Whether or not that’s the case remains to be seen, however
there’s something to be said for how we project our own philosophy onto content
and how much things change when we do. I’d
like to share one of my favorite examples. I suggest that as you read my interpretation
you pull up the full lyrics on your own to have side by side my take.
Song: Act Nice and Gentle, as performed by The Black Keys
Original Lyric: Act
nice and gentle to me
Misheard as : Act
nice, and gentlemanly
This is a very simple and overdone song lyric. The premise
of the song is simple and you’ve heard it before. The singer is addressing a significant other
and assuring her that she doesn’t need to doll herself up, or provide him with
anything more than being “nice and gentle”. The song was originally released by
the Kinks in 1967, and at the time the concept was probably still not even
close to novel.
Not a hurtful message, and definitely a positive one, but
it’s been done better by others. See Billy Joel’s “Just The Way You Are” for a
good example.
Anyway, take a look at the song from my misheard conception
and that’s where you find some true originality and brilliance.
From my perspective the song certainly changes a lot. There
are two possible interpretations that can derive from the shift of “gentle to
me” to “gentlemanly”. The first of which, and the one that I don’t really
prefer is that the singer is insisting that his significant other act more like
a man in their relationship. In this case, the singer would be a chauvinist and
would be relegating all of the negative behaviors he isn’t fond of to his significant
other simply being a woman. So I don’t like that one.
The one I like is; the singer is a father and the song is
being sung to his son. Suddenly, the song begins with a beautiful setting of a
father sitting on his porch, maybe contemplatively smoking his pipe, while his
wide eyed son is looking up at and taking in the wisdom.
The son isn’t old enough yet to resent the wisdom inherent
to his father’s words. We know this because the song starts off with the father
complaining about his son’s fancy clothes and that he doesn’t even know where
he got them from. So now we know his mother has probably been taking the poor
kid shopping, and likely spoiling him rotten. The father is playing the other
end, just trying to keep his boy grounded. Unfortunately, his son soon begins
to drift away.
In a couple of the later phrases we see the father
complaining about the son’s false eye lashes. In the context of it being a son
and not a dolled up woman, what we see is a father indicating that he is
clearly losing touch with his son who appears to be in his adolescence and is
acting like a damn fool. He’s likely “going punk” or something of that nature.
The father is still insisting that he loves his boy and that he just wants to
take him as he finds him, because his baby boy will always just be good enough
for him. It’s a beautiful message, really. He’s still addressing his son, and really
he just wants him to be a good man.
The song then comes to a close and it’s getting a little
sadder, it ends with the repeating phrases “Come on baby, hold my hand. Come on
baby, understand, you gotta, Act nice, act nice and gentlemanly.”
As far as I can imagine, there is really only one time an old school
fella like this father would ask his son to hold his hand.
The father is dying. He no longer is making specific
requests about his sons behavior, there is no time for that. Rather, he is simply requesting of his son that he holds his dying
father’s hand. And, because the father is still a father, he must impart some
last bit of wisdom, no judgment, no hate, just a simple message: Act nice and
gentlemanly.
The original song lyrics are fine, mine are better.
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