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Aug. 17th, 2009 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaSo the iPod decided to give me Spoken's version of "Time After Time," followed by this song, while I was waiting for the bus. (Today's workshops were a complete waste of time, by the way. Although in the Incredibly Dumb Cluster meetings, we're doing something new that resembles a Chalice Circle to a startling degree. I'm reserving judgement on whether it's a waste of time until we actually try it instead of just talking about it.)
I've mentioned before that I find "Time After Time" sung by a male voice to be deeply comforting, moreso than when it's sung in a female voice. Partly, that's because if it's sung by a female voice, then she's me - in female voice, I'm the subject of the song; in male voice, I'm the object. I'm not sure if this is gender!fail on my part or not. But if I'm singing/identified with the singer, the song's not comforting; it's just a statement of fact. If it's being sung to me, even in the abstract sense of listening to someone I'm not identifying with singing it, then it's one of those things that makes the universe make sense and be okay.
I think I find "Voices Carry" sung in male voice to be disturbing in the same measure. Not that it's a particularly comfortable song to begin with, but again, in 'Til Tuesday's version, and every other version I have sung by a female voice, I identify with the singer. It's sort of cathartic, even though it's been (*counts on fingers*) sixteen years since I was in that sort of a relationship. It seems like, in a male voice, it just becomes another song about a bitchy, controlling woman - except for two parts.
The first one is the "[s]he tells me tears are something to hide, and something to fear." Assuming that they're the singer's tears, as they are in the female-voice version, there is something poignant about a male voice wanting permission to cry and being denied it by a woman, since it's something we're used to men denying each other independent of any female feelings on the subject.
The second is the end, where the line "she might overhear" is unchanged. I know what's going on in the female-voiced version when "he" lets slip that line. What in the heck is going on in the male-voiced version when "she" says that? Is the implication the same, and now the bitch-goddess is bi, too? Is it his other lover? Suddenly the song got very complicated!
And then the Click Five's version does not include the wistful "I wish [s]he would let me talk," at the end. So we don't know whether he stays with her or not.
Anyway, apparently the iPod thinks I need to be thinking about gender issues in romantic expectations today. My iPod, she thinks she is funny. Again. :-/
I've mentioned before that I find "Time After Time" sung by a male voice to be deeply comforting, moreso than when it's sung in a female voice. Partly, that's because if it's sung by a female voice, then she's me - in female voice, I'm the subject of the song; in male voice, I'm the object. I'm not sure if this is gender!fail on my part or not. But if I'm singing/identified with the singer, the song's not comforting; it's just a statement of fact. If it's being sung to me, even in the abstract sense of listening to someone I'm not identifying with singing it, then it's one of those things that makes the universe make sense and be okay.
I think I find "Voices Carry" sung in male voice to be disturbing in the same measure. Not that it's a particularly comfortable song to begin with, but again, in 'Til Tuesday's version, and every other version I have sung by a female voice, I identify with the singer. It's sort of cathartic, even though it's been (*counts on fingers*) sixteen years since I was in that sort of a relationship. It seems like, in a male voice, it just becomes another song about a bitchy, controlling woman - except for two parts.
The first one is the "[s]he tells me tears are something to hide, and something to fear." Assuming that they're the singer's tears, as they are in the female-voice version, there is something poignant about a male voice wanting permission to cry and being denied it by a woman, since it's something we're used to men denying each other independent of any female feelings on the subject.
The second is the end, where the line "she might overhear" is unchanged. I know what's going on in the female-voiced version when "he" lets slip that line. What in the heck is going on in the male-voiced version when "she" says that? Is the implication the same, and now the bitch-goddess is bi, too? Is it his other lover? Suddenly the song got very complicated!
And then the Click Five's version does not include the wistful "I wish [s]he would let me talk," at the end. So we don't know whether he stays with her or not.
Anyway, apparently the iPod thinks I need to be thinking about gender issues in romantic expectations today. My iPod, she thinks she is funny. Again. :-/
