Thursday, March 12, 2009

If You Seek Amy

I never, ever, ever thought that I would use this blog to defend Britney Spears. Seriously. It's fine music to bop along to but I always took her for an airhead pop-star with an electronically altered voice.

But David Hasselhoff flies at his own expense around the world for Make-a-Wish to be with kids who regard him as a hero.

And Ricki Martin runs a foundation that gets kids off the streets of Thailand.

And now Britney ...

So she wrote a song. Or somebody wrote it for her. I don't care. She sang it and it got on the radio before anyone noticed a damn thing wrong with it. It's a song, apparently about a girl named Amy, who does drugs and is otherwise attractive to both girls and boys of her age. Okay, cool. A drug-smoking, bisexual teenager. Britney is in a dance club looking for her.
Love me hate me
Say what you want about me
But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging to
If You Seek Amy
Love me hate me
But can't you see what I see
All of the boys and all of the girls are begging to
If You Seek Amy

That's not perfectly grammatical, is it? There's a lot of license taken by song writers in attempting to match a concept to a rhythm. Listen to Alanis Morissette sometime. I could easily argue that there are two sentences there:
But all of the boys and all of the girls are begging too.

"Too". Meaning "also". You could end a sentence there, if you wanted to. Everyone else is begging for Amy. They're begging, too.

The line following is then finishing the thought, putting the thing they're begging for after the word "too", which is weird. The only people who can talk like that are poets and 900 year old Jedi Masters.
Many are seeking this too, if you seek the Force.

But really, if you listen closely, you can hear what she actually meant to say. As clearly as any priest speeding along to the part of the bible where it tells you to pay him money, she gets to the chorus and you know you're not hearing "If you seek Amy" but four letters and a word.

And you know what. I just gotta respect that. Dunno why. I just do.

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