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Song Analysis #59: Dido – Hunter

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As I have been working on my memoir and revisiting old memories, I have been reminded of times in my life when I felt like I was butting my head against the patriarchy. I am not completely at ease with “being a woman”. I doubt any free-thinking woman is. I can count and recall pivotal times in my life where I’ve thought it would have been so much easier to have been born a boy. Based on societal norms and templates, some major choices a girl confronts as she grows from a child, to a young woman, and into an adult woman greatly differ than those presented to a boy.

At this year’s SXSW, I sat in on a session starring Shirley Manson and found her thoughts on how young girls are raised to think about themselves very powerful. I, like probably every woman on the planet, has contemplated at least once (and probably at length many more times) that her primary purpose on this earth was as a decorative object and how unfair that is. Being assertive does not come naturally to young girls unless, perhaps, you have a mother or other female role model showing you that you are allowed to assert yourself. The term “weaker sex” compounds the problem, perpetuating the myth.

I rediscovered this song by Dido a few days ago, and I was reminded of how much I had loved it when it was released. As I described in the previous Music in Notes post “The Voice (no, not the tv show)”, I experience a bizarre, connective feeling when I sing or listen to certain songs. This is one of them.

Title: ‘Hunter’
Where to find it: ‘No Angel’ (1999, Arista [US], BMG [UK]); single (2001, BMG)
Performed by: Dido
Words by: could be Dido herself, her producer brother Rollo, or the two of them together

Verse 1
With one light on, in one room
I know you’re up when I get home
With one small step upon the stair
I know your look when I get there

Chorus
If you were a king, up there on your throne,
Would you be wise enough to let me go?
For this queen you think you own
Wants to be a hunter again
I want to see the world alone again
To take a chance on life again
So let me go

Verse 2
The unread book and painful look
The TV’s on, the sound is down
One long pause, then you begin
“Oh look what the cat’s brought in”

Chorus
If you were a king, up there on your throne
Would you be wise enough to let me go?
For this queen you think you own
Wants to be a hunter again
I want to see the world alone again
To take a chance on life again
So let me go
Let me leave

Bridge
For the crown you’ve placed upon my head feels too heavy now
And I don’t know what to say to you, but I’ll smile anyhow
And all the time I’m thinking, thinking

Modified chorus and outro
I want to be a hunter again
I want to see the world alone again
To take a chance on life again
So let me go
I want to be a hunter again
I want to see the world alone again
To take a chance on life again
So let me go
Let me leave
Let me go

In verse 1 of ‘Hunter’, Dido paints a very clear picture of herself (or a female protagonist) returning home to a disapproving partner. To make things easier for me in this analysis, I’m going to assume it’s Dido herself. She describes the partner still “up when I get home”, meaning she’s been out late, or later than her partner would have liked, and probably somewhere he did not want her to go. Him coming along with her that night doesn’t seem to have been an option.

For women who had strict fathers, there’s a whiff of that late-night paternal disapproval we can relate to. A father watching the clock angrily when we came in far later than curfew, the shuffling of his feet on his way to bed, the clear displeasure in his body language that we had shirked the house rules but nevertheless, at least our dads were comforted with the fact that we got home safe. Even if you discount the conveyance of this paternal feeling, Dido wants you to know that the man is in a position of power over her. She compares him to “a king, up there on your throne” and begs him to “let her go” and let her “be a hunter again” in the chorus. She believes she is a pawn to be “own”[ed], the lesser queen ‘half’ to him in the relationship.

Dido’s name comes from an ancient Greek queen. I started thinking about the Greek mythology I read in 6th grade and Artemis, sister to Apollo and the famed goddess of the hunt. (There is a separate rabbit hole you can go down if you want to read about the legend of her chastity.) Using the huntress child of Zeus as a analogy here is perfect, as Dido has lost the ability to ‘hunt’, to live life the way she wants to, presumably the way she was living before she entered into the relationship. We don’t have any further background on what their relationship is like. Are they married? Is he abusive? How long have they been unhappy together? We just don’t know. All we are afforded is this late night snapshot where she has returned to their home, he isn’t happy with her, and she says she wants her freedom and to make choices for herself again.

The lyrics in the bridge, though short, are tantalizing in their imagery. Dido sings, “for the crown you’ve placed upon my head feels too heavy now”, repeating the idea of their relationship being of king and subservient queen. It feels to me that he chose her, that he had more say in their relationship than she did. He put the figurative crown on her head and anointed her his queen. I’m imagining a couple who got together when they were stupidly young, the guy took the reins, and they both had this idea that they would have an idyllic life together.

The problem with that thinking is that life is and becomes messy. Life is also rarely linear. We go through experiences and get changed by them. Even for couples who go through a shared experience, each partner comes out the other side changed and in different ways. What worked for you and passed for love when you were a teenager isn’t the same for when you are in your twenties, trying to make your way in the world, nor is it the same after having children and reaching mid-life or later. She’s “thinking” about how things could be different if she was free. She doesn’t “know what to say to you, but I’ll smile anyhow”, pretending to him that they are fine, all the while plotting her escape.

The minor key of the song envelopes the song in a sinister fog. When I first heard ‘Hunter’, I was sure that Dido had been mistreated and was desperately trying to leave her abusive partner. Having been through a few relationships and breakups since, I have changed my position, thinking this is less likely and that the song is simply about how two people who once loved each other inevitably grew apart. She has changed so much that she feels she has to seek her independence and find herself again. She needs this.

I find when I sing this song, which was true before and still now, I am extremely sympathetic to Dido’s character. I can tap into the emotion in the outro, of how badly she wants to leave, how she has reached a breaking point in this relationship. I also want to point out where in the chorus the notes physically soar and just at the right place lyrically: “to take a chance on life again”. If you want to be even more specific, this happens right on the words “a chance”. Incredible. If you don’t believe me, scroll to 48 seconds in the stream below and prepare to be amazed. Overall, a beautifully delivered, powerful song.

Song Analysis #58: Duran Duran – Proposition (part 2)

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NB: This is part 2 of my song analysis of ‘Proposition’ from Duran Duran’s fourth album ‘Notorious’, released in 1986. I’ve decided to post this now, 2 days before the band perform at the Kennedy Space Center Tuesday night, 16 July 2019 (previewed on TGTF through here), as part of the festivities celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I recommend reading part 1 through here before diving into part 2 below.

Title: ‘Proposition’
Where to find it: ‘Notorious’, (1986, EMI/Capitol)
Performed by: Duran Duran
Words by: Simon Le Bon

Verse 1
“Bring back that child,” she said.
“Spare me the price of freedom.
Cold is my baby’s head,
blown by the wind of reason.
Even the rage behind
cries out to see
we’re still standing
under the closing edge,
pay for the crime of feeling.”

Prechorus 1
When all your pride is dead,
you must be scared instead.

Chorus
A quiet word is my proposition,
a promise made of a fierce day.
A body bleeds for this coalition,
without surrender if you stay.

Verse 2
“Show me my youth,” she cried,
wasted for desolation.
Hold up the sacrifice,
pull down your institution.
Resting while anger flies,
question’s the same.
who’s deciding?
After the clouds have lain,
shame on your generation.”

Prechorus 2
When all your guilt lies dead,
you must be scared instead.

Chorus
A quiet word is my proposition,
a promise made of a fierce day.
A body bleeds for this coalition,
without surrender if you stay.

Instrumental bridge

Prechorus 3
When all your pain lies dead,
you must be scared instead.

Chorus 2X
A quiet word is my proposition,
a promise made of a fierce day.
A body bleeds for this coalition,
without surrender if you stay.

Proposition…
Proposition…

Quite simply at the time when they hit it big in the early ‘80s, there wasn’t another band like Duran Duran. They were the complete package: they were five gorgeous, trend-setting English boys whose music was neither punk, pop, or funk. Simon’s job was to provide the words that would overlay the sonic landscapes that the four others had already come up with in the studio. I’ve always been amazed by writers who do this, as it isn’t easy trying to fit lyrics onto an already established melody. It requires you to massage syllables, either by cutting them or adding more, so they’ll fit what you’ve been given. If you have ever written poetry to fit a certain meter, you know what I’m talking about. When I write poems, I like a formal structure, such as successive iambs arranged in couplets, because then you are assured that the final result will be nice and neat. That doesn’t necessarily happen in the world of pop music.

Further, lyrics in songs are most often telling a story, either complementing the story already told through the music or coming in fresh with a story because there isn’t one in the music just yet. In the early days of Duran Duran, there was a lot of color and flavor from Andy Taylor’s guitar lines and bursts and John Taylor’s bass lines. Still, it fell on Simon to write words that would connect the songs with their audience. For sure, his lyrics over the years have garnered more than a few head scratches. Let’s revisit some of his gems from 1980-1986, some possibly familiar, some not so much:

Am I alone, or is the river alive? (‘Night Boat’)

Don’t say you’re easy on me, you’re about as easy as a nuclear war. (‘Is There Something I Should Know?’)

Funny, it’s just like a scene out of Voltaire, twisting out of sight. (‘Last Chance on a Stairway’)

And if the fires burn out, there’s only fire to blame. (‘Hold Back the Rain’)

I’m on a ride and I wanna get off, but they won’t slow down the roundabout. (‘The Reflex’)

Show me your secret and tell me your name, catch me with your fizzy smile. (‘I Take the Dice’)

Would someone please explain the reason for this strange behavior? (‘Skin Trade’)

Use your lipstick line, to color fear and loathing with a pink disguise. (‘Meet El Presidente’)

Simon was one of the first lyricists I had encountered who taught me it was okay to be oblique with the words you chose.

A few days ago, I queued ‘Proposition’ on Spotify during work, listening intently to the words for the first time in years. Of course I knew all the words. It was my favorite on ‘Notorious,’ and I had sung along to the lyrics so many times before. I even remembered where in the song to air synth Nick’s chord progressions. I can hear them and see him play them in my mind. Then I came to a terrible realization and wanted to punch myself repeatedly following an ‘aha!’ moment. What on earth? How did I miss this deeper meaning before? It seems so obvious to me now, but there was no way when I was a naive girl raised in a middle class suburb that I would have seen it. Now that I can see what’s inside, the song is more beautiful to me than ever before.

Before a single word is spoken, ‘Proposition’ begins with a series of aggressive keyboard chords, brass notes, and guitar tones. The introduction is a fanfare for the serious nature of what’s come. It seems perfect for the song’s title. I mean, what does the word ‘proposition’ conjure up in your head? For me, it makes me think of business arrangements, often unsavory ones, and putting yourself in situations you’re trying to get out of.

Years ago, I thought verse 1 was describing a woman in the war-torn Eastern Bloc and the difficulties of raising a child in that environment. “Bring back that child,” she said. / “Spare me the price of freedom”: those are the words of a woman who has made a painful decision to keep her child despite the cost of raising said child in a dangerous place. The epiphany I had last week about ‘Proposition’ is this. It’s not about that rough-faced mother in behind the Berlin Wall at all. It’s about the fight for a child who was either going to be given up for adoption or may have been lost in an abortion.

A woman has just given up the baby she just gave birth to and is now having second thoughts about giving the child away. “Cold is my baby’s head / blown by the wind of reason”: the baby is being given up for adoption for “the reason” presumably that the young mother cannot reasonably take care of it. It’s unclear whose rage is noted: is it the rage of her own parents about the child being born out of wedlock, or of the mother being forced to give up her own child? Regardless of who’s rage it is, “we’re still standing / under the closing edge / pay for the crime of feeling.” The “crime of feeling”, doesn’t that get you right in the gut? A ‘close’, the conclusion of a prior agreement, is about to occur, and the feels are gut-wrenching.

Then we go into one of three prechoruses of the song, each of them structured similarly, but there’s one major difference in the first half of each. In prechorus 1, the lyrics are “When all your pride is dead, / you must be scared instead.” Let us go over the other two, as to illustrate the importance of word choice. Prechorus 2 stars, “When all your guilt lies dead.” Prechorus 3 starts, “When all your pain lies dead.” Pride, guilt, pain, these are all clearly terrible emotions. We’ll come back to these, as well as the chorus.

Verse 2 gives more credence to the idea of adoption and abortion. The young mother lost her childlike innocence when she became pregnant. “Show me my youth,” she cried, “wasted for desolation”: her youth is gone but now without her child, she is left desolate. Desolate is an interesting choice to describe a woman, too. When I think of a desolate landscape, I think of a barren desert. Did the young woman have complications during her pregnancy that have left her unable to have any more children? That would make the pain of separation from her child and the forced adoption that much more painful. “Who’s deciding? After the clouds have lain / shame on your generation”: this is an indictment of the woman’s parents and of the decision to put the child up for adoption was out of her hands and made without her consultation.

Let’s now tackle the chorus:
A quiet word is my proposition,
a promise made of a fierce day.
A body bleeds for this coalition,
without surrender if you stay.

“A quiet word is my proposition” and “Without surrender if you stay”: is it possible that the young woman resigned herself to staying in a loveless relationship with the baby’s father in order to keep the baby and prevent the adoption? In political parlance, a coalition is an alliance. If “a body bleeds for this coalition,” meaning her body, does that mean that her heart was bleeding that she was placed in this awful position? Or is it literal, as in she would be bleeding and lose the baby if she was forced to have an abortion?

I want to revisit those three emotions in the prechoruses: pride, guilt, and pain. Regardless of the outcome for the woman, the prechoruses ensure a clear message: once you lie down and resign yourself to what has happened, e.g., “When all your pain lies dead,” that means you are no longer feeling anything. You are numb. You are dead inside. But why? Simon thinks, “you must be scared instead.” Too scared to admit the pride, guilt, and pain of this heart-wrenching situation. You’ve given up. I don’t think the word choice of ‘dead’ is a coincidence, lending further credence to the possible connection to abortion.

It might be a stretch to connect the two, but given the tumultuous time in Duran Duran with Andy and Roger leaving, I’m wondering if this song was an allegory written by Simon to reflect the desire to keep everyone together. He (and John and Nick?) cared too much and was holding on the emotional baggage, yet he knew, ultimately, that they were never going to keep Duran Duran the five-piece together.

Duran Duran were bleeding but when they came out of the other side of ‘Notorious’, they’d birthed a new lineup, and a fresh new era. Like the face of ‘Proposition’, the young woman who had given up her child, she had plenty of fight left in her. So did Duran Duran. And a global nation of Duranies is grateful.

Sadly, no video for this perfect song, so you’ll have to make do with a stream. Don’t let that stop you from discovering (or rediscovering) this ’80s gem.

Song Analysis #58: Duran Duran – Proposition (part 1)

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NB: This and the one that follows are specially timed posts, as Duran Duran will be performing at a special late night show at the Kennedy Space Center this coming Tuesday night as part of NASA’s Apollo 11 moon landing celebrations (preview on TGTF here). It is just about killing me that I cannot attend, not only because I am a Duranie, but because NASA and Duran Duran have a special connection for me.

My father worked at NASA Goddard for most of his career as a physicist, and he was well aware of my Duran obsession when I was in college. A few months before I graduated, he asked me what I wanted for a graduation present. Most other kids would have asked for a car or money. I asked for a trip to Japan to see Duran Duran play, and he took me to Tokyo to do just that. My father passed 15 years ago and while he is no longer here physically, my bet is that he’ll be at the show in spirit because he knows how much they mean to me. He’ll probably be doing his silly made up dance that he would always trot out when I was home on the weekends and I was blasting one of their tunes in the house.

I am currently taking stock of past experiences and relationships while I am putting together the stories and chapters that will eventually lead to my compilation of a memoir. Over 5 years ago, I did an analysis of a Duran Duran song from their 1993 self-titled LP that everyone knows colloquially as “The Wedding Album” so to not confuse it with their actual debut album, also self-titled. The song I had chosen at the time was ‘None of the Above’, which I used to play at very high volume in my dorm room. It was one of my personal psych up songs, something I would use to give myself confidence, as when I was young, confidence was in very short supply.

I have been thinking about Duran Duran in the last month. Somehow it had passed me by, or perhaps somewhere along the way I had forgotten that John Taylor had written an autobiography in 2012. Back in May, I devoured it in an evening, and my thoughts on the book are on yet another one of my blogs over here. Like many fans over the years, John was my favorite. I was 19, the internet was here, and you could lose yourself online in ‘80s photos and pretend you were there when the adorable John Taylor in his early 20s was making girls cry around the world. Unfortunately, at the time I became a fan of the band in 1999, John was no longer part of the band. Although I quickly and easily became a fan of his solo work, I needed to choose another favorite band member. I settled on his best friend Nick Rhodes. Who doesn’t love a dapper, brainy musician with a mischievous sense of humor?


for 5 years 2 decades ago, these were the two most important men in my life

Over the last 2 weeks, I came to the realization that although I had been a Duran obsessive in the early 2000s, I have been giving their singer and lyricist Simon Le Bon short shrift all these years. I had been looking at the band and their contributions as a whole and when I wasn’t, I would focus on John’s bass playing – simply incredible (most bass players speak of ‘Rio’ but check out with ‘Last Chance on a Stairway’ – !!!) – or Nick’s keyboard stabs and arpeggios because I had played piano for years. I guess it never occurred to me to focus on Simon because well, being the lead singer, it seemed like he wasn’t exactly starving for attention, right? The post that follows in an hour hopes to address and make up for my egregious oversight all these years.

To understand ‘Proposition’ and 1986’s ‘Notorious’ album, you first need to consider the enormous pressure Duran Duran were under. It was a difficult record for Duran Duran to make, to say the least. ‘Notorious’ followed the monumental commercial achievements of ‘Duran Duran,’ ‘Rio,’ and ‘Seven and the Ragged Tiger’, all of which were global successes. But no band can stay on top permanently. It is impossible. If you know anything about the band’s trajectory from when they started with the classic lineup in 1978, then you are aware that from 1979 to 1984, they didn’t really ever slow down.

Everyone wanted a piece of them and when you’re young, hungry, and eager to make it, you make the mistake of thinking you have to say yes to everything. By the time ‘Seven…’ was released, they were all pretty cheesed off of where the fame machine had gotten them. They were run off their feet by contractual agreements, and they couldn’t step outside of the house without getting mobbed. They were not enjoying the hurricane of fame they now found themselves in the center of. Some of the band dealt with it better than others. John’s coping mechanism was drinking a lot and doing a lot of drugs.

I did not know until I read John’s book that it was their managers Paul and Michael Berrow who decided to kick ‘Duran Duran’ and ‘Rio’ producer Colin Thurston to the curb for album #3, not the band. American Alex Sadkin, who had made his name producing Grace Jones and Bob Marley, was given the keys to the studio, along with Ian Little, who had produced earlier UK chart-topping single ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’ The band thought that they needed to mix things up for creative reasons and to stay vital in the industry, and ‘Seven…’ certainly moved the needle for them. Most original Duranies I know love the album; I can take it or leave it when I consider against some of their later, less famous albums that I think are infinitely better. I think the best thing about ‘Seven…’ is the back cover art (sorry for the quality, but check out that gorgeous painting):

cover art

‘Notorious’ was the first release of the ‘big three’ era of Simon, John, and Nick. Following Live Aid, drummer Roger Taylor left, citing exhaustion. Lead guitarist Andy Taylor was no longer part of Duran Duran but for a much less sympathetic reason: his personal talent being built up by the music industry in Los Angeles, he was persuaded into a solo career, but not before he had strung Simon, John, and Nick along, making them think he would return to them to work on Duran Duran’s fourth album. When they finally realized he wasn’t coming back, there was reasonable anger. To this day, some fans, including myself, have an axe to grind with Andy over this.

Given the internal turmoil in the band, it isn’t surprising that the ‘Notorious’ sessions led to a collection of songs that had a negative bent. If you look hard enough in the lyrics, all of them have sinister connotations. Title track ‘Notorious’ addresses the tabloid rumor mill and takes a side swipe at Andy for good measure (“Who really gives a damn for a flaky bandit?”). ‘Skin Trade’ was Simon’s way of explaining that as humans, we all whore and sell ourselves out, one way or another (the band talk about how it was made here). ‘Winter Marches On’ is a dirge. ‘So Misled’ is obvious, isn’t it? ‘Vertigo (Do the Demolition)’ is a song about drug use and Simon sings, “do the dance, do the demolition / and lose the chance to hear ’cause you don’t listen,” as if something needed to be blown up and destroyed before any real change was to occur. Was Simon being reactionary against the industry who no longer wanted anything to do with Duran Duran, who they now considered washed up after their fans’ initial hysteria? Was he pissed off about what had happened with Andy and Roger? Or was he frustrated that one of his best friends, John Taylor, was losing himself to cocaine? Probably all three.

On most days, ‘Notorious’ is my favorite Duran Duran album. I admire them for taking a bad situation, figuring a way out of it, and coming up with a set of thought-provoking, toe-tapping songs that sounded nothing like their earlier albums. With the richness of the tracks owing to production by Nile Rodgers, the addition of a brash brass section, and their willingness to experiment, it’s the turning point at which I say Duran Duran, now a trio, grew up. Last track ‘Proposition’ was always my favorite.

“Blown by the wind of reason” from ‘Proposition’ was one of my favorite lyrics of Simon’s; I used it as the title of the essay collection page of the Duran Duran fan site I had built on Geocities, working on it late at night at school. (I’m sad to say that I think I didn’t bother to pull the text from my essays on the band before Geocities went bust in 2009. If I have them, they’re on an old 3.5” disk somewhere in my house.) ‘Proposition’ is powerful and catchy at the same time, so what’s not to love? The original Duranies may have hated it, but the band could do no wrong in this era in my eyes. As I entered my 20s, I had drawn up a backstory to the song in my mind, that Simon was singing about Eastern Europe during the Cold War and the sacrifices women made in those desperate times. Remember, the Berlin Wall didn’t fall until 1989, 3 years after ‘Notorious’ was released. Maybe with all the coverage on the atrocities in Kosovo in 1998-1999 on the news had affected my young mind.

Song analysis on deck for 11 AM this morning EDT. Stay tuned…