Pontificating on the words behind the meaning behind such words as: "Now that it’s raining more than ever / Know that we’ll still have each other / You can stand under my umbrella, ella-ella-ay-ay-ay".
What happened to unconditional love? Or is it just regulated to Grandma, and her wonderful hands. “Grandma’s Hands” was penned by Bill Withers in a ‘70s soul beat. And just like Prince singing “Adore”, or a million other balladeers crooning in their best falsetto, it’s catchy and captivating when men wear this sort of vulnerability. Yet, societies have even contended to cut off boys’ balls in order to maintain that pre-pubescent, innocent, unthreatening sound—the emasculated male is somehow so alluring.
Nonetheless, it’s all fantasy: We prefer our men so-called ‘real’. So we give all our stars a damn hard time for the ways in which they effeminate themselves just to maintain our titillation: the make-up, the feather-light hair, the hairless face, the fitted clothes, the glitter, the glam, and, of course, those high voices. We might call them “faggot” in public, then swoon and swing alongside their beats in private. Even as fans, we love conditionally.
Until the end of time
I’ll be there for you.
You are my heart and mind
I truly adore you.
If God one day struck me blind,
Your beauty I’d still see.
Love’s too weak to define
Just what you mean to me.
“You gotta stand by your brother”, Erykah Badu croons in a soft, lofty voice in the live version of “Other Side of the Game”. “Work ain’t honest, but it pays the bills”, her talented back-up singers say. “Through whatever, whatever, whatever”, she says, and again members of the crowd slap their palms together while others shout and cheer.
An expectant Jennifer Hudson belts out “Will You Be
There” before a mourning crowd at Michael Jackson’s
Memorial in July 2009
“Carry me, like you were my brother / Love me like a mother”, Michael Jackson opens his song “Will You Be There”. And since his childhood, fans around the globe have watched this artist dance and sing on stage with his brothers, envisioning the unconditional love of family while singing about how unconditional his love was in songs like “I’ll Be There”.
“Just call my name…”. That’s the most that we could ask of anyone. Sadly, today’s divas and divos would rather just watch us pack, treating each other as if we’re simply replaceable. And despite all that we have, love cannot be bought at Ikea, nor is love found in the aisles of Walmart. In spite of their lifetime warranties, retailers LL Bean and Lands’ End don’t sell unconditional love.
I wanna be
More than your mother,
More than your brother;
I wanna be like no other
If you need me,
I’ll never leave.
I know that you know….
Be with me darlin’ till the end of time
Just like his own androgyny, Prince is notorious for exploring the fine division between the erotic and the platonic, the parental and the lustful. Furthermore, given his backdrop of gender-bending and unadulterated sexuality, Prince’s force is intense and unconditional. Again, it’s this unconditional love that makes His Royal Badness so fascinating to fans spanning a range of musical genres. “I wanna be your lover / I wanna turn you on, turn you out”, he chants over an earlier, funkier beat that he thankfully extends well beyond the dope lyrics and pop radio strip.
Then, of course, there’s Purple Rain. On screen, fans witness that the madness and fervor with which the artist approached love—the willingness to abandon all reason in tunes like “Darlin’ Nikki”—clearly stemming from the dysfunction at home.
His lack of fraternal love—fraternal disapproval and the maternal abandonment in tolerating the abuse—all lead the character portrayed in the film to supplant the erotic over and above all that he lacked. He was a man who would do anything for love, and it’s this illusion and allusion of success that draws women and men, the premise and promise of unconditional love. Yet, in spite of the fantasy, we’d all rather settle for so much less, like sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.
“Drugs / Rock-n-Roll / Bad-ass Vegas hoes / Shiny disco balls”. Ecstasy. Illusion and fantasy. The fantasy of unconditional love is all that it’s about, and any amount of sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll can lead us there. Yet, like any cheap high, it’s unsustainable.
If I was your one and only friend,
Would you run to me if somebody hurt you,
Even if that somebody was me?
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be
It is a trip. It’s a vacation from life to believe in unconditional love, yet abandon that promise as soon as anything real occurs. “Baby, baby, baby: What’s it gonna be”, Prince begs Apollonia (or wasn’t it Vanity?) on bended knee as she sits and sips with the next man. Just as soon as we promise love, we withdraw these pleas and lament over loss, which we seem to do as easily as we do the falling in love. It’s unrealistic and juvenile to believe in infallibility, for that is what makes us human. So, “let’s just pretend we’re married—tonight”.
And Michael McDonald bridged:
I know you’re not mine
Anymore
Anyway
Anytime.
Tell me how come I
Keep forgetin’
People lie, cheat, and steal. And all this stems from the abandonment we’ve felt at home, often in spaces were there is lovelessness, even with an abundance of care. Indeed, few heal from those scars, yet pretty much all are involved. Like “Thriller”, where each and everyone crawled out of tombs and graves, mortified and decrepit—we are all perishable. Yet, even in Michael’s fantasies, we don’t all remain that way. “Heal the World”, the Jackson family has inevitably advocated in their music, from the Jacksons and “Can You Feel It” to Janet’s “Rhythm Nation” among several other tunes, to most of what Michael Jackson had to say in his music.
Hold me
Like the River Jordan
And I will then say to thee:
You are my friend.
You are my friend? “I’ve been looking around / And you were here all the time”. So the message seems to be, “through whatever, whatever, whatever”, if we genuinely know how to cherish those around us, we’ve probably known unconditional love all the time. “You are my friend / I never knew it till then, my friend / You hold my hand / You might not say a word / But I see your tears when I show my pain”, Patti drones in that other-side-of-the-‘80s soul beat. Now, there’s the unconditional love that recognizes friendship through each other’s humanity and occasional fallibility.
But they told me:
‘A Man should be faithful,
And walk when not able,
And fight to the end’
But I’m only human
Love, it seems, is only as conditional as our wiliness to heal. Recognizing that, as REM says, “Everybody Hurts”, then will we be there when our lovers, friends, parents, neighbors show out? Will we be there, as Michael suggests, in our darkest hours? Or are we just fair-weather friends? The weatherman can’t predict those conditions with any real accuracy. And Rhianna said: “You can stand under my umbrella, ella-ella-ay-ay-ay / Under my umbrella, ella-ella-ay-ay-ay. (BTW, that’s just the catchy part of the chorus, the song’s actual verses are significantly more instructive).
Seeing these moves come home confirms that they’ve always been the source of B.’s latest trends. This pop diva has managed an effective way of reproducing stardom, like Madonna, mining our dance floors, hiring us sissies to teach them how to assert their masculinity and femininity at the same time.
In case you haven’t heard, Vogueing is back. Madonna brought it to the mainstream, sealing the 80’s sloppy fate with classic club anthems ushering in a whole new breed of contemporary social dance. Yet, this again was an appropriation of Black sub-culture, in this case queer. Indeed, Vogueing is as old as Betty Davis and as American as apple pie, shown even with a quick perusal of the docu-films ‘Looking for Langston’, or even the voyeuristic ‘Paris is Burning’. More interesting, perhaps, or at least speaking from a more liberated voice, would be the 2006 film ‘How Do I Look’. At any rate, Jody Watley made it hot on the charts back in 1987, three years before Madonna, with one of Prince’s bassist Andre Simone’s most fly guitar rifts and synthesized melismatic beats, Still a Thrill. The normally high-pitched diva adopted an androgynous baritone voice for the lyrics, teasing viewers even more. The video was off the chain, and yes, an early dose of this black-n-tan boy ‘House’ dancing. How appropriate that Watley chose a Parisian style ballroom set for the video, and one of the genre’s early champions, Tyron “The Bone” Proctor, as her co-star.
We live in a world were the love ethic is under attack from all sides, not lest of which is its commercialization and commodification, or even distillation down to the romanticized romantic view, providing plenty of excuses for acting unloved, satiated with material possession.
I want to make this quick because know that I give B. and HOV a whole lotta grief. I want it to be clear that I am equally able to give the duo a whole lotta lovin, too. In the last hip-hop concert I attended, Jay-Z landed at Louisville Gardens where the predicable lot of players, pimps, prissies and punks all showed up in their Sunday best to come bounce and hop to the beats. Moreover, the last drag show I performed was to Beyoncé’s ‘Suga Mamma’. While I find B.’s lyrics wholly problematic- the eventual topic of this Valentine Day’s rant- I can not resist the unbridled energy she brings to her entertainment, which gets me real bodied each and every time. Sit back and watch as I drop to my knees, arch my back and shake it like an alley cat!
“Don’t you ever for a second get to thinking you’re irreplaceable”
One of the greatest criticism Gen-X folk have of video-game kids these days is their shortened attention span. An evening spent with a house full of college seniors during a recent visit to my alma mater reminded me of my age. Two of the four roomies competed on their large flat screen with the latest competing video game formats. Indeed, I am so lame that I cannot even remember the names of the two boxes with which I gave it a good ole college try, boxing and batting in front of a screen with some random wireless apparati. E-mail had just come into widespread play my senior year at the same school, yet here I stood dumbed by the access to technology that these kids enjoyed today. Yet on the same evening, an elder alum- a true gen-Xer, abruptly removed himself from the fun and games, muttering something about how these guys couldn’t pay attention long enough to have even a decent conversation.
‘You must not know ‘bout me/I could have another you in a minute/Matter of fact he’ll be here in a minute, baby’
Happy Valentine’s Day, B. Hopefully HOVA has managed to stuff your mouth with another diamond, like in the video ‘Upgrade You’. Upgrade? Indeed, B. said: Audemars Piguet watch/Dimples in ya necktie/Hermes briefcase/Cartier top clips/Silk lined blazers/Diamond creamed facials/VVS cuff links/six star pent suites.” There is an apparent ignorance in offering free advertisement to designer brands that do little more for her than feed spiritual emptiness, because one will never be satiated with these possessions. My criticism mirrors LL Cool J’s: “That seems to be enough to satisfy your needs, but there’s a deeper level; if you would follow, I’ll lead.” Beyoncé, Kelly Michelle, Fantasia, Rhianna and all those R&B, hip-hop chicks can’t get to any deeper level from the soldiers they beg for from hood boys in “wife beaters and jeans.” Has it ever occurred to these women why we use the term ‘wife beater’, or has the video-game generation stamped its ok on domestic abuse?
Behind L.L.’s smooth rap, in soft voices the R&B group Boyz to Men croon ‘This is more than a crush’. Together these brothers talk about fantasies, revealing a vulnerability unknown in this day and age of DMX thugs, Rick Ross Hustlers, and 50 Cent P.I.M.P.’s. These brothers don what radical feminist writer/professor bell hooks calls the ‘hard pose’. And it’s not that I believe that these brothers are incapable of feeling and expressing care. Yet, there is a clear conspiracy around regressive gender roles, where at best roles are reverse, and power is never challenged. In the Beyoncé Experience concert, she appears on stage in a sultry pose, smoking a cigarette and whispers: “Damn, that was so good, I wanna buy him a short set” What’s this? Oh, I love you baby, so let me buy you something. Is B. the new James Brown? Macking niggas and pimpin’ hoes!
A visiting artist in residence at my college once said that when she was a little girl, she saw a nasty word spray-painted on the wall of some uncared for public space in her neighborhood. She understood that the word was nasty when all of the grown folks made clear to her that she was never to say the word aloud because it was dirty, as were the people associated with it. As she grew, and learned more about ‘those’ folks and even more nasty words, she noticed an intrinsic link between that initial dirty word, and money. She saw that the compromises people would make for this dirty word were only paralleled by what folks would do for money. Even worse was what they would do for both, which was often tied to either giving or depriving someone of one or the other. However, the word was so dirty, like Voldemort that one only need insinuate its presence and someone would attempt to harness and control it. By the time she grew up, she only knew this nasty word to describe what she had between her legs, and the feeling she’d get when letting someone have some.
Pink chaddis from The Consortium of Pub-going,
Loose and Forward Women
Saturday was St Valentine’s Day. In the recent past, conservative, ‘hard line’ Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists like the Sri Ram Sena here in India have advocated banning this holiday because ‘Love’ in their understanding, is sacrosanct with their understanding of religion, which apparently significantly less disparate than most believers profess. Leader Pramod Mutalik even said that Indian women have should not even go to bars. In Mangalore in January 2009, Sri Ram Sena fundamentalists chased down and beat women visiting a local pub simply for being there. Two years ago in Kahmir, a group of veiled women mobbed local shops, confiscated and burned alleged Valentine’s Day cards and trinkets. The adhoc vigilante group was lead by Asiya Andrabi who proudly boasted: “These Western gimmicks are corrupting our kids and taking them away from their roots.” Today blokes like Pramod Mutalik are receiving gifts of pink underwear to from activists ready to match their avid cynicism.
We live in a world were the love ethic is under attack from all sides, not lest of which is its commercialization and commodification, or even distillation down to the romanticized romantic view. Indeed, the significance of today is so convoluted that one can see how it would be easier to just buy something and be done with it.
My man and I are entering our seventh year, and there’s no itch. There is plenty of passion, understanding, and giving—all the sites of care seem to be covered. Care is all about expectations. Negotiating our expectations has been the name of the game, and therefore dialogue has allowed us to make it this far. For B. and much of the video game generation, lyrics like “I can have another you by tomorrow”, replace actual attempts at the necessary concerted patience and dialogue needed to sustain any relationship. Without the basic understanding that our relationship is irreplaceable, I can only suppose that we would have settled for purple labels, Hermès and Cartier fashion statements in lace of affection. I would be quite disenfranchised in this relationship. Yet, as Beyoncé points out elsewhere, ‘a little sweat never hurt nobody,” Indeed, “I ain’t worried doing me,” because the love that our patience is allowed to cultivate is worth more than all the cocoa and precious metals that Switzerland stole and coerces from the Gold Coast still today.
I am content that I stuck around even through the disagreements and sometimes all out fights. It’s fortunate, I suppose, that I am dissatisfied with the instant gratification like “that rock on ya finger is like a tumor/You can’t fit ya hand in ya new purse.” Tobacco offers a similar instant gratification and causes equally dangerous forms of cancer—tumors as large as fists! I saw one tumor so large that it would not even fit in a Birkin bag.
On this and past Valentine’s Days, I am sending sweet love to my first and truest Sweetheart, Ms. Alice. Since I can remember, she has brought me a box of chocolates, hugs and kisses. And my Granny never expected anything in return. Sometimes she would sit and watch as I ate the whole box all by myself, not even taking one for herself. In elementary school, we traded tiny cards and small chalky heart-shaped candies with cupid messages. Years later, Bex, another sweetheart and dear friend from college, continues to send me these tiny cards with cute brown smiling faces. Inside she inscribes a note to remind me that time and distance have not wrecked our bond. My Sweethearts’ consistency and sustainability have me all in a tussle. I am loved and much is expected of those in this predicament. There are no excuses for acting unloved, satiated with material possession. Neither of these sweethearts “ever for a second get to thinkin’” that my ambitions begin or end with pussy and money. Happy Valentine’s B., I hope your man bought you something you like.
"Work All Week" is the third Mekons single and it finishes the outstanding triumvirate by this underrated post punk group.
Work All Week
The third single put out by the Mekons is “Work All Week”, an anti-materialist anthem disguised as a love song. Like “Where Were You”, it’s a song that reveals its true identity after repeated listens (you’ll have to get this song on your own as copyright does not allow me to post the original version, only the 2004 folk reggae version). Though the song can, at first, seem to be a typical love and marriage tune, upon closer examination it bears that signature post punk cynicism and satire. In most love songs the object of the speaker is to woo their potential partner, or to express their love/devotion/affection in some way, “Work All Week” shows that love and marriage seem to be impossible without killing yourself trying to make the money to buy the materials which signify happiness. In a love song the object of the speaker’s affection is a person, in “Work All Week” the object of the speaker’s affection is the objects needed to barter for love.
The songs starts with a ‘70s-sounding “oriental” riff straight out of Carl Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting”, then moves into a lilting chord progression that’s a bit out of time with the drums. An excellent bass run fills in the simple chord progression and gives a good background to the misleading lyrics. The refrain of “I work all week” is a constant reminder that most things that the speaker discusses are impossible without constant labour.
The first lyric is straight forward enough: “I work all week to buy a ring / I work all week / Extra hours to get real gold / I’ll buy you anything / You know I’ll buy you anything / I work all week / Not put off by signs saying sold.” Love is supplanted with a ring—there’s no mention of who he’s buying the ring for or what the ring symbolizes, the goal of working seems to be the acquisition of a ring made of real gold. The song is boastful when the speaker says “You know I’ll buy you anything”, as if these possessions are enough, the cost of love is the value of his person.
They didn't gain the post-punk popularity of Gang of Four and Delta 5, but the Mekons' first three singles will make you wonder why.
In 1978 in Leeds, England there were three excellent post-punk groups emerging from a group of friends in an art program at the University of Leeds. Of course the biggest was Gang of Four, then the catchy and dancey Delta 5, and then there was the Mekons. As a post punk band they emerged and quickly faded away releasing a series of excellent singles and a couple of inconsistent albums from ’78 into the early ‘80s. Once they disbanded and reformed things were a lot different as they focused on trad folk and soon got into country music where they have stayed until this day.
As a post punk band, the Mekons were never a success like their compatriots in Gang of Four or, even, Delta 5; they didn’t even put out the consistently good material like their friends, they never even released a decent album. But the singles! The singles were outstanding. Songs like “Where Were You” and “Work All Week” were like amazing ‘76/’77 styled punk with the self
Never Been In a Riot
awareness spawned by the post punk scene. Near enough to punk’s origins to sound exciting, raw and legitimate, but removed, allowing them to stray from spitting political rhetoric.
Their first three singles were an exciting progression from snotty and noisy to more focused and still sloppy punk rock. The first was “Never Been in a Riot”, an off tune, off time, slacker anthem with the memorable lyric: “I’ve never been in a riot / Never been in a fight / Never been in anything / That turns out right”. As a direct response to the Clash’s suspect “White Riot”, it embodied post punk’s awareness, not to mention its conflict with punk’s original ideals.
The following two singles explored the vulnerability, uncertainty and defeatism first introduced here. Where punk groups were only able to show two emotions: anger and outrage, the Mekons and other post punkers were able to reveal emotions outside of that narrow scope, moving on to often complex and conflicting conditions. Beginning with “Where Were You” and moving onto “Work All Week”, we’ll go through a lyrical exploration of the Mekons’ early singles.
I’ve now listened to “Do You Want to Know a Secret” many times, read of its origins, and taken ample notes. Even so, I don’t think I could put together a commentary that aspires to be original or insightful. Throughout, I found myself insistently qualifying both the positive and negative reactions I had toward the song. As in: “Secret” doesn’t amount to much but it easily delivers a warm and modest pop pleasure. It’s hard to dislike but closer to forgettable than not. It’s lightweight but knowingly so. Such ambivalence can frustrate one’s attempt at lucid criticism.
The song itself is simple and fairly straightforward. Musically, the Beatles drew inspiration from an early ‘60s doo-wop hit called “I Really Love You” by the Stereos. What results is a tight but fanciful bounce of a song that moves along with a procession of lilting guitar plucks and a crisp, contained rhythm. The only twist comes right at the outset when the combined effect of minimalist spaghetti strumming and George’s earnest vocal produces a heavier, more uncertain tone. This dissolves within seconds though, giving way to the wispy amble that marks the song.
Lyrically, John borrowed from a tune in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs which includes the line “Wanna know a secret/ Promise not to tell”. According to Steve Turner’s A Hard Day’s Write, the titular “secret” referred to how John “had just realized that he was really in love” with his first wife Cynthia. Strangely, he wrote this song a short time after his marriage to her, which would seem to undercut the sense of excitement and discovery that one might experience while harboring such emotion (and not wedding its target). But John couldn’t have felt too strongly about how “Secret” would convey these sentiments because the vast majority of the song is so breezy and also because he allowed George to take the lead vocal.
Perhaps this detail, that “Secret” seems like a bone which the band tossed to George, partly animates my mixed thoughts. It almost reinforces the song’s disposable feel or attaches a negating asterisk to any enjoyment you might derive. But this is likely just an instance of outside factors unduly influencing how a song is received. The effect is more contrived than anything. What isn’t contrived is that enjoyment, which, however qualified, doesn’t require a tedious explanation for its existence.
