Tear Off Your Own Head (It's a Doll Revolution)

Actually, Elvis wanted to do a project with an all-female band where they were going to have a TV show, and this would be the theme song. The project fell through though, even though he asked the Bangles to record the song so that producers could hear how a female singer would sound singing it. It's really an offshoot of the riot grrrrl movement and a satirical commentary on it.

Ha, this song is funny. I love Elvis Costello. And this song is wonderful. To me he's referring to a guy being so whipped by a girl. She can control his every move because he'll do anything for her. Like a string puppet. A doll. I dunno.

Title Track, I basically agree. The song seems to be about a person, probably a woman, treating a/the man in her life / a significant other like a doll, thinking she can manipulate him however she wants. But he rebels: "Tear off your own head!" I think there's an equal-opportunity aspect here ("You could make somebody a pretty little wife / But don't let anybody tell you how to live your life").

This song was used effectively, I think for its meaning, in the interesting Rachel Weisz movie The Shape of Things.

I have to disagree with both of you. Especially considering Costello's history of writing songs that may sound like they are some how misogynistic when they are quite the opposite, I feel like the song is about a female struggling within the classically feminine role (think of the imagery invoked, dolls, kitchenette, pink ribbons, painted nails, high heels: they're all things subjectifying women) and the other parts of her that do match this idea. Admittedly, she controls/manipulates the male(s) in her life as part of that struggle, making them feel what she feels. However, she has to manage this duality on her own: "Who dries your eyes when you cry real tears? Who knows or cares what an imitation is? Only you do." And in the end it kind of closes the narrative of the struggle with "You could make somebody a pretty little wife, But don't let anybody tell you how to live your life. Broken pieces."

I think, at risk of overintellectualizing this, that it is stating the following.\n\nFemale empowerment won’t come from feminizing men, but through women taking charge of their own agency and defining a new paradigm for themselves. \n\nThe Bangles covered it so probably has some girl power meaning in it.

Okay, let's spoil the fun with a little capitalism! We are all of us expected and pressured through "institutional learning facilities", advertising, and marketing to accept limited, well-defined, and readily manipulated roles. Men, women, conservatives, progressives, whatever skin color, sexual orientation, etc. We are ALL dolls, and we are all nudged to fit a prefabricated role rather than invent our own. We can mess around with gender roles and manipulate each other to feel like we have some sort of control over our own destinies, but it's an illusion. Escaping this paradigm involves rejecting the basic role of Doll. Destroying the doll we have become. Ripping off our own heads.