Simon's current marriage to Edie Brickell is his longest by far, of his three. However, the course of true love never does run smooth, and the couple had an argument in 2014 that-- largely due to the fact that they are a celebrity couple-- made headlines. To show the public that they were fine after this bump in the road, they released a duet titled "Like to Get to Know You." (Thanks to my readers for spotting this one!)
This simple, Everly Brothers-style song is about a longtime couple who, despite their years together, seem frustrated that they still don't know each other well. At first, this is a source of frustration-- how can this be? Yet, they re-frame it is a positive: Well, it'll be like a new relationship, then!
"You share my heart/ you share my kids and my dogs," one sings, "But I swear I don't know you at all." They other responds: "You see my face/ Every night, every day/ But I swear you don't see me at all."
Echoing the classic "They Can't Take That Away From Me," with its intimate, personal observations about the way the other wears a hat and holds a knife, they sing: "I know how you like your coffee/ I know how bad you drive."
Meanwhile, they see other couples "in the movie line" or they "check out people in the checkout line." Those other couples seem very comfortable in their intimacy. They are "holding hands and laughing," and "exchanging loving glances." Unlike this couple, who seem estranged.
Still, they "wouldn't trade places" with those couples, even so. Why not? "I'd like to get to know you again."
In the title track to his 2016 album, Stranger to Stranger, Simon wonders if they would have gotten together had they met now: "Stranger to stranger/ If we met for the first time... could you imagine us falling in love again?"
He answered this question, in a way, years before. In 2014, they each said "I don't know you at all," but that they'd "like to get to know" each other now.
What's the difference, really, if the "stranger"-- the person you "don't know at all"-- is someone you meet on the street... or in your own bedroom?
Next Song: Fast Car
Showing posts with label flirtation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flirtation. Show all posts
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Monday, March 24, 2014
Shy
This is a throwback number, even as early in rock history as it falls. It would be home in the repertoires of the Andrews Sisters or Bing Crosby; one can imagine a Fred Astaire-style tap dance number to accompany it. The song even starts with syncopated snaps that recall tap dancing.
The lyrics mostly expand on the title, with the speaker explaining in various ways how, when he is in the presence of the object of his infatuation, he becomes tongue-tied: "I'm so shy when I'm with you/
Don't know what to say or do" and "When you come walking by/ All that I can do is sigh" and finally "I/ know I love you til I die/ I can't say it cause I'm shy."
He does regret this state of affairs-- "Gee, I wish I weren't shy"-- and does attempt to overcome his reticence. "Each night I look in my mirror," he explains, "And practice what I'm going to say to you." He gives himself pep talks: "I tell myself, 'Be confident.'" He sallies forth with brave intent:"I/ raise my hopes up to the sky."
Of course, once the moment presents itself: "I'm scared to death the minute that I'm with you." Oh, dear. Sigh, indeed.
Since we don't know of the woman's reaction, we have to assume there isn't one. She isn't flattered that he is overcome when he is with her. She isn't annoyed by timidity. It's possible that this is one of those cases in which the boy moans, accurately, "She doesn't even know I exist."
The song plays the idea for comic effect, and the tone is lighthearted. We can image it as a vaudeville number, with a sad-sack crooner mooning and batting his eyes over a hotsy-totsy flapper way out of his league. She flirts with the audience instead of him, inviting their hoots and wolf-whistles. At the end, she leaves the stage, bored. He smiles, sighs, shrugs broadly, and toddles after her, still mooning. Curtain.
Next song: Play Me a Sad Song
The lyrics mostly expand on the title, with the speaker explaining in various ways how, when he is in the presence of the object of his infatuation, he becomes tongue-tied: "I'm so shy when I'm with you/
Don't know what to say or do" and "When you come walking by/ All that I can do is sigh" and finally "I/ know I love you til I die/ I can't say it cause I'm shy."
He does regret this state of affairs-- "Gee, I wish I weren't shy"-- and does attempt to overcome his reticence. "Each night I look in my mirror," he explains, "And practice what I'm going to say to you." He gives himself pep talks: "I tell myself, 'Be confident.'" He sallies forth with brave intent:"I/ raise my hopes up to the sky."
Of course, once the moment presents itself: "I'm scared to death the minute that I'm with you." Oh, dear. Sigh, indeed.
Since we don't know of the woman's reaction, we have to assume there isn't one. She isn't flattered that he is overcome when he is with her. She isn't annoyed by timidity. It's possible that this is one of those cases in which the boy moans, accurately, "She doesn't even know I exist."
The song plays the idea for comic effect, and the tone is lighthearted. We can image it as a vaudeville number, with a sad-sack crooner mooning and batting his eyes over a hotsy-totsy flapper way out of his league. She flirts with the audience instead of him, inviting their hoots and wolf-whistles. At the end, she leaves the stage, bored. He smiles, sighs, shrugs broadly, and toddles after her, still mooning. Curtain.
Next song: Play Me a Sad Song
Monday, December 16, 2013
Surrender, Please Surrender
Another Everly Brothers pastiche.
In this one, a young man pleads with a young woman: "Come on, give your love to me." The assumption is that she has "love," and can give it to whomever she chooses. He has love, too, and he wants to give it to her, but that goes without saying.
"Surrender, please surrender," he cajoles. In this metaphor, she has-- or is-- a fortress he is trying to invade, land he is attempting to conquer. He knows he will keep advancing until he wins her over, but it would be so much easier if she would just... give up already!
At least he is willing to make a commitment: "Always and forever/ So true, the way a love should be."
So that's the chorus, and the set-up. In the first verse, he tries his first tactic. He says he has been "waiting all [his] life/ To find a girlie just like you." So, he explains that she meets his criteria, and he's certainly earned her consideration, not having gone after other women until his ideal one-- she!-- has come along. (And he hopes that she will overlook his condescendingly calling her a "girlie.")
"Now that I found you, Love/ I'll play the game/ And try to make you love me, too." Once again, we have a metaphor of competition. There is a "game," and if he plays it well enough, he'll win the prize. She's just a puzzle he has to solve, that's all... a code he must crack, a challenge he must overcome.
Telling her up front about this does not seem to work, for some reason.
Onto the second tactic. Or, maybe, his first play in the "game." Rather than simply state he has earned her by waiting for her, passively, he tries to actively earn her... by offering her something in exchange for her "love"-- namely, "fun." He enumerates: "We'll laugh and stay out late/ Drinkin' at a soda shop/ Dancin' at a record hop." Surely, this is a fair trade, one she cannot refuse!
And, yet, she seems to. Curse her intransigence! What more can he do...? He comes up empty.
Onto tactic three: Conceding defeat. "I'm beggin' down on my knees," he weeps. "Come on, give your love to me."
Despite the seemingly dramatic emotions herein, the song's arrangement is up-tempo-- cute and flirty, not desperate or lugubrious. Perhaps the speaker is presenting these options to her as if to say, "Yeah, I could try all these shopworn methods, run through the motions. Or we could just cut to the chase."
One pictures Romeo, sighing beneath Juliet's balcony, acting as if he must shower her with poetry to win her... when they both know they are already in love.
It's the only way to reconcile the sprightly arrangement with the clumsiness of the woo pitched in the lyrics. Either that, or the speaker is just really not good at this, and is going to lose the game he thinks he's playing, before he even starts.
Next Song: Looking at You
In this one, a young man pleads with a young woman: "Come on, give your love to me." The assumption is that she has "love," and can give it to whomever she chooses. He has love, too, and he wants to give it to her, but that goes without saying.
"Surrender, please surrender," he cajoles. In this metaphor, she has-- or is-- a fortress he is trying to invade, land he is attempting to conquer. He knows he will keep advancing until he wins her over, but it would be so much easier if she would just... give up already!
At least he is willing to make a commitment: "Always and forever/ So true, the way a love should be."
So that's the chorus, and the set-up. In the first verse, he tries his first tactic. He says he has been "waiting all [his] life/ To find a girlie just like you." So, he explains that she meets his criteria, and he's certainly earned her consideration, not having gone after other women until his ideal one-- she!-- has come along. (And he hopes that she will overlook his condescendingly calling her a "girlie.")
"Now that I found you, Love/ I'll play the game/ And try to make you love me, too." Once again, we have a metaphor of competition. There is a "game," and if he plays it well enough, he'll win the prize. She's just a puzzle he has to solve, that's all... a code he must crack, a challenge he must overcome.
Telling her up front about this does not seem to work, for some reason.
Onto the second tactic. Or, maybe, his first play in the "game." Rather than simply state he has earned her by waiting for her, passively, he tries to actively earn her... by offering her something in exchange for her "love"-- namely, "fun." He enumerates: "We'll laugh and stay out late/ Drinkin' at a soda shop/ Dancin' at a record hop." Surely, this is a fair trade, one she cannot refuse!
And, yet, she seems to. Curse her intransigence! What more can he do...? He comes up empty.
Onto tactic three: Conceding defeat. "I'm beggin' down on my knees," he weeps. "Come on, give your love to me."
Despite the seemingly dramatic emotions herein, the song's arrangement is up-tempo-- cute and flirty, not desperate or lugubrious. Perhaps the speaker is presenting these options to her as if to say, "Yeah, I could try all these shopworn methods, run through the motions. Or we could just cut to the chase."
One pictures Romeo, sighing beneath Juliet's balcony, acting as if he must shower her with poetry to win her... when they both know they are already in love.
It's the only way to reconcile the sprightly arrangement with the clumsiness of the woo pitched in the lyrics. Either that, or the speaker is just really not good at this, and is going to lose the game he thinks he's playing, before he even starts.
Next Song: Looking at You
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