Sunday's Emotional Setup?
A brief word on OutKast's peerless 'Hey Ya':
I was listening to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below last night and an aspect of 'Hey Ya' that gets rarely discussed (at least in the writing on it I've read) struck me. Around the third or fourth listen to the song (which is usually when I start picking up on lyrics) and aided by Marcello Carlin's peerless investigation (it's about halfway through the entry) of the album(s), I discovered that 'Hey Ya' - in addition to being a great pop song, in addition to inspiring glee in all who hear it, 'Hey Ya' is a song of almost paralyzing terror. Listen to Andre singing "Thank God for mom and dad for sticking two together because we don't know how" (made more poignant by the story, in the later 'She's Alive, of his single mother raising him) or "You think you got it, oh you think you got it/But got it just don't get it until there's nothing at all" and tell me this is just a carefree party jam. At this point in The Love Below (as much a concept album as any prog rock band has put out) Andre is still working through a lot of issues about love (not that he resolves them by its end) and this is the song where he most fully expresses his fear/belief that Love in the idealized form does not, in fact, exist (hence "Don't want to meet your daddy/Just want you in my caddy" etc). The problem is, he does truly want that sort of love, and although 'Hey Ya' is filled with denials of the ideal, Andre is brave and honest enough as an artist (that might be redundant) to let the doubt show through, if in no other way than through the frenzy of his denial.
Of course, all of this goes out the window for the truly joyous breakdown; screw 'Shake it like a polaroid picture", my favourite part is the "Lend me some sugar/I am yo' neighbour!" part.
Does any of this detract from what everyone else is writing about 'Hey Ya', or change it worth as a song at all? Of course not. But it is a facet of the song that seems to be going mostly unremarked on.
I was listening to Speakerboxxx/The Love Below last night and an aspect of 'Hey Ya' that gets rarely discussed (at least in the writing on it I've read) struck me. Around the third or fourth listen to the song (which is usually when I start picking up on lyrics) and aided by Marcello Carlin's peerless investigation (it's about halfway through the entry) of the album(s), I discovered that 'Hey Ya' - in addition to being a great pop song, in addition to inspiring glee in all who hear it, 'Hey Ya' is a song of almost paralyzing terror. Listen to Andre singing "Thank God for mom and dad for sticking two together because we don't know how" (made more poignant by the story, in the later 'She's Alive, of his single mother raising him) or "You think you got it, oh you think you got it/But got it just don't get it until there's nothing at all" and tell me this is just a carefree party jam. At this point in The Love Below (as much a concept album as any prog rock band has put out) Andre is still working through a lot of issues about love (not that he resolves them by its end) and this is the song where he most fully expresses his fear/belief that Love in the idealized form does not, in fact, exist (hence "Don't want to meet your daddy/Just want you in my caddy" etc). The problem is, he does truly want that sort of love, and although 'Hey Ya' is filled with denials of the ideal, Andre is brave and honest enough as an artist (that might be redundant) to let the doubt show through, if in no other way than through the frenzy of his denial.
Of course, all of this goes out the window for the truly joyous breakdown; screw 'Shake it like a polaroid picture", my favourite part is the "Lend me some sugar/I am yo' neighbour!" part.
Does any of this detract from what everyone else is writing about 'Hey Ya', or change it worth as a song at all? Of course not. But it is a facet of the song that seems to be going mostly unremarked on.
