Relationship experts all say that one of the keys to a happy marriage is not to get into petty arguments with your spouse.
They couldn’t be more wrong.
In fact, I have found that seizing on minor disagreements can often distract attention away from other, more substantial issues my wife might raise, such as “Why is all the fur on the cat’s tail singed?” “Must you always leave your toenail clippings on the coffee table?” and “What ever happened to the idea that you were going to get a real job?”
With this in mind, I’m always alert for the opportunity to get into a meaningless argument with my wife. This past week was no exception, when she made an offhand comment about one of the differences between songs written by men as opposed to songs written by women.
“Men are always singing about how beautiful a specific woman is,” she observed, “There must be hundreds of songs like ‘Pretty Woman’ sung by men, but I can’t think of a single comparable song by a female singer about what a hunk some guy is.”
Of course, she’s right that men and women approach songwriting very differently. Take, for example, how the two sexes discuss that most common musical subject, “love.” When women sing about love, they’re typically describing that universal search for caring, intimate relationships. Whereas men just mean sex.
Let’s be honest. When the Spencer Davis Group sang, “Gimme Some Lovin,’” they weren’t expressing a desire for a deep connection with a woman, one that would inevitably lead to marriage and growing old together playing canasta and going antiquing on weekends. But the problem with being up front about such matters is that a song called “Gimme Some Sex” might have been perceived as crass.
As a result, for decades male singers have scored top 40 hits with songs featuring “wink wink” titles like “Love Me Do,” “Addicted to Love,” “Love In an Elevator” and “After I Had Love in an Elevator I Needed to Go to the Free Clinic.”
But getting back to my wife’s comment, she further observed that many of the male singers even mention the object of their affection by name. Titles like “Barbara Ann,” “Michelle,” “Mandy” and “Roxanne” instantly evoke specific songs.
Among male songwriters, the most popular female muse is undoubtedly “Gloria.” In fact, Van Morrison was so excited about his Gloria that he repeatedly spelled out her name in the song, presumably for any concertgoers who might have been taking notes.
My first inclination was to admit that my wife was right, that women singers don’t ever identify their love interests by name. It was hard to imagine, for example, Aretha Franklin or Madonna singing about the one-of-a-kind man she’d found, belting out an enthusiastic “A-L-B-E-R-T! Aaaa-al-bert!”
But then I saw my chance to turn the conversation into an argument.
“Aren’t you forgetting about a little ditty by the name of “Me and Bobby McGee?” I said, smugly. “Janis Joplin? Remember?”
“Um, yeah,” she conceded. “Except that Janis Joplin changed the lyrics. The song was originally about a woman and was written by Kris Kristofferson, a man.”
“True,” I replied, “but a man with a woman’s first name.” I had her there. Because while my point was, admittedly, dopey, my wife could not deny that “Kris” is a woman’s name, seeing as how it happens to be hers.
So did I win this inane argument? I’d say yes, but not because my wife wound up convinced. It was more the sense of accomplishment, knowing I had forestalled, at least for the moment, any discussion of the barbecue sauce stains on the drapes.
Examiner columnist Malcolm Fleschner is still a little miffed that his wife automatically took the cat’s side in the argument.
