Once again I am driven by tedious pedantry to provide an analysis of another vacuous pop song for the sake of my own amusement.
I have chosen this song due to the aggravating nature of the lyrics, the singing, the music, the video, the dancing, the outfits and the general aura of the piece in its entirety. It is also in part due to the insistence of the student union to play this video several times an hour, although maybe they only do this at 11-12 on a Monday morning as they have worked out my schedule and my distaste for this particular piece.
I will start by talking about the actual music, which seems to be generated by an elephant being repeatedly anally mutilated by a mini-moog, accompanied by a crowd of happy-clapping brain-dead pop fans who are more than happy to complement Beyonk with their continuous clap-based percussion.
Opening the song with the lyrics ‘All the single ladies’ and repeating this a mere seven times, I feel is a slightly week opening, as I feel the song would be stronger if this sentence was repeated significantly more, as it is straight repetition that I look for in a catchy pop song. The repetition of this line has the sonic frequency of a panicked crow squawking incessantly, which of course fits in well with the poppy elephant-violating nature of the synth.
Of course this line is followed with the highly original and novel appeal to have all these ladies that Beyonce has gathered using her siren-call to ‘put their hands up’. I doubt this is meant in a law-enforcing or threatening-with-weapon way, though that is certainly the message that the incessant music is portraying, I for one felt as though I was being held hostage aurally.
With the next line, Beyonce takes a bewilderingly fast turn into a narrative, in which she describes that she has recently ended a relationship, though no details are given at this point as to the length of the relationship, or indeed its seriousness. She also takes time out to inform the listener that she is currently in a club, and ‘doing her own little thing’, though this admission is vague enough that this could be singing, dancing, drinking or even relieving herself in a toilet. There is no way to know without having access to Beyonce in order to quiz her further on the matter.
Beyonce then continues to extrapolate on the reasoning behind her break-up, revealing that ‘You decided to dip but now you wanna trip’. As a student of English I am distressed to admit that I have no fucking clue what this means. Some of the possibilities that I tentatively suggest are that the ‘dipping’ is perhaps a rather crude reference to the sexual act, and in this case ‘trip’ would refer to the man, in my heteronormative assumption it is a man, journeying away from her. In this instance I decipher the line as meaning ‘you decided to have sex with me but now you want to travel’. On the other hand ‘dip’ could refer to dancing, but now that he is sick of dancing, the man would prefer to ‘trip’, though this seems increasingly unlikely. Alternatively, the ‘dip’ could refer to the man’s desire to enjoy a sherbet dip, but now that he has he would rather enjoy some magic mushrooms in order to ‘trip’. It could even suggest that the man wanted to go for a swim, but now that he is sick of swimming he would rather get dry. In this example the work ‘trip’ has been misheard as ‘drip’.
The actual definition I am going to work with is one where ‘dip’ does indeed refer to dancing, and the ‘trip’ refers to getting mad, as in “You are tripping fool’. This I have decided due to the next line being ‘cuz another brother noticed me’. I am again using my powers of deduction in order to work out that the ‘brother’ in this sentence is not a blood relation. Beyonce then admits that she is ‘up on him’ and that he is similarly ‘up on’ her.
The focus of this song then changes, for Beyonk has been talking directly to the ex for the duration of the song, and now she addresses the new fellow who is ‘up on’ her. She assures the man that there is no need to pay any attention to the ex, for she has cried constantly for an entire three years, and as such feels that all emotional ties have been severed with her previous relationship, and that the ex has no reasonable right to be aggravated that she has chosen to be ‘up on’ a new fellow.
She continues then into the chorus, where she indicates that her ex should have provided her with jewellery, accompanied with a desire to eventually be joined in a form of matrimony with her. The assumption behind this is that because he did not provide this shiny thing plus marriage he has no right to take umbrage at her behaviour, even is she is ‘up on’ ‘another brother’.
Luckily the line of ‘if you liked it you should have put a ring on it’ is only repeated six times at this point, which ensures that the listener doesn’t become jaded with this rather wearisome line. Of course I am also assuming, possibly incorrectly, that the two ‘it’s in this line refer to different things, namely the first ‘it’ refers to Beyonk, and the second refers to her finger. I could be wrong, although neither the idea that if he liked Beyonce he should have put a ring around her middle, or the idea that if he liked her finger then he should have provided the digit with a ring seem feasible. Of course there is the off chance that Beyonce is in fact deriding the fact that the man was unable to throw a hoop around a pole in order to win her affection, though that is perhaps too odd a conclusion to draw.
The next verse is a description of her current state, where she notes that she has adequately moisturised her lips with lip gloss, and that she is wearing a man on her hips (odd choice of clothing, even for a pop diva). She also notes that she has drink, I’m assuming alcohol, and that she is behaving like a fool, but that she doesn’t really give a toss what it is that ‘you’ think. I am assuming in this line that the ‘you’ refers to her ex-character rather than me personally, as I feel my critique is valued highly in the mind of Beyonk. She also notes that she has no need of permission due to the fact that a chance has been squandered, further emphasising that there is no jurisdiction over her actions. This verse is ended with a quite bitter declaration that Beyonce is going to punish her ex, by forcing him to feel regret for his actions, which is perhaps slightly childish, and moreover it is the work of a bully.
The reminder that her finger needed to be clothed in tat is now repeated further, also followed by the obligatory ‘wo-oh-oh’ing.
The last verse is hypocritically opened, for though Beyonk has spent the previous two choruses declaring the need for jewellery, she is now announcing that she has no need to be treated to material goods, ‘I’m not that kind of girl’, and that she instead desires affection. Furthermore, what she ‘deserves’, in her opinion, is a man that will ‘make’ her, ‘take’ her, and finally ‘deliver’ her to her destiny, ‘to infinity and beyond’. At first glance it may seem that what Beyonce desires is Buzz Lightyear working as a postman, but more worrying is the continued objectification of women that is rampant in the song. In the chorus she repeatedly objectifies herself with the term ‘it’, juxtaposing this with an ‘it’ which refers to her finger, which then conveys that Beyonce is only as important as her own finger. The desire for a man to ‘make’, ‘take’ and ‘deliver’ her removes all agency from Beyonce, who is then stuck in a passive role, once again emphasising her as an object, rather than a person.
The verse is closed then with Beyonce imploring a man to give her a cwtch, ‘say I’m the one you own’, which of course begs the question do you own your partner? I was of the opinion that we were living in the 21st Century and had left such unhealthy notions behind. Maybe not, and Beyonce stresses that, if this claim wasn’t made then ‘you’ will be left all alone, and that Beyonce, now fully objectified, will disappear like a gossamer apparition, or in her words ‘like a ghost’.
The song is brought to its moribund close with further repetition of ‘all the single ladies’ and ‘put a ring on it’.
I think that, objectification of women aside, my main gripe with this song is both the ugly dancing that the video contains, and the idiotic choice of giving Beyonce a metal robot hand in said video. In purely logical terms, it would be impossible to put a ring on that finger, for you have yourself clothed it with some sort of robotic exoskeleton, which would restrict the placement of a ring, due to it’s un-circular nature. Maybe it was the man’s desire to ‘put a ring on it’ but he was unable to due to Beyonce’s frankly impractical choice of accessorisation. Though maybe his inability to work around her unique hand-garments is the true reason for their break-up.
In summary:
Put your hands up.
I don’t like it and I want you to put a sock in it x7
Woo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh.
**Lyrics provided by www.elyricsworld.com**
HAHA that made my day. Thank you so much :)
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