Who Has Given Up ??

[michelej1]

Originally Posted by David

Of course, Stevie's mode of writing lends itself to such responses, and that's also why I don't think Stevie is one of the great writers: she never seems to stand back from her characters and observe them with any detachment or irony. The emotions they are experiencing are always and completely the emotions that we listeners are supposed to be connecting to with total ingenuousness. It's all very unsophisticated.

What I love about SYLM is that he doesn't love her and Christine manages to convey that on one hand, tucking reality neatly beneath frothy romance. The song conveys two contradictory messages in my mind: what she would like to be the truth and what is the truth. I've always thought that was very clever.

Stevie ... thinking about what you wrote, I've thought that EFO does have a certain detachment. I see the protagonist as fooling herself. She exudes false bravado. She taunts. He adores her. They do it everywhere they can, every time they can get away. Get away! (much like Paul's alleged "get back" to Yoko). But none of it's true and she's really dying inside. The lyrics always gave me the impression of an outside narrator looking in, detached, shrewd, sad, witnessing someone else's delusion. But we listeners, what are we supposed to feel? Are we cheering the affair? I think yes, in a way. The pounding disco music says triumph. We dance as "the other woman" chortles. We support her. I don't know if we are necessarily supposed to be connecting to the despair.

Anne Lindbergh once described Charles feeding their daughter. He would dangle a cherry in her face and when she would look up at it, mouth ajar, he'd stick a vegetable in her mouth. I think that's what EFO does.

I mean, I don't think it's the sophisticated song you requested, but I think it conveys more than what's on the shallow surface, because it strikes me as both celebration and doom.