This is why fleets
were launched and wars declared. Let's face it. It's not her eyes,
the curve of her waist, the sunlight in her hair. It's what you want
to do with those eyes, waist, and hair. Or what you want them to do
to you.
This is an album
largely about sex. Money changes everything, including sex. Girls
just want to have fun, and sex is not necessarily but can be included
under the heading of “fun.” When you were mine, we had sex. Time
after time, I remember you, I'm waiting for you, and presumably sex
is somewhere in the mix there. She bop, obviously she does. And so
on. It continues. You get the point.
This is why middle
school boys in Pristina graffiti the walls with their caveman
drawings of dicks. Four or five curved lines and then everyone grins
and laughs and runs on down the street, but it's all that's possible,
this shorthand for “right now I really need sex, need it more than
I can even really describe.” It's an utterly controlling thing. No
wonder it plays at least a supporting role in these ten songs in a
row. Been doing that in popular songs since way further back than
1983.
Sex is cruel. It
might be natural and necessary, but “natural and necessary” is
just another way of saying “cruel”. For sure it doesn't care what
you say about it, or what you sing about it. In church they used to
say that love is never jealous, and maybe that's true, but sex is
jealous, jealous, jealous. Controls your eyes, your mouth, your
hands. Makes you say things you don't even mean. Things you didn't
know you meant. Makes you sing things you never meant to say. Runs
its own course through your life and bends you to its will some way
or another.
But I think that's
what the songs are saying. There's nothing we can do about this (they
say). I'm trapped by your body, and I want nothing else than to trap
you with mine. Anchor you to me and drag you down, stop you floating
away in the way that everything seems to want to float away around
here. We can do this the hard way, and we probably will, because
there's really no easy way, none at all. Probably this is going to
hurt you and me both. Maybe this means forever, or maybe we don't
even stand a chance of understanding one another, never did, but
whatever the truth about that is there's no denying this. I
think that's what the songs mean when they say “I want you.” I
want to. To hold your hand. I need you. I gotta have...
Look.
What you've done.
To me.
I think that's what
the songs are saying. They're saying “help.” It's just another
word for “sex.”
