Oh wait a minute, maybe I do like this song.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

On the Katy Perry thread at ILM, someone follows through on Tim Finney's question as to whether or not "UR So Gay" would make sense from a gay artist by linking to a pop-emo group covering it, and John C. follows up with a MySpace link:

False Start - I Kissed a Girl
Max Vernon - I Kissed a Girl

What BOTH of these covers do is expose this song as TWEE. I hadn't thought of it that way until the discussion yesterday, particularly girlboymusic's comments; there are still a few purely lyrics-based stumbles, particularly the "experimental game." But I was surprised finding the song CUTE. It's the annoying, mild-crossover-potential indie pop tune that accidentally got halfhearted Max Martin treatment, the wrong singer, and took the world by storm. It's a Frankenstein -- I like it more now!

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

Funny how, no matter who the singer, "I liked it" sounds angsty -- it's not KP's delivery that makes the chorus suggest there's something weird and unwanted about liking girlkissing, it's the tune itself.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

That's true, the way the melody is written, it could work as a major seventh with a major key underneath (would sound a bit like...I dunno, Jens Lekman or something) but it's minor underneath -- funny, this could so easily be turned into a lounge number by playing major seventh intervals up the scale (there's a piano exercise that does this, you start on C and play C-E-G-B, then on D play D-F-A-C, no black keys, repeat).

Thing is, it isn't the angst about it that bugs me -- basically, it's a song about someone who's somehow in over their head just because they kissed someone of the same sex. But given a twee arrangement, that sense of being slightly out of their league/element even when they're basically in control makes a lot more sense.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

The major-seventh note is on "kissed" ("I kissed a girl" would be like playing that piano exercise backwards, C-B-G-E), in a minor key, the "I" becomes a minor third, which kind of "sets" the key more than any other note. Would need to fact-check on an actual keyboard tho.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Standard post-SUBG confessional move: sing the minor third then pull the rug out by going to a major chord (if you started in A minor and sang a C, you'd then go to the relative C major chord). This sort of modal screwing around is typical for Aly and AJ ("Rush," "Not This Year").

[cis.livejournal.com]

I think, for me, it's also the way it doesn't... resolve? okay, it's a line in the middle of a chorus, you wouldn't necessarily expect it to resolve, but 'I liked it' takes the same sequence of notes as 'i kissed a-' and then just hangs there (doesn't, for example, go up a note and make everything sound more cheerful). it's making a point: it's wallowing.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

There's something kind of overwrought about it -- like wailing. I can imagine that a temper tantrum could take a similar melody and cadence. "I want the toy cuz it's my toy" or something.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I don't really hear either of the covers as twee, is the thing: they're sweeter than the KP version, but still way too histrionic for what I'd consider twee. But they really don't have the triumphalism of KP: when she sings it it's so clear that she's proud of herself. She takes the uneasy turn of the chorus and makes it feel showy, whereas in the emoboy version it sounds a bit sick. So in a sense she's the one who does more with the song -- unfortunately that's just making it more hateful.

(i'm not going to like the song until there's a boy-sung version where 'my boyfriend' is replaced with, like 'my mom'. or 'god', or something, and kissing anyone is grounds for a massive freakout)

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

I guess what I'm seeing is that there's something about the song that's twee at the core, since to be the character in this song you would need to (1) think twice about kissing someone of the same sex in the first place, (2) be in your 20s and never have done it in the first place, (3) do it at a party while drunk and feel conflicted enough to write a song about how it made you feel with (4) all indications of being somewhat dishonest/calculated about the material. To me that spells twee -- self-conscious attempt to be more naive than you probably are while demonstrating that you're not REALLY that naive, it's just kind of a style. But there's no naivete in Katy's voice, whereas I do hear naivete (to some extent) in the Max V version and in the emo version I can accept the vocals as a product of a genre, and I don't read so much into the performance. (Which is funny because Katy is also the product of a genre, it's just that that genre usually doesn't bank on being understood as disingenuous -- one reason, maybe, that I also didn't like "Girlfriend")

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the emoboys unwisely start screaming over the chorus for some reason. Kind of gross.

[koganbot]

basically, it's a song about someone who's somehow in over their head just because they kissed someone of the same sex

And therefore, in her uncertainty, flaunts the kissing as a big achievement while at the same time claiming that the impact and meaning of the kissing is limited; in that way she doesn't have to feel that she's in over her head. Of course, this is where Nia comes in and tells me I'm confusing the performance and the performer of the song with the story in the song, and I say that the performance and the performer are the story.

[koganbot]

And as I said, all of this could nonetheless constitute a GREAT song, the self-unaware singer communicating more than she knows, except that her voice itself lacks emotional juice. It's emphatic and energetic but beyond that it just kind of scrapes. And the music is good Max-Luke-Cathy but not great Max-Luke-Cathy.

But more of you should have ticked it.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

Might be a good track for Megan McCauley, come to think of it.

[skyecaptain.livejournal.com]

You're right that the performance/performer are the story, but I don't think they're the whole story -- I think Nia's right to suggest that Katy's own performance is at odds with the narrative. Once the song uproots itself from performer/performance, other songs can reveal something about how it works, at least in part, even if everything about the Katy Perry version is hiding how it works (even hiding how it could actually work well AGAINST Katy by making her a more complicated character). These covers aren't there yet, but they did get me out of a certain rut in my thinking.

[koganbot]

But Nia thinks we're wrong to react to what the performance in its social context is saying (or if she doesn't think this, then I understand her even less than I think I do).

"Twee" isn't the right word - calling "I Kissed A Girl" twee would be like saying that Lil Jon was twee in "Get Low" 'cause of crunk's underlying Eastern melancholy. But the music to "I Kissed A Girl" has the potential to be used for anger (if instruments and singer used a harder attack) or vulnerability (if the singer were capable). In analyzing the song I feel that a lot of anger and vulnerability were involved in the creation of the song. But none of that anger or vulnerability makes it to the performance of the song or the experience of listening to it (except in that people get mad at it).

self-conscious attempt to be more naive than you probably are while demonstrating that you're not REALLY that naive

I disagree. I think she and the song really are that naive - but by naive I don't mean she'd just left home the week before and never ever kissed a girl before but rather that she's really committed to all the attitudes of the song, it really did feel so right and feel so wrong, she really does want to make the kissing a big deal while simultaneously trying to undercut the significance of the kissing, and she has no perspective on any of this. Of course, I could be wrong, and this all could be worked out by a brain trust of superintellects in the sound laboratory, but I doubt it. And if so, so what? She delivers the attitudes. And she's still a phony.

[koganbot]

Which is to say that such naivité is not practically different from being phony, when she's old enough to think less superficially but won't do so.

[edgeofwhatever.livejournal.com]

I don't think that at all.

I do think that you can separate the song from the social context, and if you do, you find that the stuff people get mad about isn't really in the song itself. But I never said that we shouldn't ever talk about the social context -- in fact, I'm saying we should talk about the social context, because that's where the problems are, instead of bitching about the song, which is not offensive in itself.