I think people think I am kind of a nerd when I tell them what kinds of music I like or why I find “deep” meanings in songs that are supposed to be superficial. I have always suspected one of my elderly neighbors positively hates my listening to the Back Street Boys–who are old fogeys by rock standards–though I can’s say if rationally how come he would even know why one of my favorite pop tunes is “I Want It That Way.” Why, because it expresses a kind of angst that is common in my life, the sense that I and the somebody are divided by emotional gulfs as huge as the Grand Canyon. I have always been unlucky in love. Anyway, I will do a bit-by-bit explanation why I love this apparently inane pop song,
You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way
But we are two worlds apart
Can’t reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way
Passion burns in my love, yes, and love, but it is never quite reciprocated. I hope that does not sound like pity-partying, but to have never found love at 43 is a difficult thing. I mean, my life is half over. In the old days unmarried women my age were called “old maids” (the idea is that an “elderly maiden” is a woman who decency demands the assumption they never had sex) and spinsters (because in the old days while married women cooked and took care of babies, unmarried sisters and aunts spun wool for the family). I will not comment about my maidenhood but will say the only spinning I do is fictional poems and books. There seems to be my only future…
Anyway, with many men I couldn’t seem to reach to their hearts, because the man has the counter claim to my claim, “I want it that way.” We say the same words meaning different words, mine meaning “Yes,” and the man meaning, “No.” Anyway the song goes on,
Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
Yes, for me it is heartache, for the other person it is indifference. I have been there so many times. However, I have to admit the song is probably a slightly different malaise: the two have passion but they cannot find agreement. That is why they are “too world’s apart,” by the way.
Am I your fire?
Your one desire
Yes, I know it’s too late
But I want it that way…
In my case with a guy, I never am, but I guess there is always the open question where love is concerned. Does the Other love you as you love them? This question leads Carson McCullers (author of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter) to speculate that it is better to love than be loved. I find some comfort in this view, because if I have never had reciprocal love, I have had love, and from my point of view it was sincere.
At this point there is some repetition in the song, the reiteration of the words,
Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a heartache
Tell me why
Ain’t nothin’ but a mistake
Tell me why
I never wanna hear you say
I want it that way
Then it moves on to the tragic fate of a broken heart, crushed in the name of love,
Now I can see that we’ve fallen apart
From the way that it used to be, yeah
No matter the distance
I want you to know
That deep down inside of me
You are my fire
The one desire
You are (you are, you are, you are)
At this point the words become irrelevant. What the song says is that passionate, obsessive love like the kind in Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera is beautiful. I have read the book as well as seeing several plays, including the most popular one done by Andrew Lloyd Weber. I had a friend who read Leroux who dismissed it as a “pot boiler” but I always saw part of the Phantom’s tragedy–that born terribly ugly he could not receive the love that every human being needs. For all that his cruelty is part of the result, his love for Christine is a Swan Song of a man who is an architectural genius but has no true friend. His murderous rage is born of social rejection from his very childhood. The era in which this story is set is the era of the Elephant Man and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
I am embarrassed to say it has been years since I read The Phantom of the Opera. Perhaps I just haven’t had time. I have also wished I had time to read some of Gaston Leroux’s mysteries–he wrote a mystery series compared to a French Sherlock Holmes. Yet in my reading–and listening–it is often like looking into a mirror in search of my own soul. It doesn’t matter that “I Want It That Way,” is hardly Mozart. It equally doesn’t matter if my friend is somewhat right that poor Leroux wrote something with many of the elements of romantic fiction. I don’t really like romance novels, but I think that novels with romantic elements can easily transcend the limitation of mere Harlequin’s. I love the Brontë sisters and their books, and they are considered “romantic.” The only problem with romantic themes is that to create literary magic, a person almost has to have a new story to tell, and not a faded formula.