Last week, I was sitting with my wife, another female teacher, and five students (only one of whom was male) at the cafeteria, and the discussion somehow turned to Carrie Underwood's "Before He Cheats." One of the students--let's call her Lil' Tia--asked me if I liked the song, and I told her that I hated it. She was aghast; she wondered why. I told her that the song justified pre-mediated violence and vehicular slaughter. My wife interjected by telling me that nowhere in the song does she mention trying to run him over. I didn't say she did; I said she slaughtered his vehicle. I asked Lil' Tia if she knew how much it would cost to replace four tires and the upholstery? She said he deserved it. I disgreed. He hasn't done anything yet. The song's narrator's planning on committing these terrible crimes just because she thinks he might be cheating, and that's just not fair. Lil' Tia turned red in the face, and raised her voice, "He's already cheated! She's doing this to make sure he doesn't do it again. What's your answer to that now, huh?"
"He's already cheated on her?" I asked.
"Yup," Lil' Tia said.
"And she's causing thousands of dollars worth of damage to his car so that he won't cheat on her again, right?"
"Yup. That's right," Lil' Tia said, giving another girl at the table a high five.
"Well, then," I said, "if he cheated on her, and she took him back, then if he cheats on her again, she has no one else to blame but herself. She's stupid. And I don't want to hear a song praising the violent actions of a stupid woman."
Uh-oh. Big mistake. All the women at the table--my wife included--started shouting at me, saying things I cannot repeat here on this family-friendly blog. I heard cries of "solidarity," "misogynist pig," and "women's lib," and someone shouted, "Forget McCain! He left his wife! Lorenna Bobbit for President: She'll cut the pork out of Congress!" At that time something whizzed past my face, grazing me on the ear. I felt something wet and sticky. I rubbed my ear, and pulled my finger in front of my eyes. My finger was coated with a thick red substance. The young man at the table, looked at me looking at my finger, and he ducked down underneath the table, pulling the chair up behind him. I licked my finger to discover what I'd already surmised: yup, it was ketchup. Someone chunked a chicken tender at me; it was time to leave the premises.
Just as I was about to make a run for it, the female assistant principal approached. She calmed everyone down and asked what the problem was. All the women at the table gladly explained to her their interpretation of the situation. Once they were done, the principal shot me the evil eye. She remained silent for a few seconds, then she looked at the other women at the table--and she started chanting: "I am woman/Here me roar." They did. And they joined in: "In numbers too big to ignore...." Pretty soon, all the women were standing and singing. Brazierre's were tossed atop the salad bar, the lunchladies removed their aprons and cooking caps and threw them at the men behind the lunchline, and as I snuck out the door, I believe I saw Gloria Steinem herself step from the Senior Room joining hands with all the twelfth-grade girls. You'd think one of these days I'll learn to keep my contrarian opinions to myself.
Now, after having learned my lesson, I'm going to focus solely on the music on Underwood's song: it's overproduced and oversung; it tries too hard to be anthemic; it's too blustrous, so much so that the overwrought recording undercuts the song's meaning. It's almost as if Underwood (or the narrator) is trying to pump herself up, trying to talk herself into committing these violent acts. It sounds as if she's trying to convince herself, which means she's irresolute, and it's not convincing because she's not already convinced. And it's the music that produces that effect, not the lyrics (which contian some fantastically-detailed imagery). It's a parody of itself.
In "Someday Baby," Dylan takes pretty-much the same premise, tells pretty-much the same story (though told from a male point-of-view), and he makes it work. He's convincing. Why? He and his band (and the band's fantastic, the best one Dylan's recorded with in almost forty years) play it laid back, and Dylan sings the lyric* as matter of fact. He doesn't have to make up his mind about when he'll exact revenge--he doesn't have to pump himself up--because his mind's already made up. He delivers the lyric almost lazily, letting his razzled voice float around the beat, occasionally (and purposefully) overshooting the rhythmic mark. He doesn't feel the need to punch the notes at just the right spot, no need to shout, no need to brag. He's just sitting in his house or on his porch, sipping whiskey-spiked tea, casually and conversationally telling his story, just waiting for her to come home, letting his red-hot band (though their sound is muted for overall effect) underscore his murderous intentions and revenge-filled emotions. He sings with a wisdom born of pain. He is strong. He is invincible. He is Dylan.
*NOTES: This song is a cover of "Trouble No More," written by Muddy Waters, recorded by Sleepy John Estes, Lightnin' Hopkins, the Allman Brothers, and Waters himself. Dylan caught all kinds of slack for not including writer credits for this song--and the rest of the songs--on his Modern Times album, mainly because most of the songs contain pieces cribbed from other--much older--songs. Most of the critics who, uh, criticized him for this have defended sampling in hip-hop songs. Go figure.
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