Category Archives: Girl Power

Song Analysis #54: Britney Spears – Lucky

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Title: ‘Lucky’
Where to find it: ‘Oops!…I Did It Again’ (2000, Jive)
Performed by: Britney Spears
Words by: Max Martin, Remi Yacoub, and Alexander Kronlund

Since I last wrote here on Music in Notes, my 2016 didn’t exactly go to plan. Neither did America’s, but you already know that story. For a multitude of reasons, I’m not the on-the-ground, loud protest marching type, so the way I’m going to approach the next 3 and three-quarter years is to spread as much love and understanding as possible. I felt I was already doing that through TGTF, though using music as a tool to spread feelings and emotions to help others during these trying times is now more important than ever.

Last year, one great thing that happened to me (or rather I made happen, I suppose), I finally got a car that had SiriusXM. I had thought I’d use it primarily to tap into the ‘underground’ world of music not being played on mainstream radio. However, because I’ve been scanning various channels of music past, I’ve been revisiting the songs of my schooldays and realising that they now mean something entirely different to me than they once did when I discovered and fell in love with them. One of these is Jason Mraz’s ‘The Remedy (I Won’t Worry)’, a song that I’ve always enjoyed for the happy way it sounds, but had no idea until recently that it could have come from a much darker place. But that analysis, and others, are for another time.

Back to this one. Britney Spears has been much maligned in the media because of her various shenanigans, including shaving her hair off in a temporary bout of insanity and marrying and then divorcing one of her backup dancers, Kevin Federline. Given the bad publicity she’s gotten and her less savoury musical entries such as ‘I’m a Slave 4 U’ and ‘Toxic’, it’s easy to forget she was once a squeaky clean Mouseketeer and once had Justin Timberlake on her arm. There’s a part of me that blames society for him somehow coming out on top and smelling like roses, and every time… Britney Spears might have been an easy target, and the song that Max Martin, Remi Yacoub, and Alexander Kronlund wrote for her is remarkably prescient for what would come to be in the pop princess’ future. It’s impossible to know whether Britney herself wanted this life for herself she had been pushed in a certain direction by her record label. I did wonder how much of her music actually reflected Britney herself. Of all her songs, ‘Lucky’ has struck me as the most honest, whether it was done on purpose and with this intention with her songwriters or not.

It may seem strange that I’ve picked a really old song of hers right before SXSW. But I’ve looked at it with fresh eyes recently, and it seems to be a good cautionary tale ahead for some artists I will see in Austin before they go stratospheric. I find, too, that it’s a reasonably good reflection of how things don’t always appear what they seem. I am often approached here in DC by music fans who think running a music Web site like TGTF, being able to cover music festivals around the world, interviewing bands, etc. is a fun job that they’d like to have. And I’m not saying it isn’t. I wouldn’t trade the experiences offered to me for anything in the world. But what most people don’t see or know is how much I am doing behind the scenes, how much of my own free time and social life I choose to sacrifice for what I believe is an important enterprise in keeping music alive and well. They also don’t see the other parts of my life I’ve struggled with that I’ve chosen to keep private, some of which has loomed larger in recent weeks thanks to a commander-in-chief who has purposely stoked the fires of racial injustice. Anyway, enough about me, and on to the analysis!

First, the words:

Spoken intro by Spears
This is a story about a girl named Lucky…

Verse 1
Early morning, she wakes up
Knock, knock, knock on the door
It’s time for makeup, perfect smile
It’s you they’re all waiting for
They go…
“Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?”
And they say…

Chorus
“She’s so lucky, she’s a star”
But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking,
“If there’s nothing missing in my life,
Then why do these tears come at night?”

Verse 2
Lost in an image, in a dream
But there’s no one there to wake her up
And the world is spinning, and she keeps on winning
But tell me what happens when it stops?
They go…
“Isn’t she lovely, this Hollywood girl?”
And they say…

Chorus
“She’s so lucky, she’s a star”
But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking,
“If there’s nothing missing in my life,
Then why do these tears come at night?”

Spoken bridge
“Best actress, and the winner is…Lucky!”
“I’m Roger Johnson for Pop News standing outside the arena waiting for Lucky”
“Oh my god…here she comes!”

Bridge
Isn’t she lucky, this Hollywood girl?
She is so lucky, but why does she cry?
If there’s nothing missing in her life
Why do tears come at night?

Chorus 2x
“She’s so lucky, she’s a star”
But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking,
“If there’s nothing missing in my life,
Then why do these tears come at night?”

“She’s so lucky, she’s a star”
But she cry, cry, cries in her lonely heart, thinking,
“If there’s nothing missing in my life,
Then why do these tears come at night?”

Now, the analysis:

This song is the epitome of the phrase, “it’s lonely at the top.” And it is. Something else I’ve become all too accustomed to as a music editor is watching the trajectory of a pop band go up…and then come crashing down. You can’t stay on top forever, and that was true in Britney’s case. When this song came out in 2000, I was in school and did wonder what it must have been like living in her ivory tower, waving down at her adoring fans. I think it’s only natural for the rest of us to envy such power, fame, and fortune. It seems like you would have the world in the palm of your hand and have everything you want.

But what I have also seen from the side of an artist’s success is the dark side of fame. The inability to connect with the fans like they used to because there are just too many fans and the possibility of someone getting injured is too great. I miss being able to talk to some of my megastar friends in this business because they don’t come out of their tour bus after shows for that very reason. Coming home to a life that feels alien and a partner who doesn’t understand what it’s like to be out on the road for weeks at a time, in a situation that isn’t ‘normal life’ at all. Depression, alcoholism, and escapism aren’t uncommon for these people we put on a pedestal who are, of course, really as normal as you and me. It has been repeated to me many times that being a touring musician messes with your head and your relationships. And nearly 99% of the time, you can’t assure you’ll always be on top and the checks will keep coming in. Doesn’t sound so great, anymore, does it?

Verse 1 of ‘Lucky’ is a veiled crack in the façade. In order for our pop princess Lucky to be presentable to her fans, she’s being woken up to get hair and makeup done. I must have been a little girl when my mother pointed out that tv presenters spend hours in a chair doing hair and makeup, and she warned me just how bad makeup was for your skin. Yet we live in a society where if you’re a woman, you have to wear it. Where I’m going with this: Lucky is being made up to be a consumable product. The celebrity you see there on the red carpet or out on stage probably looks entirely different and practically unrecognisable without all that makeup. Katy Perry proved this in her documentary Part of Me, where she actually looks like the rest of us without all that junk on her face.

Verse 2 does a good job putting into words the crazy a beloved entertainer feels in her ivory tower. Nothing seems real and “the world is spinning.” “She keeps on winning / But tell me what happens when it stops?” Indeed, what is she going to do when the fans stop showing up outside her hotel and she can’t sell records? Britney was lucky, as she began her pop career when record labels still believed in artists and doled out reasonable record deals. These days, if your debut *single* flops, you’re cut from the label. For any musical artist, you put your all your eggs in one basket that you and your talent(s) will lead to success and keep you up in rock royalty in the heavens, looking down on all the other acts that didn’t make it that far or high. It can be and is often a sobering reality check when you don’t make it or if even you do, you get knocked off your throne and fall from grace.

The most heartbreaking part of ‘Lucky’ has been engineered in the bridge. While the lyrics are taken from the repeated chorus to emphasise the point of the whole song, the note progression in Britney’s vocals is raised. Notice how the words “Isn’t she lucky?” are sung, as if we’re being mocked for questioning – or indeed, if Lucky is – on what a great life she must have. By changing the key slightly, an unexpected anthemic moment is achieved, set apart from the melody and chorus. It’s a warning klaxon. This is now a big deal. This isn’t just Grammy parties and music videos on tv. This is someone’s life. Britney was singing about her life that had become her prison, that her reality was far from what all of us ever saw. And people listening to this song completely missed it. Britney Spears will always be an American pop music icon. That will never change. But I sincerely hope she’s happy. Because we all deserve that.

Lastly, the song, in its official music video. Notice how another version of Britney is high above the red carpet Britney, sweeping her arms around and throwing glitter. Hmm…

Song Analysis #51: Jenny Lewis – Just One of the Guys

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Title: ‘Just One of the Guys’
Where to find it: ‘The Voyager’ (2014, Warner Brothers)
Performed by: Jenny Lewis
Words by: Jenny Lewis

First, the words:

Verse 1
All our friends, they’re gettin’ on
But the girls are still staying young
If I get caught being rude in a conversation
With a child bride on her summer vacation

Chorus 1
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little voice inside that prevents me

Verse 2
Ooh, how I live, it got me here
Locked in this bathroom full of tears
And I have begged for you and I have borrowed,
but I’ve been the only sister to my own sorrow

Chorus 2
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’

Bridge 1
There’s only one difference between you and me
When I look at myself all I can see
I’m just another lady without a baby

Chorus 3
No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me.
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little cop inside that prevents me

Bridge 2
I’m not gonna break for you!
I’m not gonna pray for you!
I’m not gonna pay for you!
That’s not what ladies do!

Oh when you break
When you break
Oh when you break
Oh when you break

Now, the analysis:

After a 6-year hiatus from the recording world, Jenny Lewis released last year her latest solo album, ‘The Voyager’. The title of the album’s first taster ‘Just One of the Guys’ belies its actual content: the struggle of the modern woman to find her place in the world. I’m not a crazy bra-burning feminist, but I do agree this struggle exists and is real, even if some men will fight tooth and nail to disagree.

At first, I thought about taking a general approach that I hope most, if not all, women can relate to. Most of my high school friends are married and have children, and some of the conversations we’ve had over the years focused what and how they’ve been busy…errr…rearing children, while I haven’t. I have also been thinking about a piece I was asked to write for a feminist Web site several years ago that sits on my computer unused because when I submitted it to the editor who asked for it, she had changed her mind. I entitled the article ‘Spoilt for Choice,’ as it was about the many tough choices that young women face in their lives. (If you or anyone you know is interested in publishing such a piece, let me know!)

As much as I’m happy and proud that we have trailblazers like Lilly Ledbetter fighting for equal rights for women, I don’t think there is anyone who can deny this is a man’s world, and we women just live in it. Yes, we’ve made great strides, but there are always going to be people – male or female – who think a woman’s place is in the home and her primary roles in life are to take care of her husband and family, maintain the house, and raise children.

Society is changing now of course: we have lesbian couples, couples of any kind can live together and not have to get married, and couples don’t have to have children anymore, or at least the societal pressure to do so is much less. But certain societal norms die hard in certain cultures, whether they be Eastern or Western, in whatever country. Yes, you don’t have to get married or have children, but ask most young women in their 20s, and I can bet you most of them will tell you they’ve either been pressured by their family and/or their peers about having children before it’s too late.

But then I considered going in a personal direction with this analysis, bringing in my own experiences as a female music editor and writer in a field dominated by men, reporting on music primarily made by men. This approach, I think, makes more sense for what Jenny Lewis is singing about, especially considering before she became a solo artist and hooked up with Johnathan Rice personally and professionally for the Jenny and Johnny project, she co-fronted the band Rilo Kiley and was the only woman in the band.

Being the only woman among a group of men has its perks, if you’re around gentlemanly, respectful men who are willing to treat you like a woman and an equal. However, it can also pose a number of challenges as well. (A musician friend of mine (male) has written an excellent blog post about touring with musicians friends of ours (female), a tour I was lucky enough to catch in Dublin.) In the first chorus, the lyrics suggests as hard as Lewis tries to be loose and relaxed about things when she’s around her male counterparts, acting and ‘being’ one of the guys as she was in Rilo Kiley, she faces an internal battle in her head every day, knowing she isn’t like the rest of them:

No matter how hard I try to be just one of the guys
There’s a little something inside that won’t let me
No matter how hard I try to have an open mind
There’s a little voice inside that prevents me

In the second chorus, the last line is replaced with the words “There’s a little clock inside that keeps tickin’,” speaking directly to her own biological clock. If she wants to have children, she’s going to have to revert back to being a woman, and in a group of her male peers, that’s a huge risk. Is she going to be treated the same way if she admits to wanting one of the very things in life that makes her female? This conflict in her is clear in the heartbreaking bridge: “There’s only one difference between you and me /When I look at myself all I can see / I’m just another lady without a baby.” Depending on as a woman how you view motherhood – and indeed, depending on the culture you were born into and how your parents and family view it with respect to you – you can receive some pretty disparaging comments if you aren’t married or don’t have children by a certain age, if not damning looks. These hurt.

It all comes to a head near the end of the song, when Lewis begins shouting reasons why and ways how giving into motherhood is wrong in her mind, concluding, “That’s not what ladies do!” “I’m not gonna break for you!”: I’m not going to settle for being with just any man so I can have a baby. “I’m not gonna pray for you!”: all of us women, at one time or another, some more often than others, have prayed for Mr. Right to come along, for he can solve the problems we need solving. “I’m not gonna pay for you!”: this is quite funny, I’m assuming she means going to a sperm bank to take care of having a baby herself without requiring a man to love her.

I don’t think Lewis wrote this song to be spiteful towards men. At all. It was her conveying her constant, internal struggle and if anything, she wants to be heard, possibly for just a moment of your sympathy.

Let’s extend this to the everyday working woman. Unless a woman spends her entire life closeted in her house, taking care of her husband, the children and the house and doing nothing else, she has to work as hard as the men in her workplace, so often going against her very nature if she gets emotional. We’re not supposed to cry, because that shows feminine weakness. Yet oddly, if we truly act like a man, going for the things we want, that flies in the face of being submissive as women are supposed to be, and we’re called names. How on earth do we resolve this in our heads?

There are a few things I am certain about in life. One of them staring me right in the face is the reason why women were given the responsibility and the female sex evolved to carry the baby to term and do much of the taking care of the children when they’re young. We women are proud, intelligent, highly capable human beings, no matter what career or path in life we undertake. And we are strong like steel. Contest it all you want, but we can take the physical and emotional pain onboard so much better than men can. Need evidence?

Whether you’re male or female, take a moment today to thank a woman in your life who was strong for you. Who was there when you needed her. I’m sure she will appreciate it. And for God’s sakes, under no circumstances ask a woman why she hasn’t had a child yet!

Lastly, the song, in two forms on video. When I had started writing this analysis last summer, the song had just premiered on radio and the only video version available was the lyric video, which is embedded below first. I had such high hopes for the official promo video, all of which were dashed when Jenny Lewis posted it and I saw it featured some of her famous female friends dressing up like guys (boring and clickbait).

Song Analysis #41: Keira Knightley – A Step You Can’t Take Back

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Title: ‘A Step You Can’t Take Back’
Where to find it: ‘Begin Again’ film soundtrack (2014, ALXNDR)
Performed by: Keira Knightley
Words by: not sure, but the song is credited to John Carney, Gregg Alexander (known more famously as the frontman of the ’90s band The New Radicals), and Danielle Brisebois

I’d meant to see Begin Again and then it was out of the cinema before I knew it. A couple months later, I went out for brunch and a new friend said to avoid it, because there were too much swearing in it for a nice young lady like me. Okay.

On the way back from my last trip to the UK, I couldn’t sleep, so I flicked through the in-flight entertainment choices on the tv in the seat in front of me. Hmm. Begin Again. Shall I watch this? For reasons only certain people would understand, there are so many eerie coincidences in this film that it seems written for me and I was supposed to see this film while leaving the country, where I seem to have left behind someone forever. I won’t ruin the film for you (the interpretation probably will, so here’s your alert, SPOILERS!), but if you’ve seen the trailer, or even if you’ve contemplated for a moment the actual title of it, you know what the film is about. It’s just unusual it is set in the world that myself and many of my friends and acquaintances like to call home: the music business.

In the story the song was written under emotional duress, so it makes sense that it’s pretty touching when you’re presented with it the first time in the film. It undergoes an evolution through the film, as does Keira Knightley’s character Gretta. What seemed to be a quite hopeless situation for her character at the beginning ends up at the end with her getting closure that what happened was for the best, which is most often all we can ask about situations that are out of our control.

Sometimes we think things are meant to be. And when our hearts are hurting and broken, in the moment we can’t see what we come to accept later: maybe it wasn’t.

First, the words:

Verse 1
So you find yourself at this subway
With your world in a bag by your side
And all at once it seemed like a good way
You realize it’s the end of the line
For what it’s worth

Chorus
Here comes the train upon the track
And there goes the pain, it cuts to black
Are you ready for the last act?
To take a step you can’t take back?

Verse 2
Taken all the punches you could take
Took ’em all right on the chest
Now the camel’s back is breaking
Again, again
For what it’s worth

Chorus
Here comes the train upon the track
And there goes the pain, it cuts to black
Are you ready for the last act?
To take a step you can’t take back?

Bridge
Did she love you?
Did she take you down?
Was she on her knees when she kissed your crown?
Tell me what you found

Modified chorus
Here comes the rain, so hold your hat
And don’t pray to God, ’cause He won’t talk back
Are you ready for the last act?
To take a step you can’t take back, back, back?
You can’t take back, back, back.

Outro
So you find yourself at this subway
With your world in a bag by your side

Now, the analysis:

The song has two related but pretty different interpretations. “Train”, “pain” and “rain” are used as rhyming points – rather effectively, I might add – to link what is happening throughout the story. The train is also used successfully, like the image of a road in many other times in popular song, to indicate the great journey of life. But here is where the rail line splits: is it about suicide, or is it about the end of a relationship?

If you take it on the suicide / ending your life track, the more obvious path, the clues are pretty clear cut. The protagonist has reached the lowest point of her life and wants to end it. She’s holding all her worldly possessions “with your world in a bag by your side”, a pathetic state. If she were to jump in front of a moving New York City subway train, death would be instantaneous, “and there goes the pain, it cuts to black.” People who are feeling suicidal seem to have this fanciful yet incorrect notion that if they kill themselves, the pain is gone. Not really. They are gone from this plane but the pain then gets transferred to those who they left behind. You can argue the rain imagery is either tears or an sign of rebirth (similar to baptism and having the old sins being washed away in favour of the new).

However, if you analyse it in the context of the film, it’s not about suicide at all. It’s about the end of a relationship or even more strongly, about a woman challenging her man about him taking a step that will change their lives forever. In the film, Adam Levine’s character David was in a relationship with Keira Knightley’s Gretta that seemed fine on the surface when the two of them relocated to New York City while his career was just beginning. Until he basically sold his soul to the devil and had an affair with one of his producers. The “she” in the bridge can stand for either this woman he had an affair with or the tempting side of the music industry itself:

Did she love you?
Did she take you down?
Was she on her knees when she kissed your crown?
Tell me what you found

Both crimes committed by David are cardinal sins in Gretta’s book: they are singer/songwriters that have bonded over their commitment to being true to their art and the former goes against artistic integrity, and the latter of course results in her heart shattering when she learns she’s been cheated on. In a song. (I’ve had songs written for and written about me before, but I’ve yet to have learned about the transgressions of someone close to me written up in one. I can’t even imagine.) In Gretta’s case, it’s the ultimate betrayal, the ultimate knife through the heart.

As the film progresses, Gretta, now David-less, slowly finds her feet again, actually flourishing in the absence of him. It’s interesting we hear this song early on the film, because she had written when she was suffering the lowest of the lows, and as a result, when she plays it, egged onstage by her best friend Steve, played by James Corden, she seems sullen, almost not all there. It is left up to Mark Ruffalo’s character’s Dan, who hears promise and truth in Gretta’s words and singing, to take notice and give Gretta the confidence boost and just plain human kindness she didn’t even really know she needed.

However, as we get further along in the plot, the song comes to take on a new meaning. The song was written for and directed towards David and that significance is still preserved. But how it has changed is really interesting. He returns to New York City as a huge star and tries to make amends with her, realising that even with all the fame he’s gotten by selling out, he still misses her and wants her back. He invites her to a high-profile show at the Gramercy, where she is hopeful that he is the man she fell in love with, but she realises as he commercially butchers the song she wrote as a Christmas present for him years ago, ‘Lost Stars’, that she no longer needs him.

“Are you ready for the last act? / To take a step you can’t take back?,” which formerly was sung by Gretta dripping with vitriol, can now be sung – and heard – more sweetly. And honestly. But still as a challenge. David took the step you can’t take back, professionally and personally. The last act was where their relationship ended. While Gretta gets her sweet revenge in the end – she writes, records, and releases an album he’s truly impressed by her efforts, and it becomes a overnight success, though I can tell you, please do not be fooled, that kind of success is rarely that easy – what comes across loud and clear is very true: what’s done is done. And you can never go back to the way things were.

Lastly, the song in two forms: one, as Knightley performed it in the film, bare and spare (turn up the volume), and in its full form on the soundtrack, with all its backing.