Something that always interests me is what music means to people. What purpose it serves. I came across an article the other day in which the author described how the musical artists we love can be a subconscious reflection of who we wish we were. The prime example in the article was the Lisa Loeb phenomenon, the author noting her aggressive male friends’ love of LL (and her love of early Iggy Pop). They wanted to be sweet, the wished they could hold a relationship, and they fantasized about being able to let their emotions be expressed in ways other than violence. She wanted to be a heroin fuelled madman.
This all sounds very Freudian to me, our secret desires leaking through in socially acceptable ways. A prime example of this is Ice-T’s 1992 track “Cop Killer”. As a 14 year old kid I had absolutely no way of relating to this song. I was a white kid living in the suburbs, hadn’t had my first drink, was afraid of vaginas, hadn’t tried a drug and still went to church. But the song connected to me, like it connected to millions of white kids all over North America because we were drawn to the violence that our lives lacked.
It got me to thinking. If this theory is true, and as a lover of all things Freudian I tend to give credit to this sort of thinking, then who am I? and who do I do I really want to be?
What's the best way to do this? Why, define myself from my IPods most listened to songs of course.
1. Pour Some Sugar on Me - Def Leppard
I'm not sure what this means about me. Apparently I miss the simple days where getting the clap was your biggest concern, I desire pure hedonism, I want someone to cover me with sugar (in the name of love of course) and I wanna rock twice as hard as the normal man but with only one arm. Most of all I want a meaningless moment once in a while, I want to escape into a sing along that is both user friendly and has been the soundtrack to accidental teenage pregnancies for 22 years and counting.
2. Maneater - Hall And Oates
I'm angry, hurt and scared from past relationships and girls in general.I want to warn men about "them". Watch out boys they'll chew you up.
3. Momma's Boy - Chromeo
"She says I remind of her father and I know she likes it”
Why do I connect so strongly to this song? Because I desperately pine to be 13 again. The simple days of having heartbreaking crushes and the underlying necessary confusion between parental love and sexual love (stick with me here kids).
In Freudian theory our first love is necessarily for our parents, which makes sense as they are the image of woman/man that we are exposed to. To be honest you see it every day, people dating people with the exact characteristics of their opposite sex parent, or purposefully dating someone with the opposite characteristics (the all too common “bad boy” girl infatuation).
“Oh Cindy he’s just so dreamy. He has a motorbike, carries a switchblade, has been to prison and doesn’t pay his child support. He’s so different than my book reading, responsible, caring father. SWOON”
SIGH.
It makes sense in a certain awkwardly logical way. The first woman I was around for a substantial amount of time was the one who raised me. I built up my image of what a woman is around her. Now does my definition of love at 13 differ from my definition of love at 30? Completely. Does my definition of an ideal partner change between those same ages? Absolutely.
That’s the wonder and confusing part of being 13. You’re leaving that safety net and parentally defined image of love as you experience new things. Your jaw drops when you see Tanya P. rocking a black skin-tight body suit to Home Economics class in Grade 9. When Erin P. asks you if you want to learn how to French kiss at Derrick’s party you’re so scared you whimper “Nawwwwww it’s ok”. When you see Michelle D. in jean shorts (if you could call those things shorts) in the summer of 1992 you are seeing something that is out of your experience. And you like it. The mother image fades and these new experiences mold a new image of what a woman is supposed to be. Mind you that image is fueled by raging hormones but that ship corrects itself in ten or twenty years.Good luck with that ladies.
Oh and I love the song because I’m totally a Momma’s boy underneath this rock solid façade of hardcoreness. Love ya mom.
4.Wasted - Lil' Wayne
Ok so this track came out this week so it couldn’t possibly make the top 25. But I think it’s an interesting window into this situation. Why did I LOVE Wu-Tang so much at a certain point? How did punk rock change my life?Why was Alkaline Trio literally the soundtrack to my everyday existence for two years? Why does Lil’ Wayne make so much sense to me today?
Perhaps music serves as a window into a certain need at a certain point in time for all of us. It helps define who we are, who we want to be, and who we need to be at that moment (even if it’s just for those two mins). I loved Wu-Tang (and still do) because it was so outside my comfort zone at the time, I was a lost high school kid and wanted to be someone different, I wanted to explore that which I was not. And what’s the easiest way for a khaki rocking awkward white boy to do that? Why emerge himself into the world of hardcore, meth-smoking, violent thug life, obviously.
Punk rock changed my life because I needed something that spoke to me. I needed to hear anti-establishment songs; I needed to know that I wasn’t crazy and that someone else thought the world made no sense. Oh and punk rock chicks are crazy hot. You drink beer and will punch a guy out? Hellllllooo I think my heart just got a boner.
Alkaline Trio’s first three albums are about three things: drinking, heartbreak, and death. All things that I was dealing with while I was listening to them so much, they gave me insight and comfort. I couldn’t express those emotions as well as Matt Skiba so I allowed his words to become mine.
And Lil’ Wayne? Well first off he spits hot fire (mad love D.C.) and secondly I get the joke. He defines where I am right now in my life in a completely contradictory way. He is the gangsta Ying to my yuppie Yang. I need an escape into the world of “f-ing bitches”, “getting money” and violence from time to time because that is the opposite of what my world is. If I was to listen to Gordon Lightfoot and Huey Lewis sing songs about how my life actually is day in and day out I would have to experience those sort of escapes in real life (according to the Freudian and Lacanian theory) in some form sooner or later.
Lil Wayne has basically saved me from committing crimes, doing drugs and getting herpes.
Thank you Lil' Wayne, and I’m sorry you’re going to priison, but I know you dd it for all of US.
