Music Blog, Part 3: Martyrdom & Love

This is a post that (like the next-to-previous) has been in my head for days, but thanks to my putting on Coupling late last evening, I have a way of introducing it:

I watched this bit with Tanja, who then turned to me and said "Do men actually think that way during sex?" and the answer was, without hesitation: "Absolutely."

Insecurity. It destroys me.

So anyway, the post I wanted to write was about a White Stripes song. It's off their Icky Thump Album from 2007.

Here:

(lyrics are here)

The narrator begins by mentioning a girl he saw exiting the zoo with a bunch of her friends. "16 and six feet tall", as he describes her. She trips over her high heels, and he catches her, saying that "Maybe these ruby shoes are a little cumbersome for you." Nice. It was off the cuff, but it impresses her. He admits himself that he was shaking and nervous and that he blurted this answer out without thinking, just "talkin' junk". But this impromptu conversation gets him her number, and he calls her a few times, but each time he's less cool, less interesting, has less to say. "My dumb-luck-fake-confidence was getting weak" he laments. So at the end of the 2nd or 3rd call, he breaks up with her, saying that there can't be any future for them:

"I could stay a while/but sooner or later I'll break your smile

And I can tell a joke/but one of these days I'm bound to choke

And we could share a kiss/but I feel like I can't go through with this

And I bet we could build a home/but I know the right thing for me to do

Is to leave you alone"

My original thought was that this was douche-like, that he's saving her the bad things he might do, but the more I listen to the song, the more I feel I understand. He loves her (or at least, the idea of her), and as such can't bear to disappoint her with the idea that he's not as cool as she might think. He knows he'll fuck it up eventually. He'll say something dumb, and she'll think less of him, and it's all downhill from there. He admits that it looks (and maybe is) cowardly and "a lame way to live" but he's powerless, and he hopes he appreciates the pain he's avoided giving here. That he's "A Martyr For My Love For You".

That bit always threw me, until I thought about how "martyr" can mean someone who chooses to destroy himself so that an idea can continue. In this case, it's the idea of Cool Him and Lovely Girl & Their Super Cool Relationship that he felt he was unable to maintain. This is such a deep and abiding self-doubt and insecurity that my heart goes out to him.For I have been there. But frankly, I was never even cool enough to start the conversation.

**edit**

Allow me to explain a little so my meaning is clear: in my current relationship, I am loved, and confident, and many other good things, despite my occasional (much-discussed on this blog) bouts of insecurity and self-pity. Left to my own devices, I am a lobster in a tank, eating myself until I can barely move. I'm saying I sympathise with the song's narrator. Or rather, I did, at one stage, knowing that situation myself.

And funny enough, while I was writing this, a Kaiser Chiefs song came on:

I can do it, I can do it, I can do it, I can do it without you.

But it wouldn't be very good.

Indeed.

**Second Edit**
In discussing this with Tanja and how it actually wasn't me saying that I "jumped aboard" with the first girl who "gave me the time of day", I remembered another poitn I had wanted to discuss about the song. When I re-evaluated the song, I had an inkling of an idea. Everything from the moment the narrator catches the girl to the end of the song... is in his head. He imagines saying something cool, but then further imagines how hard it would be to keep up that image, to the point where he'd need to exercise control and end the relationship. So this is him justifying and saying that he is right to have said nothing, thus affirming his self-image and framework and saving himself.

Which, as Tanja put it, is really sad.