The days seem smaller than before

Okay, I haven't post this thought yet so I'm going to do it now (I would like to say, however, that my memory isn't what it used to be so there in fact might be a post already about this idea, but it's so good that I don't mind repeating myself. If someone does come across it, please let me know and I'll add a link).

Wouldn't It Be Nice, the first track on Pet Sounds, by the Beach Boys is probably the most interesting song ever recorded in pop music. Why? While the music is extraordinary and the harmonies are heavenly, it is the lyrics that truly separate Wouldn't It Be Nice from almost the entire catelogue of pop music. Upon first listen, the lyrics seem like your average teenage drama: a guy has fallen in love with a girl and is declaring how nice the future would be. But I ask you to listen carefully particularly to the pronouns. Notice something? That's right, there's no "I". Well, there are actually a couple of "I" but they're apart of common saying. Just give me a chance to explain.

In most romantic songs, the singer states that he loves the object of his affection (usually a girl, but in these times it could be anyone or anything and the singer isn't always male, but there isn't a gender neutral noun in English. Don't hate the player. Hate the game). "I love you" translates into something like "I want you" or "I objectify you" because it assumes that the object of desire has no agency of its own; that feminine passivity is necessary. The argument I'm trying to make relies on some points made by the French philosopher Luce Irigaray, but it isn't totally necessary. Pop songs, for the most part, assume that there is only one sex: the male singer, whose voice crafts a carefully constructed model of the female which also coresponse to social ideal of feminity. It's kind of like art. Think about it: there are very few female musicians who's uniquely feminine voice actually breaks through this veil.

Anyway, while the male singer in Wouldn't It Be Nice is talking to his object of desire, he uses language that speaks of being a unit rather than two separate people, one of whom is desiring the other. He always uses "we" to describe their relationship. Yes, he's explaining his version of their future but he's doing it not by saying what he'll do, but in fact what they'll do. It's this careful use of language that separates.

And there's the problem. It's a teenage daydream. It can't really exist. The type of relationship that is described in the song is pure fantasy, and that's how the author is displaying it. The example given is obviously an ideal. There's no specific promise he makes to her by him, just flight of imagination with vague promises of happiness. The song is aware that what it is describing isn't real, but there's a possbility of reality. This is what sucks us in. This is what makes it a romantic song. And this is where the song comes crashing down in the depths of the social structures of gender, relationship and power dynamics (afterall, the male voice never gives up power to the female. He only includes her in what's essential his).

But for a brief moment, I quietly wish that what I just said was completely wrong, and that the song was true. That would be nice.

NOTE: I realize that I'm missing a lot and I'm jumping around, but that's what blogs are for, right? To just write down your random thoughts. Basically, what I wanted to talk about was the use of "we" instead of "I". There aren't many other pop songs that do this. In fact, I haven't found one that uses "we" instead of "I". The rest is just part of an answer I wrote for philosophy mid-term I had a couple of years ago. The professor seemed to think I had something.