Menopause Man

love it! I think it's about being a guy and feeling like you don't fit into the man's man mold. Rather, you have a more stereotypical woman-like psyche. I could be off in my description. I really like the first verse; it is cool how he repeats woman and man in describing himself.

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.

My favorite song off of this album. Seems like he doesn't find being a male to be all that great or something, with an intense desire to be a female or be freed of his sex or something. I have no idea. Either way, love this song.

i disagree about the transsexual comment, why does gender identity have to be tied with the genitals? geez. if you've seen ariel pink, he has a more androgynous/or often more "feminine" style of dress and appearance. i think it's more likely this song is about crossing societal gender role boundaries, really, stomping all over them really.

well saturn star I'm like what? but I know in astrology saturn represents lessons, restrictions, hardship , etc. so maybe this song means we learn our gender roles from society. duh! but i like the way he puts it in the song so it becomes more acceptable to understand this concept.

My take is that he's making fun of the LBTQ movement that seems to be pushing this agenda of making men be less manly and women to be less womanly. You know, "find your real you, you don't have to be this and that." But it's cool, to me there's no venomous hatred or anything , just a bit of irony and bite to it. He basically seems to be saying "be comfortable with who you are, don't push it just because people tell you to".

Ariel's an interesting guy because he himself is really not that masculine, but he's still rather manly in his own way.

just brilliant lyrics