The one I respect is pretty obscure; it's called “Proofreading Woman.” It's a song by the Rockbottom Remainders, which was a rock group formed by novelists and writers, featuring, among others, Stephen King, Amy Tan, and, the singer of this song, Dave Barry. You can find a few performances of it on Youtube, and while this one is the best, none of the recordings are really great.
I discovered this song years ago when I was on a Dave Barry kick. Like Barry himself, the song's cheesy, and meant as a joke. It is also one of the best love songs out there. It addresses traits and characteristics beyond those love songs usually address.
Love songs tend to be either abstract or focus on how beautiful a woman is, and sometimes, they're flattering.
Then there’s the song for which I have substantial derision: Bruno Mars' “Just The Way You Are.” It sounds like it's a good, positive, affectionate song about how, with all of a woman's beauties and flaws, she's still someone important to the singer of the song. In Bruno Mars' song, he sings about:
Her eyes
Her hair
How beautiful she is
How he compliments her beauty
How she asks if she looks okay.
How he feels when he sees her face.
Her smile
Her lips (and how he would kiss them all day if she'd let him)
Her laugh (which is sexy)
How he'd never ask her to change
How she's perfect
Mars' song is, first of all, about a hot girl with a sexy laugh who may be a little bashful, but is still preoccupied with her appearance. The line about how he'd kiss her lips all day “if she'd let me” always strikes me as creepy and suggestive in all the wrong ways.
“Just the way you are” is a woefully superficial song and suggests the woman is too. There is no commentary on her skills, abilities, talents, or intelligence. She could be a doctor. She could have a debilitating drug habit. She might know all of Shakespeare's work by heart. The only words she recognizes may be her own name. We have no idea. Bruno doesn't tell us. It just doesn't seem like he cares. On the one hand, this makes the song marketable and popular because it operates under two popular assumptions: women care about being beautiful and women want to be told they're beautiful.
I'm not going to say there's anything wrong with being beautiful or complementing a woman's beauty, but a man whose main preoccupation is on whether or not he's with a hot chick isn't a man worth being with.
Hence my immense appreciation for “Proofreading Woman.”
The very first lines riff on the very heart of these other love songs:
Some men like a woman with a beautiful body,
Some men like a woman with a pretty face,
Nice body, nice face? We've heard that before. The difference here is the song sets up the expectation of a reversal. The next lines are:
But I like a woman with a big vocabulary, And every single little comma in place. I'm in love (he's in love) with a proofreading woman!She's intelligent and possess a skill.
She fixes up plays, She fixes up novels, She fixes up books full of poetry,
She's accomplished professionally and in a variety of ways. Different genres require different proofreading skills, and she's well versed in several genres.
Just as how Bruno left us not knowing how talented or capable the woman is, Dave Barry lets us know this is a competent, intelligent woman with a specific skill set she uses professionally. With no lyrics to give any idea as to what she looks like. There’s no hint, no inclination. But her beauty doesn’t matter. If it did matter, it would be in the song. The song is more preoccupied about the kind of woman she is, not the kind of woman she looks like.
She even gets a voice. In a situation involving another man. She gets to speak for herself. In part of the song Barry sings
A handsome man fell in love with my woman.
He tried to take her away from me.
He said, “Hey baby, I'd like to really know ya.”
In each recording that I've heard, the music pauses here, and a woman, I believe it's Amy Tan, responds,
“Frankly, I'm not attracted to men who split their infinitives.”
He probably doesn't even know what split infinitives are. The point, though, is not only is this woman worth serenading because of her intellect , but she has the opportunity to speak for herself. She's not just an object to be desired, nor one to be defended or held back, she can speak for herself.
On the other hand, how many women want be serenaded about what wonderful proofreaders they are? The song has limited appeal, and, given that it was written and performed by a bunch of professional writers and not musicians, it can be hard to give it great critical fanfare from music connoisseurs. If nothing else, though, it's worth stopping and thinking about the songs and poems and what it is they celebrate. Do they celebrate a significant other's skills, talents, intelligence, capabilities? Or how beautiful they are?
Ask yourself just how skin-deep do the love songs and poems you enjoy go?
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Works Cited
Barry, Dave. "Dave Barry Sings 'Proofreading Woman'." YouTube. Google inc., 24 Apr 2010. Web. 9 Feb. 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jMJ0k2tSxE>.
Mars, Bruno. "Bruno Mars - Just The Way You Are [OFFICIAL VIDEO]." Youtube. Google inc., 8 Sep. 2010. Web. 9 Feb 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk>
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