Who Do You Want to Be?
4 04 2017
I’m sure that many of you are familiar with Danny Elfman‘s music, and Who Do You Want to Be is not only an incredible representation of his music, it is phenomenal lyrical philosophy and social critique. From the first verse, where television is both lauded and degraded, while recognizing that life is the imperative behind all forms of communication, the song becomes saga. Everyone of us wakes up with a new day in front of us, and the choices that we make are definitive within the cosmos of existence. One of the reasons this song is saga, is that within a limited amount of time, the lyrics suggest multiple methods of manifestation within matter, with rhythm and meter equivalent to the power of Excalibur.
The idea that the song is a social critique emanates from the lines ‘Do you like to be just like a rock in the middle of the sea, do you want to suffer by yourself in a pool of blissful misery.’ The imagery created here recalls Sisyphus, while emphasizing the solitary act of creation, valueless without medium to express emotion.
The first verse takes the arrow of time, with the versatility of ouroboros, pulls a Robin Hood out of thin air by stating ‘I’ve been reborn so many times, I can’t remember them all.’ Using this line as a mirror for the rest of the song, there is a curious correlation between television and the characters being portrayed, the choices of a soul on a pilgrimage to discover it’s true self. Do you want to be pretty, or a Hun, a newscaster, or a news maker? The music provides drive and curiously, to myself an answer. BE. Not so much who, the definition has been changed so much over the years that the only prerogative is to exist. Only existence can answer the question, certainly not devised, sanitized, televised avatars created for the purpose of furthering the cause of global consumerism.
I do hope that anyone reading the blog is aware of Danny Elfman’s music, if you aren’t, take five and have a boingo break.
‘
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym2huLDA_rE
