Song Headcanons
May. 11th, 2015 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroThere are several songs that I enjoy on a musical level, but the messages they present kinda piss me off. So I have my own interpretation of what’s going on. (This is to be distinguished from, say, TMBG or REM songs where I have a host of interpretations, but so does everyone else because the lyrics are intended to be incomprehensible.)
I was in the shower the other day when “Fix You” by Coldplay (an acappella cover, natch) came on my Pandora station and I realized how to make it work. See, there’s a crappy message in the song because, as a general rule, trying to “fix” someone never works and oftentimes sets up a really terrible relationship dynamic. Romanticizing trying to emotionally rescue someone is a terrible idea. Unless…what if the singer is taking to himself in the mirror? “I’m depressed, I’m messed up, I feel my life sucks. But I’m going to try to fix myself.” That works!
I’ve actually had a similar headcanon for “Haven't Met You Yet” by Michael Bublé for some time. It’s another case that if you look at it as someone who wants to set up a romantic relationship, they want to set up a horribly unbalanced and unhealthy relationship where he “gives so much more than he gets.” But especially when you take his repeated use of the appellation “kid,” doesn’t the song work better if he’s looking forward to being a father? Singing to a child who hasn’t yet been conceived / born?*
I’ve actually had it in my head since college that “What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies is about being trans or genderqueer and struggling with it. The “chains” of being assigned a boy at birth and what that means in their life. (Knowing BNL, it’s likely “really” just about expectations on someone suffering from chronic depression, because all of their songs are peppy, chirpy numbers about chronic depression.)
It’s much more of a stretch, but I occasionally change the chorus of "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars to “’Cause you’re amazing / In your flying car.” Because the song is fine how it is, perhaps a bit trite and twee, but isn’t it just so much more fun if the whole world is actually stopping and staring at this woman because she’s amazing in her flying car?
* This theory was admittedly inspired by the Milk Carton Kids song “Charlie,” an ode to an unborn daughter who the singer admits, “Doesn’t yet have a due date…or a mother.”
I was in the shower the other day when “Fix You” by Coldplay (an acappella cover, natch) came on my Pandora station and I realized how to make it work. See, there’s a crappy message in the song because, as a general rule, trying to “fix” someone never works and oftentimes sets up a really terrible relationship dynamic. Romanticizing trying to emotionally rescue someone is a terrible idea. Unless…what if the singer is taking to himself in the mirror? “I’m depressed, I’m messed up, I feel my life sucks. But I’m going to try to fix myself.” That works!
I’ve actually had a similar headcanon for “Haven't Met You Yet” by Michael Bublé for some time. It’s another case that if you look at it as someone who wants to set up a romantic relationship, they want to set up a horribly unbalanced and unhealthy relationship where he “gives so much more than he gets.” But especially when you take his repeated use of the appellation “kid,” doesn’t the song work better if he’s looking forward to being a father? Singing to a child who hasn’t yet been conceived / born?*
I’ve actually had it in my head since college that “What a Good Boy” by Barenaked Ladies is about being trans or genderqueer and struggling with it. The “chains” of being assigned a boy at birth and what that means in their life. (Knowing BNL, it’s likely “really” just about expectations on someone suffering from chronic depression, because all of their songs are peppy, chirpy numbers about chronic depression.)
It’s much more of a stretch, but I occasionally change the chorus of "Just The Way You Are" by Bruno Mars to “’Cause you’re amazing / In your flying car.” Because the song is fine how it is, perhaps a bit trite and twee, but isn’t it just so much more fun if the whole world is actually stopping and staring at this woman because she’s amazing in her flying car?
* This theory was admittedly inspired by the Milk Carton Kids song “Charlie,” an ode to an unborn daughter who the singer admits, “Doesn’t yet have a due date…or a mother.”
