Menopause Man

pondering the lyrics, i have some thoughts regarding the lines "trying too hard, to be yourself, said you're trying too hard to be what you already are" makes me think of when people "exaggerate" the behavior stereotypes of their socially-proscribed gender role. especially men and anti-ANY feminine attributes (the fact that the sequitor "no homo!" is an expression in american society speaks for itself here). it's this compulsive need to reassert one's masculinity, even in the absence of it being threatened.

also, i've read interviews in which ariel spoke about how he often feels he thinks more like a woman than a man (perhaps he operates on a more intuitive/emotional-oriented thought process than logical/surface-level, as is the broad generalization of female/male information processing).

also, "neutering" (in verb form, as he's using it here) is when a male animal is castrated, to prevent the animal from being able to procreate. i don't think this lyric is literal, but meant symbolically, to "cut out/remove" his masculinity, in a sense. the next line, "saturn star" is intriguing because in astrology, saturn is often representative of fathers or authority figures in general (and power, or authority, is connoted with masculinity anyway).

not sure where i'm going with this, but there's just a lot of contrasting of gender-oriented terms, the breaking glass sounds at the end of the song make me think of a "breaking through" type symbolism, of gender stereotypes and identity. it's not the same as sexual identity, after all, your sexual and gender identities do not have to dictate your internal sense of being "masculine" or "feminine," and there's nothing wrong with a girl being "masculine" or a more "feminine" guy (which is true REGARDLESS of sexual orientation!) fuck society telling us how to act and behave. we don't have to be any more or any less than we are, and we especially don't have to prove anything to anyone.