You Are....My Fire

Philip Seymour Hoffman's character in Almost Famous, Lester Bangs, has a great line (well, many great lines, but one appropriate to my subject). He says "Jim Morrison is a drunken buffoon posing as a poet. Give me the Guess Who. They have the courage to be drunken buffoons, which makes them poetic." The validity of this criticism notwithstanding, I find the sentiment behind it very telling, for it resonates with a song I just listened to on my internet radio (the previously mentioned purveyor of Falco's "Rock Me, Amadeus.").

That song, as you can tell by the title of the post, was "I Want It That Way" by The Backstreet Boys.

Now, when this song came out, I, like any sensible person, loathed it. I joined the throng decrying that it was pointless boyband tripe. And we of that throng were right, no bones about it. It's massively overproduced, and the lyrics make no sense (what way? Why can you want it that way when she shouldn't?) And yet, listening back now, I can't help but smiling and enjoying this piece of vacuous songliness. I think it achieves poetry exactly because it is so pointless. In one sense, the B-Boys were willing to be buffoons for this song, as Hoffman states. (Seriously, watch the video if you can find it somewhere. It's absolutely ludicrous, and they have to know it.)

But, in a larger sense, it shows how America as a whole was willing to be fools and send this song to the top of the charts. There were mass audiences willing to absolutely turn their minds off and appreciate the sentiment of these five non-threatening youths from the back streets, to the point where it absolutely saturated the mainstream culture (or at least the mainstream youth culture). I would contend that this brief epoch constituted a point of ultimate buffoonery on the part of America, which thus allows us (or, at least me) to look back and see this inanity as a moment of pure poetry. Maybe that's why we really appreciate all those stupid songs that no self-respecting critic would like only later in life (I say as "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" comes on my radio). The songs may or may not be fun, silly, pointless, whatever. But they are testiment to our poetry of idiocy and our embrace of this side of ourselves.

And besides, every time the extra-clean-cut B-Boy hits that high note on the extended "Don't wanna hear you say!", the tenor in me just leaps in response. Maybe this should be on my karaoke list.

So, as we face another Valentine's Day, remember the words of the Boys:

You are my fire
My one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way.

But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart
It's too late
But I want it that way

Tell me why (ain't nothing but a heartache)
Tell me why (ain't nothing but a mistake)
(Tell me why) I never wanna hear you say
That I want it that way.

Non-threateningly rock on, you buffoons.