By Magellan
Prelude
Last week I may have said something in my introduction about slowing down on the whole new columns thing. Whoops. In all seriousness, though, this is the last new column I’m going to throw at you all for a while. Originally, I was going to write something about Annie Hall (stay tuned for next week if that’s your cup of neurotic tea), but I’ve had this concept for a music article gnawing at me for a few days now, and I just watched Ruby Sparks (you may see a piece on that eventually, too), which lines up so perfectly theme-wise with what I was planning on writing that I have to go for it. Better to strike while the iron’s hot, so to speak. As for what “Pentatonic Ponderings” is in general, I’m going to think at you, using five songs as my guideposts. Bear with me, it’ll make sense.
Track 1: “Step to My Girl” by Souls of Mischief (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvBmr_b-Rpg)
A surprisingly smooth song for the amount of angst and animosity driving the lyrics. That’s what makes this the perfect insecurity anthem, a song that takes a core of fractured, vulnerable love (the sample is from the Bread song “Aubrey,” a ballad about melancholy, unrequited love) and layers on top of it dense, macho verses. The narrator of this song is in love with a girl who’s reportedly flyer than all the rest, his “sweet señorita,” but he’s unable to enjoy spending time with her because other men try to step to his girl. And, even though at the beginning of the song he claims that his “insecurity turned into maturity,” he admits that he “find[s] it hard to be monogamous.” The narrator tells himself that he isn’t afraid of his girlfriend running off anymore, but now he seems to be afraid that that’s what he’s going to do, that he won’t be able to stay faithful. He masks this failure of self-control by trying to assert control over the other men around him, elevating himself through primal violence (and sick flow). There’s another thread here, though, and that’s one of exasperation (“But ask yourself homeboy—Why is that?”). This song isn’t so much an assertive threat as it is a warning that trying to interfere with one man’s sense of control in a relationship will force him to lash out in violence, and by doing so maintain that control. Of course, control is a hard thing to maintain.
Track 2: “Fuck You” by Cee Lo Green (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc0mxOXbWIU)
Here’s another smooth song with venomous overtones (the title alone is pretty clear). This expands on the notion of machismo as a way to shield romantic wounds and insecurities, though the specific wounds are clearer in this song than the previous one. Here, it’s obvious that the narrator’s ex-girlfriend was a gold digger (“I guess the change in my pocket/Wasn’t enough”), and that she’s only with a new guy because of that (“I guess he’s an Xbox and I’m more Atari”). This song also echoes the interesting tone that “Step to My Girl” takes towards the “other guy” in this situation: sure, it’s openly hostile, but it also seems vaguely cautionary. Cee Lo is making it very clear to this other guy that this girl is only in it for the money, which is a gentlemanly gesture. Also, the fact that he “tried to tell my momma but she told me/’This is one for your dad,’” creates the expectation that men are the ones who wield control in a relationship, and that “the girl I love” is an object that is meant to be hoarded to protect it from the influence of other men and their money. Although, this song does do something that the last didn’t: it addresses the girl and the narrator’s insecurities directly. He outright asks “Now baby, baby, baby why you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?” openly showing his weaknesses in the hopes of communicating with the person who injured him. Here we see the narrator on his hands and knees, begging to understand why things didn’t go his way. But then again, do they ever?
Track 3: “Jane” by Barenaked Ladies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvDp3LjN7fM)
My favorite song of all time. Here we see the macho sheen that has been coating the lyrics thus far stripped away to lay bare the struggle underneath. This song takes the question of “why you wanna wanna hurt me so bad?” and turns it into a story of a man falling for a woman who doesn’t want to follow the rules that he has set for the world. The titular Jane “doesn’t think a man could ever be faithful,” and really can’t bring herself to trust anyone, thinking that “only cowards stay, while traitors run.” This is the first time in the playlist that we see the woman given emotion, and it becomes clear that insecurity is present on both sides of the issue. Still, our narrator feels a lack of control and a sense of desperation (“I’d bring her gold and frankincense and myrrh/She thought that I was making fun of her”), and with that the same sense of entitlement we’ve been seeing this whole time (“That life could be better by being together/Is what I cannot explain to Jane”). He feels that he has all the answers, that he knows what’s best and that Jane is being irrational. But it’s this assertion of his own opinions and worldview over her emotions that makes him one of the “lovesick jerks” that Jane knows every man turns into. By the end of the song, he’s become bitter, going from “shopping” at the store to “shoplifting.” He hasn’t gotten his way, so he’s lashing out, which is the flaw of all of our narrators thus far. They’re all lovesick jerks.
Track 4: “Talk 2 You” by Kids These Days (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pjDvpnNGS4)
Framed like a man’s phone call to an old high school sweetheart, this song is a softening of the sentiment expressed in “Fuck You” in that it takes that same insecure core and self-assured exterior, but ends up being much more affectionate and nostalgic. The narrator, despite his moderate success with his band, is feeling the pressure of being “all out, graduated and grown,” and is looking for something to fill up his life. He’s “going places, wanna take you with me.” It’s a sweet sentiment, but it has the same possessive undertones (or overtones, in the case of “Step to My Girl”) that have dominated this playlist. He doesn’t ask if he can talk to the girl, he commands “Lemme talk to you,” hopeful that what he has to say will win her back, despite how well he knows her life is going. She’s in an Ivy League school, her siblings are straightening up and doing well for themselves, and, of course, “the word around town is you got a new best friend.” That’s information that the narrator knows from the very beginning of the song, that this girl he’s trying to woo and remind of old times has already moved on and has a new boyfriend. She doesn’t have any interest in digging up the past when she has everything figured out. And yet, the narrator is convinced that they should “kick it like it’s way back when,” as if a few alcohol-addled memories are worth her totally rearranging her life. Maybe the narrator is afraid that his band won’t find the “diamond in the rough” that they’re looking for, and he’s reaching back into the past to grasp at something he used to have control over. Time, unfortunately, waits for no man.
Track 5: “Step” by Vampire Weekend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mDxcDjg9P4)
Just as “Talk 2 You” is a softening of “Fuck You,” “Step” is a softening of “Step to My Girl,” which inspired it. It begins the same way as its predecessor, concerned about a time “Back, back, way back” when the narrator was haunted by insecurities and immaturities that he feels he has since shed. As the song develops, though, it seems that the narrator has moved beyond the notion of just trying to control one girl, and is instead using that idea of romantic control as a way to talk more broadly about artistic control and one’s relationship with music (“Mine was entombed within boombox and walkmen”). The narrator here is acknowledging his worries more clearly than those in previous songs, seeing talk of whose girl is better as “stale conversation” that “deserves but a bread knife,” instead becoming more concerned with the feeling that he’s aging more quickly than he thought. He says that “Wisdom’s a gift, but you’d trade it for youth,” expressing the idea that even though he has a more complete knowledge of what life is like, he would give that up to go back to the relationship he used to have with this girl and with music. As opposed to “Step to My Girl,” this song uses the line “Every time I see you in the world, you always step to my girl” as a defeated refrain, the narrator having given up on youthful struggles and wanting nothing more than to be left alone with memories and self-satisfaction about how things used to be.
Epilogue
What I’m driving at here is that so often in life we suppress our weaknesses and worries, grasping for some form of control. Maybe we’re afraid of our own darker urges, afraid of somebody else’s proclivities, afraid of being alone, afraid of failure, or afraid of growing older. Whatever the case, trying to cure that fear by exerting ourselves over other people only leads to more heartbreak, and turns us all into lovesick jerks.
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