Pete Davidson), this song is more of a response to a news event
than it is a musing on love in a cultural vacuum. Since songs have to be
economical with their words, I once again am drawn to how one or two words
makes a difference. The “more” and in No More Tears, implies she has already
been crying to the fullest extent of her body’s capacity. And it’s a positive
song. The narrator expressed, “I’m loving, I’m living, I’m picking it up.”
Hold On, Wilson
Phillips (1990)-This has been a song that has got me through some
depressing times lately. It perfectly encapsulates the way you should respond
to someone with depression. The song opens up with, “I know there’s pain” which
is what I generally want someone to say to me on a bad day: An acknowledgement
that whatever I’m going through is legitimate. However, the narrator gets into
the tough love phase of the heart-to-heart talk “No one can change your life
except for you/Don’t let anyone step all over you.” This mirrors the kind of
sentiments that countless therapists, bartenders, or best friends will tell you
when you ask or pay them to lend an ear. The ultimate through-line of the
chorus “Hold on for one more day” is really solid advice for someone who feels
like hopeless about the future. I’ve been there before and in those cases I
have often made the mistake of looking really far ahead and forecasting doom
and gloom. In reality, I should have just found happiness and hope on that day.
There are a lot of songs about lifting you up out of depression and this is one
of the best of them.
Lyrics
Easy on Me, Adele
(2021)-Do relationships really work on this? Does an equal relationship
where participants (of whatever sort) are squaring off about their emotions and
someone requests “go easy on me?”
Someone can soften their tone in a touchy emotional discussion, but you
can’t request they suppress their feelings. So it’s an interesting
request. This might come off as a love
song, because, most songs are love songs, but there is reason to suspect that
this is about a mother trying to apologize to her kids for being young and
unprepared for motherhood (I’m not willing to Google whether Adele is a mother
because I want the text to speak for itself) as she says “I changed who I was
to put you both first but now I give up” and I just don’t see Adele as a
swinging polyamorist.
Get Me Away from Here I’m Dying, Belle and Sebastian (1996)-I heard this during the sound track of “Resident Alien.” The title of the song (and also its first line) doesn’t really match the intensity of the rest of the song’s lyrics which is mostly playfully breaking the fourth wall about writing. The narrator laments “Write me a song to set me free” to save him from his impending death (probably exaggerated). He then follows, “Nobody writes them like they used to, so it may as well be me.” It’s even humbler than the most humble of brags that the narrator plans to be a rock star just because he feels a void needs to be filled. He even follows it up with the line “You could either be successful or be us.” How can you not be charmed by these guys with their “winning smiles.”
Mrs. Rita, Gin Blossoms (1992)-The song was written about a palm reader in Tempe, Arizona who lived down the street from band member Jesse Venezuela. In the song, the narrator sings both about a lost love and his dependence on Mrs. Rita to tell him his future. The character is also a little aimless which fits into why he needs a fortune teller. Like Two-Face in the Batman, if he was a little more decisive would he really need a fortune teller? In that sense, is it a complimentary song of Mrs. Rita? Well, in reality the song was not remembered as one of the band’s biggest hits but it was enough to quadruple Mrs. Rita’s business.
Makes Me Wonder, Maroon 5 (2007)-The narrator here has a pretty well-expressed sense of self-awareness as well as a resignation that he isn’t in total emotional control of this situation. He’s clearly not over his break-up and expresses his lust for her in some pretty NC-17 ways (“struggle to memorize/the way it felt between your thighs”). He pretty overtly says he wants to get her back but also possibly looks forward to the day when “it won’t hurt anymore.” Perhaps reconciling those two facets of his emotions is why he feels like he has something to hide (hence, “You’ve caught me in a lie/I have no alibi”). The most definitive thing we can conclude is that he’s in the phase of a break-up where he’s trying to process it and find answers.
Lyrics
All Songs I've Analyzed at this point (check the lyrics tab):
Augustana: Boston
Avril Lavigne: I'm With You
The Bangles: Hazy Shade of Winter
Ben Folds: Landed, Annie Waits, Time, Evaporated
Barenaked Ladies: Testing 1 2 3
Bruce Hornsby: On the Western Skyline
Cat Stevens: First Cut is the Deepest
Charlotte Martin: Your Armor
Coldplay: Speed of Sound, Viva la Vida
Counting Crows: She Don't Want Nobody Near, Hard Candy, Rain King
David Bowie: Changes
Dave Matthews Band: Gray Street, #41, Dancing Nancies, Grace is Gone
Ed Sheeran: The A-Team
Fall out Boy: Dance Dance
Five for Fighting: 100 Years
The Fray: You Found Me, Over My Head
Foo Fighters: Learn to Fly
Gin Blossoms: South of Nowhere
Goo Goo Dolls: Broadway is Dark Tonight, Better Days, Here is Gone
Green Day: Wake Me Up When September Ends
Jason Mraz: On Love in Sadness
John Cougar Mellencamp: Jack and Diane
John Mayer: Clarity, 3 X 5, No Such Thing, Bigger than My Body, Why Georgia
Howie Day: Collide
Hootie and the Blowfish: Time
Leona Lewis: Better in Time
Lorde: Team
Macklemore and Lewis: Thrift Shop
Mamas and the Papas: California Dreaming
Matchbox Twenty: Downfall, All I Need, Let's See How Far We've Come, Black and White People
Michelle Branch: Game of Love
Nickel Creek: Green and Gray, Seven Wonders
Paramore: Ain't It Fun
Pink: Raise Your Glass
Sarah McLachlan: Adia, Angel
Smashing Pumpkins: 1979
Script: For the First Time
Sister Hazel: Your Winter
Steely Dan: Barrytown
Switchfoot: Stars, Dare You To Move
Sum 41: In Too Deep
Taylor Swift: Blank Space
Tori Amos: Silent All These Years
Wilson Phillips: Hold On
Whitney Houston: I Want To Dance with Somebody
Zedd: Clarity
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