| Bee Gees – Stayin Alive Lyrics | 15 years ago |
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Personally, I feel like The New York Times is an outward manifestation of our society's collective consciousness. Everyone in the nation is all riled up about whatever they see on the cover, then the next morning they forget about it and move on to the next thing. Anything that you see in its pages is taken as truth, just as you can fall in love at first glance on a dance floor. "The New York Times effect" is ceding your self control to society at large, similar to losing yourself in dance at a disco. It's submission, but pleasurable submission, which makes it even more provocative that it's the NYT effect "on Man." The idealized image of Man is Man in control, making it taboo ("look the other way") to recognize Man's desire to cede control to Woman (provided it is done in a highly ritualized courtship ceremony to which we have been sensitized our whole lives - through love stories, movies, and, of course, songs like "Stayin' Alive"). The singer has no such pretensions, admitting he is a "woman's man," and has "been kicked around since he was born." He recognizes that alone, "his life [is] goin' nowhere" and needs "somebody [to] help [him]" - i.e. the woman of his dreams. Of course there is no consciousness more collectively shared than the desire to love and be loved. The way the Bee Gees deliver the line (and indeed the whole song) in perfect harmony and gender-neutral falsetto seems to support this analysis. "Try[ing] to understand" it might be impossible, but recognizing it and developing an appreciation for it might make you enjoy the feeling even more, which is all that really matters. Still giving out that undisclosed sum? ;) |
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