Date: Jan 8, 2011
Weeks: 4
This song makes me feel very, very ambivalent. Let's see if I can work out why.
I like that the music starts quiet and builds toward the chorus. The driving drum and piano through the verse is intriguing. And then we get to the chorus and it's... a little bit bigger. There's more drums, to be sure. But it feels like the song doesn't get as big as was promised. The bridge is a little bit better, but it's more at the energy and pain level that the chorus should be at. The bridge should be even bigger.
I like Mars's vocal intensity. His voice is raw and scratchy and intense, reflecting the emotion of the lyrics. He makes up for the promise made by the music to get bigger and bigger until he reaches peak intensity in the chorus, and then he fades off into sadness at the end. It's an achingly personal performance, somewhat undermined by the participation of background singers in the chorus. It's not quite so personal when you're getting that much help, Bruno.
The lyrics are the story of a man who is in pain over unrequited love. I suppose they capture the feeling pretty well, in a very intense way. The lyric "I'd catch a grenade for you" is just that old trope that self-sacrifice to save the one you love is the greatest form of love, and it's fine. But then the song gets weird. "Throw my hand on a blade for you," "Jump in front of a train for you," and "Take a bullet straight through my brain" aren't really about saving anyone else through self-sacrifice. They're just about inflicting pain to get attention. And that's where it turns kind of disturbingly self-destructive, in a very immature, teenage-poetry kind of way. And then he makes it clear that he doesn't even really respect the woman he's singing this song about. "Tell the devil I said hey when you get back to where you're from" and "You'll smile in my face then rip the brakes out my car." If that's what he thinks about the relationship, there's really no saving it.
I suppose if you view the lyrics as the pained wailing of a man who's suffering after a breakup, who has no intention of resuming this relationship but just wants to express the betrayal he's feeling, it's a little bit better. It still sounds like bad teenage poetry when he lists all the ways he intends to hurt himself, though. Still, I prefer it when songs like this go further over-the-top to indicate they are clearly satire. "Everything Is Cool" by Reel Big Fish is a great example off the top of head.
My verdict: Like it. Ultimately I think the positives outweigh the negatives. The music is compelling and catchy, and there's a genuine emotional intensity. It's pop music junk food. Not good for you, but possibly satisfying if you're in the right mood.
I don't know. I think "put my hand on a blade for you" could be about pushing that blade away from someone else. And "jump in front of a train" could be about pushing someone else out of the way of the train. So I think those both could be about saving someone.
ReplyDeleteBut "take a bullet straight through my brain," while it could be about jumping in front of a bullet to save someone, is weirdly graphic. And he lingers on that lyric. It's odd, and I don't like it. I feel like I'm listening to a song, like a lot of songs like this, with a list of things the singer would do for the beloved, and suddenly, Bam! bleeding brains on the ground. Gross, and overly dramatic.