A couple of years ago R&B singer, Akon, came out with a
song called “Right Now.” In the song
Akon sings during the chorus, “I wanna make up right now now now.” The song was very popular on the radio back
when it first came out, and my little cousin, RJ, who was about eight or nine
years old was a fan of the song. Even
though when I heard the song and understood that Akon was singing I want to
make up, my little cousin who was probably paying more attention to the beat of
the song than the actual words, thought that Akon was singing, “I wanna make
love right now now now,” and so this is what he would sing when he would be
singing the song when it was stuck in his head.
Being eight or nine, he had no idea what he was saying had a completely
different meaning than what the song stood for.
One time we were in the car with my aunt and he started singing his
version of the song and my aunt began to fuss, saying how he shouldn’t be
saying such things. RJ, confused because
he had no idea what he was saying, didn’t protest, but just remained quite and
accepted his mom’s fussing. I just sat
in the passenger seat smiling to myself at how one song’s lyrics could have so
many differ interpretation for one carful of riders. One was the original version and the version
that I heard, “I want to make up.” The
other was what RJ heard, “I want to make love,” but in a completely innocent
way. And the third was how my Aunt
Valerie heard it, the way RJ was singing it but in a completely vulgar
way. I wonder if Akon knew this pop hit would
end up being so controversial.From ask men.com
Clyde, I'm wondering what you felt was the symbol in this situation.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a little different than choosing a specific symbol because here you are talking about two different versions of a song. The interpretations are bound to be different if the parts of the song are in fact different. One version of the song is clearly dirty, which is why there is a clean version. The "I wana make up" version is clean so it would not be controversial, while the "I wana make love" is sure to be controversial. Especially with your younger cousin, it would seem obvious that his mother thought it was too vulgar. My point is that the symbolism here isn't very clear because all things mentioned here pretty straightforward and expected an overall homogeneous response, not exactly differently interpreted. It seems that you think this just because your cousin is naive, but that is just age and him not understanding, not a different view of the lyric.
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