Monday 26 August 2013

Live your Life Be Free (Belinda Carlisle)


From the very first moment I ever heard this song, I thought to myself that the lyrics about seeing your (ex?) lover with his current girlfriend (or wife), yet offering to be there should he change his mind, would work a lot better if the chorus went "leave your wife, be free". Of course such a statement would not have been deemed conducive to radio airplay, particularly in conservative early 90s USA. 

As it was, this song, the lead single from Belinda Carlisle's fourth solo album, wasn't a hit in the US. Her career as a solo artist was a lot longer and more successful in other territories. 

Interpreted from a man's point of view, there's an implication that the object of the performer's desire is a closet case, and he's being encouraged to come out. I hope the writers don't mind the slight change of lyrics. I think they bring a whole new meaning to the words.

Saturday 10 August 2013

I Should Be So Lucky (Kylie Minogue)


Kylie's debut hit in many territories (The Loco-motion came first and was Australia's biggest hit of the 80s before Stock Aitken Waterman became involved) and still one of her most remembered hits (despite zero airplay even from 80s radio stations). General opinion is that the song encapsulates the prototype S/A/W song: banal lyrics and repetitive chorus. It is, no matter how many times she tries to make it somehow credible. Kylie had a bit of an epiphany when she read part of the lyrics at the 1996 poetry Olympics: after a period of denial of her pop persona and her PWL catalogue, she reclaimed the song and her past. She did not embrace it, though, wanting to give her past and edge it simply doesn't have. During the following years and sometimes to this day she tends to perform it as a torch song ballad, but thankfully she performs it in its original form too.

Her reading at the poetry Olympics was self-deprecating and full of irony. I think the lyrics CAN be the basis of an honest performance of longing and the realisation that one's hopes for love sometimes are only dreams. Here's my attempt.


P.S.: I'm going to give the Minogueologues a rest for a bit. It's been one every other one so far! I'll keep posting Minogue-unrelated PopMonologues, though. As always, comments welcome.