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Friday, October 05, 2007

"Okay, I think there might be a secret message..."

Reader-submitted question: Do you know what that song's about?

I was going to do this a few days ago but got distracted. Karan's post reminded me that I should be responding to you guys. I love the questions, and I even like the complaints. Keep them coming. You're quite an interesting group.

The question is about this song. I am starting to think that I've stumbled upon a group of underground Fleetwood Mac fetishists. At the slightest reference, you guys go nuts.

I like to do poetry analysis, but the problem is that the only person who really knows what the song means is the original author, in this case Lindsey Buckingham (the guy in the video). I'll have to begin by noting that I really don't know that I'm right, and don't have the same certainty that I have when discussing hyphen misuse. The strict answer to your question is "no". However, I do have some ideas.

The context is important. Although the video I posted is a duet, the original song was sung by Mr. Buckingham with other members of the group as backup. In case you've never heard it:

(I prefer to use actual music videos or live recordings, but the ones I could find were all either poor quality or several decades after the original, so they wouldn't be the best ones to use if you've never heard the song before.)

To me, this sounds like a snarky, nasty break-up song. The singer's bitter and confused about the end of a relationship: his significant other wants to move on, but he's not ready to let go. In fact, he's still desperately enamoured. He's confused and hurt, because he has no idea why the other person would want to get out of the relationship. We don't really know what the other person thinks, because we never hear her side of the story. I say "her" just because the song's sung by a man: you can't tell from the lyrics whether it's about a man or a woman.

Thanks for your question. I'm not sure if this is the answer you were looking for.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG! Is he a stalker? Is that young, leggy 24-year old free spirit just his latest victim?

Megan said...

I don't think he's a stalker; I just think he's very hurt. But I could be wrong. Maybe it means something entirely different.