Today's Decomp: 70's R & B Cheatin' Songs

Somewhere in the 70's, there was a popular movement in R & B toward the "cheatin' on my baby" song. I think this crossed over into country music, too, but somehow, R & B made it sound so good, you ALMOST felt bad for the perpetrators. Still, as a young black girl, I can still remember listening to these songs and thinking "Shouldn't that man be at home saying sorry to his wife before she kicks him in his thine line or MR. Jones shows up???" In fact, my mom and I had this kind of conversation once before, too. I asked her what would happen if Dad did one of those "Me & Mrs. Jones" things. Her reply has probably been the guiding force behind her 39 years of marriage and my own 9:

"I trust and love your father enough to know he would never do that to me. (long quiet pause) He loves life and living it FAR too much."

Anyway, I was going to do the song Kiss & Say Goodbye, but then I remembered (If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Wanna Be Right, Me & Mrs. Jones and the best retaliation song, Thin Line Between Love And Hate. I'm gonna decompose these songs one a few lines at a time so you get the full effect of this delightful romp through hypocrisy (my comments are in italics).

Kiss And Say Goodbye (If you want to hear this tune, you can listen and read the lyrics here: http://www.minibite.com/heartache/kissandsay.htm)

This has got to be the saddest day of my life (probably shoulda thought of this BEFORE your wedding, huh?)
I called you here today for a bit of bad news
I won't be able to see you anymore
Because of my obligations, and the ties that you have (She's NOT your obligation, she's your WIFE, cheater pants!)
We've been meeting here everyday
And since this is our last day together
I wanna hold you just one more time (yeah, great way to sever the ties, here!)
When you turn and walk away, don't look back (exactly! No looking back, let's move forward to fidelity and several years of marital therapy, shall we?)
I wanna remember you just like this (as a cheating !@#$)
Let's just kiss and say goodbye

I had to meet you here today
There's just so many things to say
Please don't stop me 'til I'm through
This is something I hate to do (there's so much wrong this with, I don't even know where to START. You hate LEAVING the woman you're cheating with to go back to the woman who you promised to love, honor and cherish until death? I really have to call into question this man's decision making skills....!)
We've been meeting here so long
I guess what we've done, oh was wrong (you GUESS??? Oh, man...I wanna be the one who hands your wife the hot grits!)
Please darlin', don't you cry
Let's just kiss and say goodbye (Goodbye!)

Many months have passed us by
(I'm gonna miss you)
I'm gonna miss you, I can't lie
(I'm gonna miss you) (And it just goes on from THERE like this...hate leaving the woman I'm cheatin' with, guess I better haul it back on home to the wife (deep sigh))

Okay for those of you either living under a rock, or born after the decline of the cassette tape and vinyl album, I'll give you the most important lines from another cheatin' standard:

Me & Mrs. Jones (the title "Mrs." should be a big tip-off right here!)

(Chorus) Me and Mrs.Jones
We got a thing goin' on
We both know that it's wrong
But it's much too strong
To let it go now

We meet every day at the same cafe
Six-thirty and no one knows she'll be there
Holding hands, making all kinds of plans
While the juke box plays our favorite songs

(Chorus)

We gotta be extra careful
That do we don't build our hopes up too high
Because she's got her own obligations
And so, and so, do I

(Chorus)

Well, it's time for us to be leaving
It hurts so much, it hurts so much inside
Now she'll go her way and I'll go mine
Tomorrow we'll meet
The same place, the same time

(Chorus)

Okay does NO ONE see how shag nastily WRONG this is??? IT'S CHEATING ON YOUR SPOUSE, for cryin' out loud! And these two aren't even gonna STOP! They're meeting at the same place and time tomorrow! And honestly, who DOESN'T sing along with this one? Oh, MAN, can music twist your around its little finger (otherwise, why ELSE would any woman find Tommy Lee, Slash, Lionel Ritchie or Seal attractive?)!

And this last one this one is TRULY bad...this guy doesn't even CARE that he's ruining this girl's life and reputation, just wants desperately to do the WRONG thing:


(If Loving You is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right

If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right
If being right means being without you
I'd rather live a wrong doing life (hmmm...who can this be...SATAN???)
Your mama and daddy say it's a shame
It's a downright disgrace (well, only because it IS!!)
Long as I got you by my side
I don't care what your people say (selfish son of a !@#$)

Your friends tell you there's no future
in loving a married man (FINALLY, some friends leading someone in the RIGHT direction!)
If I can't see you when I want to
I'll see you when I can
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right

Am I wrong to fall so deeply in love with you (yes!!!)
knowing I got a wife and two little children
depending on me too
And am I wrong to hunger
for the gentleness of your touch (YES!)
knowing I got three people at home
who need me just as much
And are you wrong to give your love (YES!!!)
to a married man
And am I wrong trying to hold on
to the best thing I ever had (YES, YES, a THOUSAND times YES!!!!)
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right

Are you wrong to give your love
to a married man
And am I wrong trying to hold on
to the best thing I ever had (it's like he's reading my mind AND answering his own question!!!)
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right
If loving you is wrong I don't wanna be right (blah, blah, I'm cheating more, blah blah)

Honestly, with songs like this going as far back at the 70's, it's no wonder that people have gotten the idea that "baby daddys" are par for the course!

On the UP side (the UP side of marital discord & infidelity...LOL), songs like this really make you understand and appreciate the lines to Thin Line Between Love and Hate (which, BTW, are kinda hard to find ever since The Pretenders redid it...look for The PERSUADERS, the original group). It begins with some cheating:

It's a thin line, it's 5 o'clock in the morning
And I'm just getting in, I knock on the door
A voice sweet and low says, who is it?
She opens up the door and lets me in
Never do she once say, sir, where have you been?
No, she says, are you hungry?
Are you hungry, honey? Did you eat yet?
Let me hang up your coat, your coat, your coat
And the woman tells me, pass me your hat too
All the time she smiles, never once raises her voice
It's 5 o'clock in the morning
And I don't give it a second thought

It's a thin line between love and hate..

And ends with:

The sweetest woman in the world
Can be the meanest woman in the world
If you make her that way, you keep on hurting her
She keeps being quiet
She might be holding something inside
That really really hurt you one day

Here I am laying in the hospital
Bandaged from feet to head
Ya see I'm in the state of shock
Just that much from being dead
I didn't think my woman could do something like this to me
I didn't think she had the nerve, so here I am
I guess action speaks louder than words

Don't even have to EXPLAIN that one! ;-)

So, what have we learned? Ummm...that cheatin' songs have great and memorable melodies? That the 70's were a time of serious social change, shag carpeting and some "hittin' that"? Or that you can pretty much make a song out of ANYTHING?

Let's go with all three!

Today's Decomp: In The End by Linkin Park

I would say "don't get me started on this song", but getting me started is PRETTY much what this blog is FOR, right?

Let me preface this commentary on the quintessential teen angst song of the 2000's by explaining what I was DOING about the time this song came out:

As an adult, teen angst on a string is something that one doesn't ever really think they'll have to deal with again until it rears its Tommy Hilfigered, baggy jeaned, "in" crowded, head-up-its-own-assed head in the middle of a group of normal high schoolers, causing them to erupt into screaming fits, storming-out fits, general hysterics and haughtily whispered snatches of conversation that usually include phrases like, "that BITCH", "if she thinks", "well, I heard from so-and-so that", "we better go talk to her in the bathroom" and my all time favorite, "she bet'not put her hand in MY face, 'cause I WILL beat her ass down!"

All this comes to a heightened point of necessary catharsis, the nexus for all emotional distress and teenage torment, a sort of end all, be all of emotional disturbance and mind boggling acts of insanity...

...the high school play.

My job in 2001? High school drama director.

Okay, I did do OTHER things, too, but THIS was the job that sucked the soul out of me while simultaneously making me feel as uplifted as if I had done some great service for the world (which is what watching kids be creative for a month or more ALWAYS does for me).

Anyway, this PARTICULAR song was out right in the middle of that school year, right around the time of the play itself. The kids were always bringing in stuff for me to listen to, so let me show you the lyrics so you, too, can be awash in pubescence:

It starts with
One thing I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To explain in due time

All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away

It's so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Trying to hold on, but didn't even know
Or wasted it all just to watch you go

I kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

One thing, I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind I designed this rhyme
To remind myself how

I tried so hard
In spite of the way you were mocking me
Acting like I was part of your property
Remembering all the times you fought with me
I'm surprised

It got so far
Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

You kept everything inside
And even though I tried, it all fell apart
What it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of a time when

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I've put my trust in you
Pushed as far as I can go
And for all this
There's only one thing you should know

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter

Okay, aside from the pretty cool music, does anyone ELSE see this song as kinda whiny, in that teenage angst sorta way? I mean "Well, I tried, but it doesn't even MATTER, 'cause everything I do just SUCKS, so why even bother!" What's the new word for this...EMO, is it? (for those of you unfamiliar with the term, emo is the new word for goth kids, which was the new word for punk kids, which was the new word for...I dunno, greasers???)

I can't completely explain why this song gets under my skin, but I know from whence the original suffering comes from. I'm the eldest child in my family, so I was always the one responsible for everything. Once my brother got too old for my parents to do that "he's too young to know better" thing, I watched him run this "it doesn't matter, 'cause everything's always my fault and you're gonna blame me ANYWAY" game on my mom (Dad didn't buy that crap, since he knew the boy actually WAS guilty!) So, listening to someone whine about how they've done their best and in the end, it didn't matter, just seems like a GIANT cop out to me.

When I was a kid, if at first you didn't succeed, you tried, tried again. You didn't just sit and wallow in your own crapulence. Admittedly, the boys from Linkin Park have SORT of moved on in the song:

Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore
Not that you knew me back then
But it all comes back to me in the end

But, why go back to whining about how hard you tried and how it didn't matter again? And worse yet, if you're REALLY beyond this chick (assuming chick since it's a guy band), then why exercise your constitutional right to piss and moan over a chick that totally destroyed your independence and self worth in the first place?

Suck it up, find a new girlfriend, and stop singing songs about how life sucks, emo boy (like that nice Alanis Morrissette did...oh, wait...!)

More evidence of CQ, Wassa and the Highlander's Folly & Today Decomp: Comfortably Numb

Once again, at Celtic Quinn's insistence, I've started another blog. This one is just for what he calls "my little rants about songs". Apparently, I crab about music enough that he's had time to CREATE a name for them, but he seems to like it when I do it and thinks the rest of the world might be similarly entertained. I pity any of you who actually agree! :-)

The title for this blog actually came from Wassamatta U and the Highlander both. The Highlander was responsible for Blinded By the Sprite (which he woke up and said to me in the middle of the night and just wouldn't leave my head) and Wassa had gone entirely insane using the words "verse" and "stanza" to the point where I HAD to take something he said just to make him take his Ritalin...!

But I digress...

The song on the block today is Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd. Here's the lyrics for those of you as unfamiliar as I was with them before JACK-FM stuck them in my brain yesterday morning:

Hello?
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?

Come on now
I hear you're feeling down.
Well I can ease your pain,
Get you on your feet again.

Relax.
I need some information first.
Just the basic facts,
Can you show me where it hurts?

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you say

When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can't explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am

I have become comfortably numb.

[guitar solo]

I have become comfortably numb.

Ok.
Just a little pinprick.
There'll be no more ...Aaaaaahhhhh!
But you may feel a little sick.

Can you stand up?
I do believe it's working good.
That'll keep you going for the show.
Come on, it's time to go.

There is no pain, you are receding.
A distant ship's smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you say.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.

I have become comfortably numb.

WTF????

Bear in mind, the first and last time I heard this song, I was a senior in high school (and even then, I wasn't really paying attention...we used it for a scene depicting light and dark symbolism in English class). I guess if I'd been INTO any sort of recreational drug use at all, I could totally feel this song and go "wow, far out, man" or whatever it is people DO, but I never took more than two Advil in my whole LIFE, see?

I'm probably making more of this than I should (hence the term "rant"), but I guess I wasn't prepared for how directly about drug stuff this song WAS. I mean, it came out when I was still a kid and things were majorly censored back then. It was like when I finally listened to "International Lover" by Prince and UNDERSTOOD THE WORDS. All of the sudden, it's this NASTY song instead of just this song I knew I was supposed to scream wildly about for some reason (one day in the future, children of today will have this same epiphany about the "bow-chicka-wow-wow" sound from the 70's porn flicks!).

There's also a certain amount of hype surrounding songs that people do drugs to. They make it sound all great, but when you're listening to the song alone, it's really weird, like watching Rocky Horror on home video by yourself. You just have to sit and listen and wonder did people really get INTO it, or were they just so zoned out, they didn't HEAR the words??? With Rocky Horror, it's so bad on it's own that you HAVE to fill in the blanks with nonsense (hence the all the theatrical staging), but with Comfortably Numb, it's just so OUT there that you have to sit and listen to it and just.........

And have you ever tried DRIVING while listening to this song? I thought "Dude, I'm gonna go off the road, but I really don't CARE...!"

Overall, it's really depressing, though. On first appearances, you've got exactly what it sounds like; some whacked out rock star taking more crap to make it through a show, but essentially losing himself totally, wholly unable to connect to the world around him (which is what true enjoyment of anything requires).

So I call the Highlander on the cell phone and ask him, "What the !@#$ kinda mind rape is THIS deal??? Has this song ALWAYS been this weird?" And HE, having the soul of a true bard wrapped up deep within him somewhere, says, "Actually, it's not entirely drug referenced. The part about the kid is kinda sad. It's almost like he's lost his childhood innocence in that one stanza...that's what he can't see anymore. It's almost like...(and here, I can HEAR him blush over the phone at what he thinks is just silly, but I know is yet another reason I married him) well, he saw a sprite out of the corner of his eyes, but now that he's older, he can't see the magic anymore."

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown, the dream is gone.

This kinda made me mellow out a little. It became less of an overt drug tune and more of a reference to innocence lost and the attempt to avoid dealing with adulthood. Frankly, it wasn't QUITE as interesting to read what the band members themselves thought of this song. Supposedly Roger Waters got some tranquilizers for hepatitis to help him make it through a concert, which is where he got the idea.

Still, in the spirit of ranting, I have to admit I had more fun giving the Highlander grief over "that crazy alternative music of his"!