I dislike gender stereotypes, in life and in songs. So I've protested their existence and their use. Recently, though, I've been observing them in song lyrics, especially when it comes to viewpoints during the break-up of a relationship.
Whether a man or a woman has written the song, if the singer is a man, the viewpoint will often be, "What happened? I thought everything was fine." If the singer is a woman, it will often be, " I tried to tell you a hundred times," or "I knew it was falling apart for years." Somehow, trying to reverse these and have the woman sing a song that goes, "You left me a note on the milk carton and that was the first I knew there was a problem" as is the theme of "That Ain't No Way To Go, " seems totally out of character. Similarly, to have a woman espouse the viewpoint suggested in "Phones Are Ringing All Over Town" would not be likely. The character in this song, also a man, is calling "The hospital, friends of hers and his, He knows she'd never leave him, She's just got to be around..." but phones are ringing all over town and she's on a plane. Martina McBride is just as convincing singing this as she was singing about the woman who burned the house down on "Independence Day." Somehow we don't see as many clueless wives calling the hospitals when their husbands are on planes leaving them or men burning down the house with the wife in it who abused him.
Now, I know this is going to agitate my colleagues who rage against the notion there is any difference between the sexes. Maybe there really isn't that much difference, but there's difference in the general perception of their viewpoints. People perceive that there is a difference between the usual behavior of a man and a woman when they leave relationships. And for a stereotype to take hold, there is usually some grain of truth in it. Maybe it's caused by environment and circumstances, even prejudice, but it's still the way people are perceived during that time period. The notable exception, of course, to the clueless-man/tried-to-tell-you woman is that Jim Webb's "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" is about a woman who never dreamed he would go. So there are songs that go against the stereotype successfully. When Nik Venet produced "Different Drum," he had Linda Ronstadt sing "I ain't sayin' you ain't pretty, I'm just sayin' I'm not ready for any person, place or thing to try and pull the reins in on me." It was written by a man, Michael Nesmith, but that was one of the first times a woman had made that statement on a record and it made history. Now it's an everyday occurrence.
In "You Can Feel Bad If It Makes You Feel Better," the woman is telling the man who left her that she saw it coming for a long time, but he can picture her walking around in his old sweater reading his love letters if he needs to. In fact, though, she's doing pretty well. On the other hand, Willie Nelson discusses a break-up by taking some degree of responsibility. He says maybe he didn't do this, maybe he didn't do that...the list is quite long...but at least he was thinking of her. Somehow I can't hear a woman saying that. If a woman knew there were things she wasn't doing, she would probably not excuse them by saying, "But you were always on my mind." Actually, neither would a lot of men, but the "cowboy" would say that. The romanticized notion of the desperado who never lets anyone too close. That person might reveal enough of himself to admit that even though no action was taken, he really did love her and all the while he wasn't there for her, he was thinking about her. For anyone who's ever loved a cowboy, this turns out to be better than nothing. So the song always makes me cry, in spite of (or because of) the naiveté of the viewpoint.
When Bonnie Raitt sings "I Can't Make You Love Me, " she is simply looking at a hopeless situation and coming to terms with it. She'll feel the power when they make love, but he won't. She's not asking for one more night, in order to sway him. She's just seeing it for the way it is. Nik Venet, my mentor and producer, has said that men will want to hear that song because it says what they feel about someone they love. But they will want to hear it sung by a woman.
When Richard Thompson says, "I misunderstood, I thought she was saying 'good luck', she was saying 'goodbye,'" he uses the cluelessness of his character (himself, in the song) to give irony to the lyric. He does that even more intensely in "Read About Love," where he says "So why don't you moan and sigh? Why do you sit there and cry? I do everything I'm supposed to do, If something's wrong, then it must be you/ I know the ways of a woman, I've read about love." He's a master at achieving irony by taking on the character of someone who doesn't have a clue. I call it the Archie Bunker school of satire. Yes, there are people who thought Archie Bunker was espousing their viewpoints and considered him a hero. They didn't know they were being ridiculed along with him in the TV show "All In The Family." Richard Thompson ridicules a short-sighted point of view by taking it on as his own. But could/would a woman sing that lyric? I don't think so.
An interesting song by Bruce Larsen, called "Flowers Every Sunday," puts a new spin on this stereotype of the clueless guy and has the man saving a relationship by informing himself in time. It would be a disservice to synopsize the lyric, so I'll just quote it all: Something happened yesterday when just by accident I learned/And I guess that you could say I caught my bridge before it burned. You see, when I picked up the phone, she was talking with her friend/And I meant to put it down, but something made me listen in. And I felt childish at the time, cause I'm not usually that way/But I noticed she was crying, and that's when I heard her say/She said it's almost over, he don't love me anymore/No more walks along the river, or kisses at the door/No more flowers every Sunday, or dancing in the rain/I'd better just go quietly, and save everyone the pain. With the hours slowly drifting, I kept hearing every word/Though I went through all the motions, just as if I hadn't heard/I'd thought that she was happy, just how blind can one man be/How easily forgotten, what the little things can mean. And as I stared into the darkness of a night that wouldn't end/I made myself a promise, I'd never hear those words again/'Cause I won't let it be over, when every day I love her more/We'll walk along the river, and I'll kiss her at the door/She'll have flowers every Sunday, dancing every time it rains/and I'll win her heart back quietly, and save everyone the pain. Yes, I'll win her heart back quietly, and save everyone the pain."
Of course, there are other break-up songs that rise above gender and give us universal wisdom. Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," parallels what we've done to the world to what we do to each other...".Don't it always seem to go... that you don't know what you've got till it's gone...They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." And then there's Dylan, who has looked at this subject from all sides. One of my personal favorites is the succinct verse from "Never Gonna Be The Same Again," "You give me something to think about, baby, every time I see ya. Don't worry baby, I don't mind leaving, I'd just like it to be my idea." Don Henley takes us through every possible emotion in "Heart of the Matter" and leaves us with the pearl.."But I think it's about forgiveness, forgiveness, even if, even if you don't love me anymore."
© 1996 Harriet Schock
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