I happened to come across the “In the Air Tonight” scene from the pilot for the old TV series Miami Vice the other day (below). For those who aren’t familiar with the show and the scene (and yet still care), there is of course a wiki page for it, as there is for nearly everything involving pop culture. What struck me when watching the scene was the bizarre stop off in the middle of the lead up to the climax of the pilot. One minute they are cruising along in Crockett’s Ferrari with Tubbs loading his shotgun, and then suddenly they take a pit-stop into the land of divorce drama:
During the long drive towards the inevitable confrontation with Calderone and his goons, Crockett pulls over at a desolate phonebooth to call his ex-wife Caroline, asking her if their relationship was “real”, knowing this may be his last chance to speak to her. She confirms that it was. As the climactic drum crash of the song kicks in, Crockett and Tubbs pull away, their minds now focused on the impending showdown with their nemesis.
This is just a cheesy TV show, but it does give a sense for how immersed our culture is in the embrace of frivolous divorce and the elevation of romantic love (with the accompanying obsession over accurately identifying “true love”). These themes weren’t new 30 years ago when the episode aired, and of course now we have Christian movie makers picking up the mantle teaching the same themes, only darker. Still, it struck me that a scene I had enjoyed so much as a teenager had this painfully awkward chick crack moment welded into the middle of it and I hadn’t recalled that this was the case.
There is a bit of irony here as well, since Phil Collins wrote the song while going through a divorce:
What exactly is ‘In The Air Tonight’ about?
I don’t know what this song is about. When I was writing this I was going through a divorce. And the only thing I can say about it is that it’s obviously in anger. It’s the angry side, or the bitter side of a separation.
Divorce issues aside, it’s a very cool song, especially with the bass and the volume cranked. And its use in that scene was a very effective marriage (ha!) of music, visuals (that black Ferrari!), and situation/mood. I’ve never forgotten it in the 30 years since. Didn’t remember the mid-drive phone call though.
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I thought the scene where they used Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” was very powerful. That’s the one scene that sticks in my head after all these years, where the girl gets killed at the end of the music. The black choir in the background of that song that builds up to its conclusion still makes chills go down my back. They used to make some wonderful music back in the Eighties.
Good tune… Wow, 30 years ago… I was enjoying women both older, and younger than me. So it was a great time… Now those “older” women are 15+ years younger… But, it’s still a great time to be alive…
The thing is Dalrock, frivorce is just so….. commonplace now that scenes like what you describe, that phone call scene in a cheesey tv show, far too many people can relate to them. Of course a man is going to ask that of his ex-wife provided she is the one that wanted the frivorce and there didn’t seem to be any real motive on her part to do so as a result of any kind of failing on his part.
Arguably the greatest movie ever made, The Shawshank Redemption, we find even at the end of the movie, the innocent-of-murder-but-19-years-incarcerated Andy Dufraine (Tim Robbins) is confiding to his best friend Red (Morgan Freeman) that he admits to killing his wife (figuratively, not literally) by “not being there/pushing her away” (whatever-the-f-ck that means) thus excusing her infidelity with the golf pro. It was a giant beta-male-hamsterization gone turbo. It made me sick just hearing it. And then Freeman whiteknights for Andy’s late wife and calls his friend “…a bad husband, maybe.” It was pure feminist imperative.
Perhaps not so long ago, it was assumed (rightly or wrongly) that if a woman divorced her husband, OF COURSE he HAD to have been beating her OR he HAD to have been cheating on her. She simply wouldn’t leave him because she was unhaaaaappppppy. Everyone knew (back in the day) that simple unhappiness was no excuse for divorce (for him or her) and of course, because women were morally superior to men (girls are good and boys are bad) women aren’t going to divorce a man frivolously. That was then. This is now. Now frivorce is just much too common. I could write ten books about all the men I knew whose wives frivorced them for any number of reasons that did NOT include physical violence or adultery on his part.
So yeah, there are probably a lot of guys walking around this planet, signing those alimony and child support checks wondering it it was real? Or maybe he was just a fool for indulging in marriage in the first place? I am happily married. But it gets harder and harder each day to justify marriage (2.0) to single men who have not yet had to wonder if it was real or not.
The sun has gone down. It’s a time for dark deeds and nothing less than death is on the line. Our hero (Son) knows what he must do, but he doesn’t know why, or what it all means. How did it come to this?
He pulls over by an old building. Its sign calls out to souls in need of comfort. Sonny steps into the booth, and speaks to a voice whose owner he cannot see.
“I need to know something…it was real, wasn’t it?”
The answer comes back, “Yeah it was. …Sonny, what’s wrong?”
Son paused before he answer the hidden voice.
Thinking of the sins he’s about to commit, Sonny pauses. “Nothing.”. He steps back out into the night.
Immersed in romantic love, indeed; as in “baptized unto”.
As a man that has had the red pill and actually looked at the truth. No it wasn’t real and it was a lie. That is why she divorced and the government, the church ,and culture cheered her on. It wasn’t real.
Speaking of songs that have a completely different meaning post Red Pill, in my blue pill days I used to love “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by REO Speedwagon. Now I recognize it as impossibly beta and a first class ticket to the Friend Zone. It is sad, though, to realize that – but can’t fight reality.
Red pill blue pill and music. This song has me laughing This is a married men’s beer drinking song.
Looking at the carnage of the end of my 24 year marriage, in the dead of night I asked myself the same question. Who ever wrote that bit for the show must have been through it, I’ll bet many men went to their deaths knowing the answer because they just couldn’t live with it.
There are so many bands I can barely listen to now. I can’t read magazines or watch movies now without taking off my Red Pill glasses. Tanks for nuttin.
Was it real? It was ALWAYS as real as her feelings. Feels before reals.
“When you told me you were drowning, I’ll not lend a hand…”
From memory Phil Collins had the biggest divorce settlement in history – $59 million.
One questions what his wife contributed to their combined fortune. Did she write/ perform songs? Play instruments? Headlock record producers?
He was widely criticized at the time for divorcing his wife by fax. From the looks of the settlement, even that was probably charitable.
Speaking of Phil Collins, here is a song that was the story of my marriage,
More than anything else, that scene makes me think of the things that men sometimes HAVE TO DO(in particular young men), and often times freely choose to do it.
The idea we have of romantic love is at best a fairy tale. Feelings come and go…so we can’t base reality on that. We get the accurate representation of what true love is this Friday.
‘I thought the scene where they used Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” was very powerful.’
Foreigner has a lot of those type of songs.
You know, that scene in Miami Vice would have been flat out intense and incredible if he had stopped to call his wife to tell her he loved her and to ask about his kid, but (hero style), keep her from knowing that he was riding into danger.
But, John Wayne died in 1979.
Best use of “In the Air Tonigh” train scence from risky business. Just saying….
Thinking of a few blue pill laments that were great songs that sound a lot different from the red pill point of view, try these:
“I’m So Afraid” by Fleetwood Mac (written and sung by Lindsey Buckingham. did that come from his breakup with Stevie Nicks? don’t remember and not looking it up)
“Woman In Love” by Tom Petty (edit, just found this was written by Barry and Alan Gibb, but Petty does the best cover). Just heard this one last week after not having heard it since my blue pill days and now it’s “wow, listen to the classic blue pill lyrics”. Here’s a free sample:
Time after time, night after night
She would look up at me
And say she was lonely
I don’t understand the world today
I don’t understand what she needed
I gave her everything she threw it all away
On nothin’
I thought the scene where they used Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is” was very powerful.
I’d like to change the words just a bit:
I wanna sammich right now…
And I want you to make it…
Nobody did breakup songs like good ol’ Phil. My favorite. Soundtrack of Rollo’s sentence “Men love idealistically and women love opportunistically”
The Red Pill does kill most popular music. It also slaughters most “Christian” music in the process, as well. But, old Hymns, symphonies and a willingness to pick out competent Christian artists has solved most of that problem.
A Lexicon Of Social Justice
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/03/24/a-lexicon-of-social-justice/
“was it real?” was just too vague a question. I hate this kind of chick crack horse shit in media and everywhere else. It’s not about anything, absolutely nothing. “it”? It being love? Sincerity? Commitment? Orgasms? And who’s? He already knows if he loved her sincerely, how about ask her- ‘Lady, did you actually love me sincerely or were you just in love with the idea of giving marriage and family a try, just a try?
Divorce courts are filled with couples who a few years before Luuuuved each other with a special, deep, once in a lifetime kinda love. The love they had was going to transcend the ages and last forever except now they hate each other and want to tear the throats out of the other. Is that hate real? You better believe it.
I remember as a younger man really loving women I dated, said so and was told so. Without exception my feeling now regarding every last one of them is apathy. I wish them no ill at all but truly couldn’t care less to hear of or know how they are, indifference, give’ a damn. Was it real back then? I can only speak for myself, for me love was real at the time, now it’s gone. Love is like a fire, it burns hot and stays hot only if its fueled, fed, nurtured. You neglect a fire long enough it eventually goes cold. I’m not sure if I can even remember how to build one now, not sure I even care.
Speaking of song lyrics, we can’t overlook this redpill classic from Queen:
There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man
And bring him to the ground
You can beat him, you can cheat him
You can treat him bad and leave him when he’s down
But I’m ready, yes, I’m ready for you
I’m standing on my own two feet
Out of the doorway the bullets rip
Repeating to the sound of the beat
Frivorce is certainly nothing new. Actually rates peaked in 1980 after no-fault came in during the 1970s, so at the time of this TV episode I guess it was still a hot cultural issue rather than taken for granted as it is today.
The real frontman of Genesis, along with my still and always favourite, in a song that shows what men wish were real,
I heard “You’re So Vain” the other day and I thought how she was chastising him for thinking the song was about him when it really was about him.
@BPP & LG
Last night I heard Zepplin’s “Battle of Evermore” for the first time in at least a decade, and I ruminated that there is an inverse correlation between good music and lyrics about love affairs.
@Spike
“Check” this out.
http://nypost.com/2015/01/12/tycoons-ex-cashes-975-million-check-but-still-plans-appeal/
He already knows if he loved her sincerely, how about ask her- ‘Lady, did you actually love me sincerely or were you just in love with the idea of giving marriage and family a try, just a try?
The Granddaddy of all rhetorical questions.
@DeNihilist
Wow. This song is outstanding. Too bad the words of the female voice do not correspond to reality. But the music is excellent and the male condition is depicted masterfully
Here’s a rehash of an old song I loved as a kid. Dedicated to all those [damned good] ex-wives: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pr4EEsiR_Ao
The words don’t start until 3:18
Comments are interesting, particularly the one by “Michael Harris.”
Director Michael Mann is notorious for his style over substance approach to filmmaking. The substance part, so far as it can be discriminated from the style, is a PoMo notion of chivalry just barely keeping abreast of nihilism. As it is, he’s created some shockingly nihilistic scenes, none perhaps more viscerally disturbing than the clifftop suicide in The Last of the Mohicans which, iirc, is his invention.
Mann’s work is full of these portentous (if you dig them) or pretentious (if you don’t) kinds of moments. Natalie Portman’s suicide attempt in “Heat”, which brings Pacino and his (rather androgynous) wife to the realization they can never work out their marriage, before Pacino goes off to finally square off with De Niro. De Niro [NB: I should toss off a mild Spoiler Alert by now] walking away from his new love, throwing off his last chance at a clean break. Ashlee Judd, likewise, waiving off her beloved bad boy, Val Kilmer, forever.
Was it chick-bait? I don’t know. I suppose Mann thought that phone call loaned some sort of tragic gravity, a small revelation from the still-beating heart of his deadly-cool Armani-clad knight. Or maybe it’s just a kind of chic empty pose– a simulacrum of real emotion, something meant to linger for a moment in the viewer’s consciousness like a wisp of smoke. Heartfelt nonchalance?–“badass”, the fanboys will say. I can almost dig it myself. But arguably, the characters are just ciphers with cool toys. “You take it on the run, baby.”
@Cane Caldo
March 31, 2015 at 12:45 am
Thanks for that. My information is out of date.
Sue Anne Arnall: $975 million, and it’s STILL not enough.
At least John Cleese called his comedy tour “The Alimony Tour” to get back at his wife
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/31/john-cleese-divorce-_n_4705562.html
Collins: the boy from Chiswick, and I have to confess that I once purchased one of his singles, but in my defence it was his cover of that old Motown number You can’t hurry love.
A few months ago I was in the bar when I was introduced to a chap – a chef – who works on the super-yachts and he was saying that Collins (married and divorced thrice) and his latest paramour, a black female anchor (Manosphere types please note the hypergamy: rock stars rate higher than successful anchors) were on the yacht, and that he was, as one might guess, a likable down to earth person; a regular geezer as Tam-the-Bam might say, even though Collins background is middle-class.
What, however, struck me about the clip, was not how cool Johnson was, his ‘token’ buddy the Ferrari or the music, but how Americans always seem to end phone conversations without saying goodbye. You really don’t.
On another note, it is never the woman’s fault. Again. Even though the “Christian” woman admitted that she consciously made wrong choices, it must be God’s fault for creating the opportunity for her to make those wrong choices. Even after she had her “breakthrough” with God, she simply realized how “thirsty” she was for God, not how sinful and unrepentant she was.
…Thankfully, God did not hold back his hands from my heart. My relationship with Andy did not end with me having been seen, known, or loved at all. Instead it ended with me having been used and tossed aside and left to carry the shame of the choices I made. I went through a period of serious depression and anger. How could God allow a man like Andy to come along and mess with my heart right at the time when I was at my lowest physically, emotionally, and spiritually?…
O, this god. He really needs to get his acts together soon.
Link:
https://fastpray.wordpress.com/2015/03/08/guest-post-joy-through-pain/
Lucius Somesuch says:
March 31, 2015 at 3:03 am
I suppose Mann thought that phone call loaned some sort of tragic gravity, a small revelation from the still-beating heart of his deadly-cool Armani-clad knight.
this.
thematically, Crockett is doing all of the ‘frivolous, little boy’ things that guys love to do. fast cars, cool clothes, the brooding facade.
he drops off in the middle to make phone call to ‘reality’, to his wife + kids ( because she ALWAYS has the kids ) to GET A SCRAP OF APPROVAL from her. “yes, you actually used to be important to me”.
then he heads off into the darkness to do more ‘little boy’ ( bright explosions, loud noises, playing cowboys and indians ) stuff.
If we take these truths to be self evident:
“Men love idealistically and women love opportunistically”
Women are irrational.
Women have a feral nature.
We are left with the uncomfortable realization that IT’S NEVER REAL. Rollo calls this the “men will never be loved by women they way men want to be loved.”
Because there is exactly ONE woman who loves a man how he wishes to be… his own mother.
And in my experience… it’s a stretch to always assume ones mother loves idealistically,
‘The Red Pill does kill most popular music. It also slaughters most “Christian” music in the process, as well. But, old Hymns, symphonies and a willingness to pick out competent Christian artists has solved most of that problem.’
I don’t listen to most mainstream Christian music. Is the lyrics praising God or praising something else?
‘Love is like a fire, it burns hot and stays hot only if its fueled, fed, nurtured. You neglect a fire long enough it eventually goes cold. I’m not sure if I can even remember how to build one now, not sure I even care.’
I’d agree with the first couple sentences…that last one though sounds like despair.
This is why we don’t place our hope in women.
‘Because there is exactly ONE woman who loves a man how he wishes to be… his own mother.’
Yup. The best you can expect from your wife is respect…because she can’t love you like a mother (nor should she). And given the time we live in a respectful wife is a rarity.
Who needs gooey romantic feelings and wondering if they were real…respect is something tangible.
I remember Phil Collins once talking about going through a divorce while writing this song, and it being about the anger and bitterness. Songs can of course mean different things to different people. “In the Air Tonight” is a popular song and with its themes of angst, anticipation, tension, revenge, comeuppance and urgency, it’s used a lot in TV shows to convey all of those things. For example, “The Americans” is a series set in the early 1980s, about KGB sleeper/deep cover agents operating in the US. In that show, “In the Air Tonight” is played under the protagonists having sex after disposing of a Soviet defector to the US.
Pardon the inturruption: One of your readers was asking me about this. It’s the commercial version of DNA testing to tailor psychiatric medication regimens more effectively. It has finally been rolled out as a product on the open market.
http://genesight.com/
Carry on.
“I don’t listen to most mainstream Christian music. Is the lyrics praising God or praising something else?”
Contemporary Christian music is characterized by two main things: (1) its attempts to imitate popular music and (2) extolling the “personal relationship with Jesus” meme. For men it’s “Jesus as friend, as big brother”. For women it’s “Jesus as Boyfriend”. For both it’s “Jesus as provider” — “look at all the cool things Jesus did for me and all the cool stuff Jesus gave me”.
Very little about praise, worship, God’s greatness, man’s humility and brokenness, God’s worthiness, man’s unworthiness, etc.
I think there’s a difference between Christian Rock/Music and Praise Music. It could just be in my mind, of course.
As the creators of South Park noted, just take a love song and replace “baby” with “Jesus” and you have a Christian Rock hit.
Praise music, the type on my local AM station, is more focused on, well, praise and less on the singer. There’s some crossover on the station, of course.
Frivorce is certainly nothing new. Actually rates peaked in 1980 after no-fault came in during the 1970s, so at the time of this TV episode I guess it was still a hot cultural issue rather than taken for granted as it is today.
I agree. It was a very live issue culturally in the 70s and 80s whereas it is a cultural non-event today (other than among the chattering classes who are now worried about the unmarried morlocks rebelling at some stage).
I don’t listen to popular music any longer for enjoyment — mostly classical now with some classic rock mixed in. But I do come across some of it in observing the ambient culture, and some contemporary music is very red pill, or, rather, confirms the red pill and Rollo’s idea that open hypergamy is now the norm (i.e., not even trying to conceal it any longer). Taylor Swift’s music comes to mind here, and seems relevant because she seems to be the most popular of the pop artists currently. Her music is popular because many young women and girls either directly identify with her lyrics or fantasize about being able to do so. She seems to have ratcheted this up with her new move from crossover to mainstream pop. Here’s an example, from the song “Blank Space”, which seems to have been a big hit:
Nice to meet you
Where you been?
I could show you incredible things
Magic, madness, heaven, sins
Saw you there and I thought oh my god
Look at that face, you look like my next mistake
Love’s a game, wanna play
New money, suit and tie
I can read you like a magazine
Ain’t it funny rumors fly
And I know you heard about me
So hey, let’s be friends
I’m dying to see how this one ends
Grab your passport and my hand
I can make the bad guys good for a weekend
So it’s gonna be forever
Or it’s gonna go down in flames
You can tell me when it’s over
If the high was worth the pain
Got a long list of ex-lovers
They’ll tell you I’m insane
Cause you know I love the players
And you love the game
Now, of course, she’s talking about her penchant for exacting vengeance on the very players she is drawn to by writing about them in disparaging ways in subsequent songs, hence using them to fill “blank space” on a page by writing about what asses they are. But the key is the open admission that she seeks them out, and her attitude towards this. No pretense of being interested in good guys at all — not even on the table. That’s what open hypergamy looks like, folks — and not only will she get her kicks, but she’ll also kick you in the balls in her next song’s lyrics after she’s done with you, and you will eat it up by buying her records. Perhaps the most audaciously offensive pop performer of recent memory, really.
Her other big recent hit. “Shake it Off”, has similar sentiments yet in a pushier vein — the theme being that she can do WTF she wants sexually/romantically and you can just shut up about it TYVM — surely a rallying cry of the young CC set. It’s basically music-to-ride-the-CC-to, for all practical purposes.
Just more data points to confirm the observations of the culture being made by various people in the manosphere.
@Nova
She actually is delivering a triple entendre: the blank space in her time, the next blank space in her grimoire of revenge, and the blank space between her legs.
“This is just a cheesy TV show, but it does give a sense for how immersed our culture is in the embrace of frivolous divorce and the elevation of romantic love (with the accompanying obsession over accurately identifying “true love”…).
———————————————————————————————————————————-
Hmmmmm. I dunno – divorce is a huge part of the occupational hazards of law enforcement. Don’t they have the highest rate of marital break ups of all the occupations? They have to be close to the top, I imagine. Women crave security; and men with dangerous jobs tend to have rocky relations with them as a result. In addition, the shift work and ungodly hours take a toll. The argument might be made that this was an attempt to inject some realism into an otherwise crappy TV show.
I may get a wedgie from the cool kids for saying so…but if some mere job was effing with my marriage I would quit and do something else. Mind you – I am a happily married man so what do I know…?
Divorce: The man is placed in the friend’s bucket while his assets, children. and home are placed with his former wife. And the state apparatus gets a huge cut.
“Women crave security”
Incomplete. Married women with children at home crave the security a beta provider’s job and money give her.
Single women with children crave the security a government welfare check, a church’s white knights and food pantry, and policemen with guns, provide.
She actually is delivering a triple entendre: the blank space in her time, the next blank space in her grimoire of revenge, and the blank space between her legs.
A true trifecta.
Back in the day, before my career took off, I remember opening for Phil Collins, and witnessing him being all sad over his divorce.
Well, inspired by Phil’s melancholy, da GBFM wrote a song–a little ditty about a certain rule men should strive to follow:
lzozozlozozmzgz lzolzozolz
and then a unicorn appears and a glimmer of hope appears, far, far in the west, as the sun is setting.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/alabama-moms-facebook-apology-kids-movie-behavior-brings/story?id=30007225&cid=fb_abcn_sf
Did you know that Genesis wrote the greatest Christian rock song in history?
‘As the creators of South Park noted, just take a love song and replace “baby” with “Jesus” and you have a Christian Rock hit.’
That’s what I was thinking. Turning Jesus into your personal boyfriend instead of praising Him as your Messiah.
The only thing that is even remotely close to Jesus’s boyfriend is the church…and that’s actually His bride.
‘Divorce: The man is placed in the friend’s bucket while his assets, children. and home are placed with his former wife. And the state apparatus gets a huge cut.’
If you want to know the REAL reason why the state encourages divorce.
Got to get them fiat dollars somehow.
So long as we are posting great breakup songs this one is the best of all time:
This could be the Red Pill anthem: REO Speedwagon: Time For Me to Fly-
I’ve been around for you
I’ve been up and down for you
But I just can’t get any relief
I’ve swallowed my pride for you
I’ve lived and lied for you
But you still make me feel like a thief
You got me stealing your love away
‘Cause you never give it
Peeling the years away
And we can’t relive it
I make you laugh
And you make me cry
I believe it’s time for me to fly
You said we’d work it out
You said that you had no doubt
That deep down we were really in love
Oh, but I’m tired of holding on
To a feeling I know is gone
I do believe that I’ve had enough
I’ve had enough of the falseness
Of a worn out relation
Enough of the jealousy
And the in toleration
I make you laugh
And you make me cry
I believe it’s time for me to fly
{Refrain} Time for me to fly
Oh, I’ve got to set myself free
Time for me to fly
And that’s just how it’s got to be
I know it hurts to say goodbye
But it’s time for me to fly
Oh, don’t you know it’s…
It’s time for me to fly
@BPP
Stop. Put down the Speedwagon, and step away!
The man said,
~ “Black Dog”, by Led Zeppelin
Alternatively, I can see a strong contender from The Nug’
~ “Stranglehold”, Ted Nugent
I find modern praise music infuriating, due to its lame, repetitive imagery, monotonous “everything is nice, lovey lovey God love” language, formlessness, and poor rhymes. I started counting when I found a legitimate rhyme, vs. a half or completely failed rhyme; the ratio is about 1 good rhyme to 3-5 bad ones. I almost find it insulting that they bother to rhyme at all — if they know that rhyming is important, why do they only bother to do it occasionally? I also started counting how often the theme changes, which is usually 3-5 times per song (as opposed to actual good hymns, in which one theme is explored in detail). When Katy Perry has a better ratio of solid rhymes in her songs (or at least the songs that were written for her) than these people do, there’s something seriously wrong.
I keep thinking — would you build the preacher’s pulpit so poorly? Would you build the stage at the front of the church so shoddily? If not, why would you use this slapdash, garbage music? Why would you put less effort into the music you use to praise God than you would in building the pews the faithful sit in? Why would you accept badly made music if you wouldn’t accept a dais that leans, or an organ that’s way out of tune?
I can’t listen, watch or read anything anymore without analyzing it RP or BP. I thank God that my wife and daughter are coming along. My son is on board, but confused between extreme RP game as a teenager and christian ethics. He is naturally RP, so as a teenager teaching him christian principles with beta boys, white knights and feminist christian girls is like balancing on the fulcrum of a teeter-totter.
My wife hates when I point out minute “benign” (to her) things that pastors say that perpetuate the myth of good girl, woman/bad boy, man. She is seeing it at times when I don’t and I literally startle now when she sees it. Cool!
After being frivolously divorced and wrecked emotionally, and after the ex- dumps the beta bux husband #2 and ‘forgets’ to take her birth control and so is impregnated by husband #1 (whom she wants to re-marry), a Good Man stands up for his woman. Now that she wants him back, why he oughta get a mortgage and start changing diapers. So says Rachel Lu. (Raylon Givens, Justified.)
Who also says: after his sister-in-law shoots his brother, and after he pairs up with the shooting sister, and after she becomes a confidential informant for the people who are trying to put him in prison for decades, and after she sexes up the lawman pursuing him, why he oughta get a mortgage and retire that woman to suburbia. So says Rachel Lu. (Boyd Crowder, Justified.)
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/31/what-justified-really-says-about-modern-manhood-and-westerns/#disqus_thread
A more thoughtful view:
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/31/what-justified-really-says-about-modern-manhood-and-westerns/#disqus_thread
More redpill comments on both stories than one would have thought.
My son is on board, but confused between extreme RP game as a teenager and christian ethics. He is naturally RP, so as a teenager teaching him christian principles with beta boys, white knights and feminist christian girls is like balancing on the fulcrum of a teeter-totter.
Jeff–this would be worth a discussion board all its own. I know I can’t control him, but sometimes when he regurgitates the secular PUA/game stuff, I cringe. However, he does the teetering you speak of and here is the thing: since I created this monster, the overall effect has been greater accountability, greater empathy for those who “can’t see” and more interest in things spiritual.
I would love to continue this elsewhere. I wonder where?
Apologies. This is the correct link for the Rachel Lu story. I would read this one first, then the Davidson follow-up, which is less deranged.
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/25/what-justified-reveals-about-manhood/
Jeff,
As do I. It just frightens me how much of the world (basically, all of it) that touches me is truly blue pill. I almost couldn’t get through a movie I was watching last night, “Gone Girl’ with Ben Affleck, Roseamund Pike, and Doogie Houser MD. There was so much blue pill in it, it made me sick.
First of all, thank you Dalrock for this blog – it is one
of my favorite reads.
Me – Long marriage, 3 kids, divorced 3 years ago because she
was unhaaaaaaapy. Never dreamed that alimony would someday
apply to me.
This thread struck a chord with me, pun intended. There are
a lot of songs I used to enjoy, but now make me shake my head.
Billy Joel – “Tell her about it”, comes to mind. [Gag]
My ex and I went to several Guns’N’Roses concerts before we
were married. Can’t hear “Sweet Child of Mine” without smiling
and remembering when my kids were born. Some GNR songs have
a different meaning to me now.
I respectfully submit – this dark, tongue-in-cheek, GNR song
captured my mood during the divorce process. (And yes, my ex
is still very much alive collecting monthly CS and alimony.)
“I used to love her” by Guns’N’Roses
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I had to put her
Six feet under
And I can still hear her complain
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I knew I miss her
So I had to keep her
She’s buried right in my back yard
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
She bitched so much
She drove me nuts
And now I’m happier this way
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I used to love her, but I had to kill her
I had to put her
Six feet under
And I can still hear her complain
As far as lyrics go, you guys remember this one?
Paula Cole seems pretty RED PILL and BLUE PILL in this song (all at the same time.) She’s asking all the right questions. Where have all the cowboys gone? Why can’t I have the life my mom and grammy had? Why can’t my husband pay all the bills? How come you have to go out at night with your friends instead of staying home with me, I put on this dress, look how pretty I look for you?
She is asking all the right questions but dealing only from a woman’s perspective. Perhaps in asking all the right questions she needs to listen to men be honest about their answers, ladies, you just aren’t worth it. I go out with my friends because I can’t stand you nagging me. We don’t have s-x anymore unless I am a good boy. I wont marry you because I don’t just have to support you, I have to pay off all your student loans and support the childre you had with alphamcharelybadboy besides. The illegal immigrant took my job on the tractor for half wages so now not only can’t I support you or the children, I can’t even support myself. There are no more cowboys.
I don’t listen to most mainstream Christian music. Is the lyrics praising God or praising something else?
As bad as, if not worse than the song lyrics –at least on a certain syndicated FM Christian music station– is the juvenile verbal-vomitus commentary offered between songs by what passes for the station’s DJs (imagine the LAMEST “morning team” on your local secular FM top 100 music station, then start tunneling beneath the barrel bottom). The worst and most offensive aspect of that, at least of late, is when they spew inanities about some esoteric touchy-feeling “news event,” more than a few of which involve some obscure instance of “GIRRRRRRRLLLLPower” somewhere, with only a tenuous connection to anything Scriptural or faith-related. Static on an AM station is entertaining and enlightening by comparison.
Stop. Put down the [R.E.O.] Speedwagon, and step away!
Thank you! Haven’t there been a couple of U.N. Resolutions centered around those guys?
Women crave security; and men with dangerous jobs tend to have rocky relations with them as a result.
There comes a certain point at which a woman’s craving for security and her need for her ‘gina to tingle come into direct conflict with each other, especially when her husband has a dangerous job that makes her ‘gina tingle (and that often provides well for her), but that often gets in the way of their love life. Fried ice and all that.
Hank Hill on Christian rock:
innocentbystanderboston says:
March 31, 2015 at 1:23 pm
As far as lyrics go, you guys remember this one?
“Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?”
One two three four
Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?
And why is my butt sore?
lzozozozoolzoz
My take on it was this “Was it real? Or were you just yanking me around to get a frivorce? Did my life receive meaning from my being married to you at some point?”
On the other hand, Boomers……who can say?
The unrepentant carousel as described by “Christian” singer Fransesca Battistelli:
At twenty years of age
I’m still looking for a dream
A war’s already waged for my destiny
But You’ve already won the battle
And You’ve got great plans for me
Though I can’t always see
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I’m so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I’m free to be me
When I was just a girl
I thought I had it figured out
See my life would turn out right
And I’d make it here somehow
But things don’t always come that easy
And sometimes I would doubt, oh
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I’m so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I’m free to be me and You’re free to be You
Sometimes I believe that I can do anything
Yet other times I think
I’ve got nothing good to bring
But You look at my heart and You tell me
That I’ve got all You seek, oh
And it’s easy to believe even though
‘Cause I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I’m so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I got a couple dents in my Fender
Got a couple rips in my jeans
Try to fit the pieces together
But perfection is my enemy
And on my own, I’m so clumsy
But on Your shoulders I can see
I’m free to be me and You’re free to be You
“My take on it was this “Was it real? Or were you just yanking me around to get a frivorce? Did my life receive meaning from my being married to you at some point?””
Close to my take on it.
My take on this was “Did you love me? Did you care about me? Did we have an authentic emotional connection at some point? Did you mean the things you said to me? Did you feel the same way about me that I felt about you? Or did you just use me for your own ends and purposes?”
And her “yeah” response is fraught with meaning. Her response, of course, when read properly, is “Yes, I loved you at the time, the best I could, in the ways I knew how. Yes, I cared about you in that you were a part of my life at that time. Yes, I meant what I said at the time (I don’t anymore). Yes, I felt something for you at the time; I’m not sure if it is exactly the same as how you felt about me. I did use you, but you used me too, so we’re even.”
purplefan says:
March 31, 2015 at 1:15 pm
Yeah, I know how you feel. I always enjoyed Billy Joel’s music but so many of his songs reflects his [blue pill] attitude towards women that I cannot listen to them any more. Thankfully he has enough great songs that aren’t tainted with his begging-for-love approach to songwriting.
@ thedeti stuck in the”Counting the Cost”stage of an epic build up this speaks volumes into male disposability wouldn’t you say? The one person who should care about his existence (his one flesh) doesn’t. “Yeah” is just so not getting it. A “Major Tom” moment of Crockett (he isn’t ever coming home no matter the outcome).
I have a few points of contention with this, but a must read.
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/03/the-new-intolerance
Well as “epic” as Miami Vice is capable of anyway…..
“Stop. Put down the Speedwagon, and step away!”
–Oh come on! Someone’s gotta step up to the plate and collate “Roll With the Changes”, “Take It On the Run”, “Time for Me to Fly”, that really big hit, that other really big hit (or was that “Time for Me to Fly”?)– oh, and “Tough Guys” from the “Hi Infidelity” album because that was the first record I ever owned that had a cuss word on it (s**t).
The Red Pill/Blue Pill margin in the REO Speedwagon canon could be the Question Of Our Time. People could argue this to Styx and back!
@IBB
Did you really think Gone Girl was blue pill? It might have seemed that way in the beginning but I swear as it went on it was one of the most red pill things I’ve seen in years. That girl was nuts!
Scott
Have faith. As bad as I may come off in the comments the more red pill I have become the more clear and understanding the bible is. It is great here speaking of any red pill truth and one of you fellas will come in with something from the bible.
It is also interesting to see the churchianship slowly bleed away from the commenters here. The truth is always biblical it seems. A red pill boy with a Christian foundation in solid. he won’t sound like a christian because he is unique in that he is without the pussified nature of the churchian that we have learned to associate with Christianity. Have faith in a red pill Christian male with game. He is the baddest, motha, fucka out there right now and the kind of man that can build this civilization after the collapse. (they have enough sense not to save it, teach you boy how to shoot BTW) Any male needs to be fully immersed in the truth and taught about Christianity as written in the bible and that includes game (the nature of woman and why they behave as they do ) Just have faith. raising a blissfully ignorant bluepill chump is not how to make a Christian man. And when the chump gets chewed up by the world to talk about how bad things are is not leadership or being a good teacher. Have faith in the truth.
The blue pill is what killed Adam.
@Lucius
Ha! I wrote some posts awhile back on past pop-culture, but I got distracted before I dove into the violence done against mankind (emphasis on the first syllable) by the pop-rock of the late seventies through the mid-eighties. Late ‘boomers and early Gen-Xers really got hammered.
Two words: Air. Supply.
Earlier you wrote:
Your summary of Mann’s directional career is spot-on.
As I tried to convey, I think the scene is supposed to be reminiscent of a confessional. As an emblem of Mann’s dedication to style-over-substance, it’s perfect.
Two words: Air. Supply.
Or more accurately “woman worship”.
Mostly blue pill.
If I came home and my wife was missing and sh-t was broken, I would be a basketcase. I’d be convinced she was abducted and/or dead. They would have to put me in straight jacket with tranquilizers. Affleck played a cold-calous man who appeared to be completely indifferent at the beginning, that is pure blue pill.
The male cop (and partner of the dectective) was a whiteknight and just assumed the worst of Affleck from the very beginning. That is exactly like today’s law enforcement, pure blue pill.
Of course the man was cheating on his wife with a girl half her age, to feminists, all husbands do, blue pill.
The submissive, stay-at-home pregnant mom of three kids was a moron because all stay at home submissive moms are total morons, pure blue pill.
The TV host who accused Affleck or murder and incest (with his sister) never apologized for her wrongful accusations in his home, and she doesn’t have to because afterall, look at how things looked and she can’t admit she was wrong then….. blue pill.
And at the end, the wife gets away with murder, but that is okay since the man she killed was disposable, pure beta-bux. Blue pill.
I could go on and on, but it was blue pill.
Air Supply Y’all
@ Cane Caldo, I still love “Last of the Mohicans” though. Even if the whole movie was about skads of men dying for one chick.
Regarding Air Supply (aka Good Men Project put to music aka woman worshipers aka bernankified* mangina feminists: Any men who maintain the attitudes and/or follow the advice in the lyrics there in will be basically cutting their own metaphoric throats in terms of relationship fall out.
*borrowed from GBFM
Funny discussion of blue pill music. I have to admit a beta guilty pleasure: Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine. As for Cane’s suggestion upthread of Black Dog and Stranglehold, I had the latter in mind as I was reading the comments. Both are good choices.
Separate topic, but related to the OP, if you like Texas Noir and want to see Don Johnson redeem his acting career (or at least his man card), check out Cold in July.
@GiL
When I read the lyrics you posted I still had GBFM’s 1 C*** Rule song rattling around in my head. A perfect mashup.
@GiL
Mohicans bored me. Now, Heat…that was a fun flick. However; I didn’t mean to totally disparage Mann, but to say in a round-about way that he is a modern Aesthete.
@JDG
I excised a couple sentences from my reply to Lucius, but…
Sometime when you’re bored, make a list of the commenters in the ‘Sphere. Include their approximate ages, and what you can recall of their revealed experiences and marital/relationship histories. Then estimate how close their teen and early twenties (the burning years) correspond to the presence of Air Supply on the radio.
A roommate of mine was a big Chicago fan, having all their albums even back to their CTA days. A while back I got to remembering that some of them with pretty good, so I went looking for them online. Their hits were song after song of pedestalizing and begging, for the most part. “Waiting for You to Decide,” yikes. “Rescue You,” “Love Me Tomorrow,” “Hard Habit to Break,” “Only You,” “You’re the Inspiration,” “Will You Still Love Me?”…. Gag. I ended up downloading “25 or 6 to 4,” a rockin’ song about songwriting all night and not about lurve at all, and trying to forget the rest.
It’s strange that all these bands were singing all these gamma lyrics, even though they were swimming in backstage pussy every night and obviously should have known better about the nature of women. If Billy Joel ever went to bed alone in the 1980s, it was entirely by choice. The man nailed Christy Brinkley! If you weren’t there at the time, it’s hard to describe how hot she was and how impressive that was. He did some pretty realistic songs like “Pressure” and “You May Be Right,” but when he was in love and happy he’d churn out the schmoopy kind of stuff that certainly wasn’t what attracted those women in the first place.
I suppose such performers could afford to sing whatever they liked, because their rock-star status guaranteed them alpha position no matter what. It seems like girls heard them and either internalized the lyrics — which make more sense coming from a woman — or fantasized about having that kind of an effect on a rock-star alpha.
Then a good part of a generation of young men thought living by those lyrics would attract girls to them, and here we are. Incidentally, that ex-roommate is now married to a woman who appears to outweigh him by a factor of at least 2, and he regularly posts online about how wonderful she is. These things may not be entirely unrelated.
@Dalrock, I think she should have just said “Virginity is my enemy.”.
@Cane
Sometime when you’re bored…
I haven’t had that luxury in a long time, but just a quick guess is that the time lines of those two categories are nearly identical. It completely fits with what my own eyes have shown me.
My own experience with Air Supply in the good ole days amounted to turning the channel, turning the radio off, or cringing in disgust as I had to listen (at work I did not have the option of turning it off). I remember one fellow used to try to help by singing the words out loud with a voice that also was cringe worthy. I must confess that it took the edge off of the nausea produced by hearing what we used to call “top 40”.
@Dalrock
I have to admit a beta guilty pleasure: Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine.
Did you catch my rendition of Bill Withers’ song “Ain’t No Sammich When She’s Gone” on another thread?
By the way, Billy Joel’s “You May Be Right” is unusual, in that it’s an alpha singing to his alpha-widow:
@JDG
I didn’t, but it sounds like an instant classic. Perhaps we could break out the heavy machinery and try to reform some Air Supply:
@Dalrock
LOL – Air Supply reform. Now that’s a challenge.
Here’s my “Sunshine” reform attempt:
Ain’t no sammich when she’s gone
Breads not warm when she’s away
Ain’t no sammich when she’s gone
And the sammich takes too long
Anytime she goes astray
She sits around when she’s home
Say’s it’s time for her to play
Ain’t no sammich when she’s gone
And no sammich when she’s home
Anytime she goes astray
And I know, I know, I know, I know…
[D: I love it.]
Anthem recommendation 3:
~ Beast of Burden, by (appropriately) The ‘Stones
@Cail
There are worse barometers of a man’s proclivity to pedestalize women than his answer to the question: “Beatles or Rolling Stones?”
Red pill song!!!!!!! Emphasis mine.
Ah, the context. He had just been betrayed by his former partner Wheeler. It fits that he put his wife in the same category. They’re trying to portray him as spinning, not sure about his past.
Red pill lyrics for beta-bux men chasing strippers or being beta orbiters to their “friends who are girls” (a warning for Betas)
More red pills for beta-bux teaching them “game.” (Thank you, thank you, I’ll be here all night)
The New Intolerance
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/03/the-new-intolerance
The End of Tolerance And Enforced Morality
http://thefederalist.com/2015/03/31/the-end-of-tolerance-and-enforced-morality/
The New Intolerance: We Are Now Required To Embrace Just About Everything, Except the Gutter Religion Christianity
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=355856
“Instead of sex in the city, I found depressed, beaten men – cautious and passive around women. They were, in other words, products of Ivy League universities.”
http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/204286/
@IBB
“As do I. It just frightens me how much of the world (basically, all of it) that touches me is truly blue pill. I almost couldn’t get through a movie I was watching last night, “Gone Girl’ with Ben Affleck, Roseamund Pike, and Doogie Houser MD. There was so much blue pill in it, it made me sick.”
What I took away from “Gone Girl” is that it is one of the rare moments Hollywood “let slip” the truth about the conniving, manipulative sin nature of women and the horrific consequences of being their mate or even in one of their circles of influence. I left the movie pitying Ben Affleck’s character for being such a fool for pedastalizing that monster. If you think about it, it’s rare to watch a movie where the audience is expected to sympathize with the guy and hate the girl.
What’s So Sad About the Childfree Life?
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=953818
Stanton clone alert: a pastor named Rick Phillips explains how the fact that so many single Christians aren’t getting married is all men’s fault.
http://www.reformation21.org/blog/2015/03/pcrt-qa-why-so-many-singles.php
Notice how his reason #1 is “immaturity and sin among men.” But when he gets around to mentioning the phenomenon of women spending their twenties pursuing careers instead of marriage, he goes out of his way to say that “that is fine and should not be condemned,” portrays this as a trend “society” is foisting upon women as though they were passive victims who really just want to be wives and mothers, and even explicitly says that this does not constitute sin “per se” on the part of women.
Dear IBB & A Regular Guy:
It’s so interesting how we all have different takes on this film. I was taken to it by a chick I have been seeing, off and on. She had to pay because I thought I’d hate it. Was I wrong!
I thought that Neil Patrick Harris (well known in meatspace as a mincing faggot) was the perfect actor to portray the pathetic trustafarian simp who gets decapitated by the object of his obsession. I laughed out loud, and disturbed the rest of the cinema audience, every time he professed his undying devotion.
I perfectly hated the lot of those grifters, and enjoyed the film immensely. Ben Affleck, the man who cared nothing for his marriage, ends up paired with someone equally psychopathic. Like attracts like often in this world, and this was a great example. The scroungy lawyer, bumbling idiot cops and the emetic talk show and media scumbags rounded out the unsavory mix. It was the perfect melange of modern greaseballs, all feeding off the decaying remnants of a once functional society. The ending was perfect, as they announce that they’re bringing the next generation of thoughtless idiot into the world as the credits start rolling. Two thumbs way up.
“Don’t Fall in Love” by The Tubes, great song! They’re from my old stomping grounds.
“Instead of sex in the city, I found depressed, beaten men – cautious and passive around women. They were, in other words, products of Ivy League universities.”
Instead of men staying men…they listened to our demands and became like women.
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I suppose such performers could afford to sing whatever they liked, because their rock-star status guaranteed them alpha position no matter what. It seems like girls heard them and either internalized the lyrics — which make more sense coming from a woman — or fantasized about having that kind of an effect on a rock-star alpha.
@Cail —
Yes, it was a different age. Men had not become quite so feminized as they are now, and so I think men could “get away with” expressions of beta-ness more then, especially if they had natural or situational alpha characteristics. Someone like Billy Joel was a positional alpha — if he was a regular donk working in some cubicle farm on Long Island, he wouldn’t have gotten within miles of someone looking like Christie Brinkley. But because he had alpha cred due to his position as a rock star, he could “afford” to write songs like “Uptown Girl” — it was okay because the alpha was still in the mix, and overall women were not nearly as alpha-starved as they are now.
Now, someone looking like Joel could not be a rock star to begin with. He was lucky that he started before music became well and truly enmeshed in the world of video. But beyond that, because women are so alpha starved today, and swimming in an ocean of beta sentiments from men, in order for a man to stand out he has to do the opposite of what Joel was doing in the 70s and 80s. More alpha is required rather than less, because the world is an ocean of beta now. In the 70s and 80s it hadn’t fully transitioned to Grrl Wrrld yet, and so a guy could express both and still be attractive. Because the Grrlz today are drowning in beta sentiment, any expression of it is a massive turn-off for most women, and in fact they are turning en masse to things like 50SOG because they are so alpha starved.
Ultimate Blue Pill Movie: Notting Hill
If you think back on that time period and compare it with today, in terms of who the musicians are and what they are singing and so on, the difference is striking.
I mean even take something as “sugar gum” as Duran Duran. Looking at them, they were a bunch of pretty-boys, kind of effeminate, nancy boy types — a precursor of the metrosexual that would come years later, really. But they sang about being on the hunt for women, about being turned on by watching “girls on film”, and so on — things that no record exec would permit today outside of rap stars (who get a pass because of the culture they come from). The expression coming from male rock stars today (not pop stars like Bieber or boy bands) is outwardly much more buff and masculine generally, but the content coming out of their mouths is much, much more subdued. At the same time, the content coming out of female rock and pop star mouths has become over the top. It’s an interesting bell-weather of just where the culture has gone in the three decades that have ensued since the 1980s, in terms of men and women, and what the general permitted/expected behaviors are for each culturally.
Ultimate Blue Pill Movie: Notting Hill
Haven’t seen it, but how could it possibly beat Pretty Woman?
Boxer
I thought that Neil Patrick Harris (well known in meatspace as a mincing faggot) was the perfect actor to portray the pathetic trustafarian simp who gets decapitated by the object of his obsession. I laughed out loud, and disturbed the rest of the cinema audience, every time he professed his undying devotion.
I felt like NPH was the comic relief part of the movie, even though that probably wasn’t intended. Every time he was on the screen, his facial expressions and lifestyle of a well-off bachelor made me think I was just watching Barney Stinson again. However, this time, instead of just womanizing, he decided to go full-on rapist. I think I also laughed out loud when he met his end, but I didn’t happen to disturb others, as I was watching it alone on video. Also, as my sister-in-law once told me (and not as a compliment), I have a very “unique” sense of humor.
@Nova
For your consideration, I recommend you include the “hard rock” genre in your scope of reference. Can we look at Ziggy Stardust, KISS, Van Halen, Motley Crue, Ratt, Bon Jovi, Def Lepard, etc. and say these men in make-up and spandex represented a more manly era? Was it the case that groupies and women were accepting them as situational alphas despite their severely female dress? Or is it the case that women craved the sapphic overtones; that women wanted the perversion itself?
Note that the power ballad was a response to the presence of women’s entrance into the “hard rock” crowd. It was what the rock stars thought women wanted. At the apex of the power ballad: spandex hard rock died at the hands of rap, Metallica, and the very gritty Guns n Roses; whose album art featured a young woman with her panties around her ankles; literally art of a pump-n-dump. Moral of the story is: Women came to hard rock for the abuse, and left when the make-up came off and the cooing started. They wanted womanly men.
For awhile I was a Gen-Y, but now it appears I’m Gen-X (as the [rather abitrary] categories have solidified) so perhaps that explain my different perspective.
(I know this sounds confusing to the adherents of the alpha=manly system of thought. That’s because the system is wrong.)
I think Billy Joel had a successful career in part because of talent and timing. He was part of a wave of male solo singers/songwriters who came up from New York’s burgeoning scene and the corresponding one in Los Angeles in the early 70s. He was a contemporary of artists like Van Morrison, Dan Fogelberg, John Denver, Barry Manilow, Sammy Hagar, Jackson Browne, and Bruce Springsteen. A diverse group to be sure, but what they all had in common was real musical and songwriting talent. They all owned their own songs. They all wrote, performed and owned their own material. Their talent was what carried them. (Say what you want about Barry Manilow, but the guy could write and perform catchy tunes that were enormously popular in his day, and his performance of his music has made him world famous and fabulously wealthy.)
Now, solo artists (mostly rappers) and singers like Bieber, Timberlake, Bruno Mars, etc. have to get by less on talent, and more on alpha bad boy image, in large part because as Nova said, Girl World is drowning in beta sentiment and starving for alpha dominance.
That said, Billy Joel’s career is a study in alpha to beta deterioration. The funny thing is that his early career was motivated by red pill concerns. One of the reasons he was so prolific was because of his divorce from his first wife. He had almost nothing, so he signed over to his first ex the royalty rights to some of his earliest songs, including some of the ones on the album “Cold Spring Harbor”. It’s one of the reasons Joel is, well, not very proud of this album. (That, and the studio in post production mistakenly sped up the vocal tracks, making his voice sound higher pitched than it really is.) He had to keep working or he wouldn’t eat. He was earning almost nothing from his early work.
Early Joel is songs about :
–teen angst (“Captain Jack”, “Angry Young Man”)
–keen observations about young love and working-class life (“Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”, “Piano Man”)
–even sharper observations about human behavior (“The Stranger”)
— getting laid (“Only the Good Die Young”)
–putting up with work bullshit (“The Entertainer”)
–male independence/refusing to put up with family bullshit (“My Life”, “Movin’ Out”)
— an alpha serenading his alpha widow (“You May Be Right”)
–stupid shit women do (“Big Shot”, “Don’t Ask Me Why”).
Glass Houses (1981, or 82) was his last real “red pill” album. “She’s Always a Woman” marks him starting to transition from Red to Blue.
She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you
She’ll carelessly cut you and laugh while you’re bleedin’
She’ll bring out the best and the worst you can be
He was dating Brinkley right around the time he started work on An Innocent Man which was released in 1983. He starts getting more pensive and contemplative on this album. Most of the songs here are clearly inspired by his relationship with Brinkley. It’s clear he was deeply in love with her, and it shows in his work on this album and his subsequent releases after that. This is the time period of “Keeping the Faith”, “An Innocent Man”, “And So It Goes”. He also starts into his “social justice” dabbling (“Allentown”, “The Bridge”, “Leningrad”) and his “I’m a grown up serious musician phase (“Big Man on Mulberry Street”)
Then of course, there’s his Blue Pill magnum opus, “Tell Her About It”
Tell her about it
Tell her everything you feel
Give her every reason to accept that you’re for real
Tell her about it
Tell her all your crazy dreams
Let her know you need her, let her know how much she means
When you love someone
You’re always insecure
And there’s only one good way
To reassure
Tell her about it
Let her know how much you care
When she can’t be with you
Tell her you wish you were there
Tell her about it
Every day before you leave
Pay her some attention
Give her something to believe
The entire song is Blue pill through and through — wear your heart on your sleeve, tell her everything you’re feeling, give her everything you have, do everything to show her how much you love her.
We all know what happened a few years after that. Brinkley divorced him. It’s not entirely clear, but she was likely sleeping with someone else before she left Joel; doing the classic branch-swinging maneuver.
Billy Joel’s career is a study in how a man “mellows” from red to blue, destroying his marriage in the process.
Hermes
Notice how his reason #1 is “immaturity and sin among men.” But when he gets around to mentioning the phenomenon of women spending their twenties pursuing careers instead of marriage, he goes out of his way to say that “that is fine and should not be condemned,” portrays this as a trend “society” is foisting upon women as though they were passive victims who really just want to be wives and mothers, and even explicitly says that this does not constitute sin “per se” on the part of women.
I’m so glad I discovered this corner of the web last summer, or else, I would have wondered if I were basically alone in being sick of the “Peter Pan Syndrome” excuse or the incessant “calling men out” sanctimonious rhetoric that we hear repeated ad naseum from bloggers, particularly Christian bloggers, whose articles people love to share and perpetuate on social media. The manosphere seems to be the only corner of the web that recognizes that women sin, too or moreover, that they want to sin and are not just innocent victims of the men in their lives.
When is red pill truth going to go mainstream? That is, when are viral Christian articles and preaching from the pulpit going to contain red pill truth? There’s too much valuable info here for it to be confined to one corner of the web that one only finds by chance like I did.
‘Women came to hard rock for the abuse, and left when the make-up came off and the cooing started. They wanted womanly men.’
Interesting considering some guys think being abusive to women is ‘manly’. It is actually quite a feminine thing to do. Look at the abuse rates for lesbians.
I do believe most feminists want womanly men. Either the effeminate servile kind…or the out of control abusive guy.
“Uptown Girl” is clearly about Brinkley. In fact he goes beta here too, singing about how he can’t believe a girl like her wants a guy like him.
Moral of the story is: Women came to hard rock for the abuse, and left when the make-up came off and the cooing started. They wanted womanly men.
Good points on the glammier hard rockers of the era. My own perspective is that these guys were the Lady Gagas of that age, and that this has now flipped, with men being masculine/buff in appearance but singing in a subdued way (outside of “fenced off” areas like rap), while the women are acting like KISS was in the 70s and 80s. It’s flipped — now the men are stereotypically masculine looking eye-candy and singing more tame lyrics (compared to, say, many of KISS’s lyrics), while the women are going visually transgressive like GaGa and singing about sex and sexual transgression in ways that men who are not rappers are no longer culturally permitted to do — while at the same time being traditionally masculine buff eye candy for women. It’s flipped.
Nova-
The funny thing about all those bands from the 80s (Duran Duran, Wham, Depeche Mode) is everyone knew those guys were gay but nobody talked about it. They all came out later.
I remember the high school girls with pictures of those guys in their lockers and thinking “really?” (I graduated in 1989)
Weird.
@Nova
Exactly. They want it, and nobody is going to let a profit like that go unrealized.
Nova
My own perspective is that these guys were the Lady Gagas of that age, and that this has now flipped, with men being masculine/buff in appearance but singing in a subdued way (outside of “fenced off” areas like rap)…
And blues. The blues tend to be quite realistic, even when sentimental. Blues has never really been mainstream. Hmm. Realistic, not mainstream…odd coincidence, eh?.
Example: “Ain’t that Just Like a Woman” written in the 1940’s by Claude De Metrius and Fleecie Moore has been covered by B.B. King, Chuck Berry, Alice Cooper, Johnny Winter and who knows how many others. Lyrics are simple enough to understand, especiall the last verse. Bonus points for comparing Nero to a woman, by the way.
http://www.metrolyrics.com/aint-that-just-like-a-woman-lyrics-bb-king.html
YouTube has several different vids / audios. Not mainstream, though…
@AR
Hiphop, though, is mainstream. The common factor is both are part of the “Black American Experience”. Even the criticism against Eminem is short-lived when it pops up because he is tapped into the BAE. You can’t criticize him for too long without touching what is taboo for the politically correct to touch.
“Funny discussion of blue pill music. I have to admit a beta guilty pleasure: Bill Withers – Ain’t No Sunshine”
I always heard that was about alcohol, not a woman
“The funny thing about all those bands from the 80s (Duran Duran, Wham, Depeche Mode) is everyone knew those guys were gay but nobody talked about it. “
I don’t want to go to Chelsea.
Full of party girls.
It was an extraordinarily time-and-place specific phenomenon. Remember playing this before getting up the cojones to skip round to the cross-street to Effra road from the squat, to get fish’n’chips for the dearie laid in bed. Dodging the still-smouldering buildings which had by then been shut off with massive sheets of corrugated. And trying to appear unruffled in front of the SPG. Only had bloody “rock-salmon” (some kind of dogfish I think, the stuff you’d ordinarily chop up for mackerel or cod bait).
Can’t help but mention that all the New Romantics were British: Duran Duran, Wham, as well as Kajagoogoo – they did not get any prettier than Limahl .
Girls liked them because they were not threateningly masculine, but the least threatening of all was Culture Club’s George O’Dowd.
@Opus
But girls didn’t like Culture Club like they liked Duran Duran; at least not in America. Duran Duran were being pasted on bedroom walls and practice-kissed. Boy George got the 80s radio equivalent of friend-zoned. I suggest it wasn’t non-threatening masculinity, but threatened sexual action and the exciting wrongness of their gender-bending visages…romance novels on wax. They liked the kink.
Boy George, while queenish, didn’t even pretend to want to have sex with chicks. There’s no kink in something that is so bent.
Cue Antony and the Johnsons …
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FWIW, I think he’s really good. In an easily assimilated, cuddly way … [me gusta..] OK I confess, I’m as bent as a nine-bob note
Dressing like John Keats (pace Simon Le Bon) is as sure a sign that you want to get laid as there can be, but Boy George dressed more like Jane Austen. New Romanticism was an inevitable backlash against Punk (Sex Pistols, Anti-Nowhere League) as Punk was against all that ghastly and pretentious Prog-Rock – so many of these guys seem to be alumni of Arts Colleges.
I agree girls liked George because he could be friend-zoned, however the expert on all this is Tam-the-Bam who is probably a new romantic himself.
The guys who tried to look like Duran Duran were not getting laid in any school I went to. They were friend zoned.
Think “Duckie” from “Pretty in Pink.”
Me and all my jock friends wore jeans, holy surf t-shirts and converse all stars.
Well not really I’m far too old, I know where St Antony got his schtick from.
Even Antony’s video’s colours are carefully chosen with one of The Great Poets Of The English in mind. Obviously Antony, or Ms O’Dowd, being of Irish heritage, like all those gaylords cited as representative New Romantic stuff, have a secret locker of Music available, like O’Carolan and his submissions to the New Italian Mode.
Almost equal to Tony Harrison or Ted Hughes (I submit this with no small amount of jealousy, it is simply an unconscionable outrage that the Saeson could out-poet us ..)
Here you go Opus. A Plain Man Of Kent, pissing all over the Modern World’s senseless attempts (and us Celts)
Who are the New Romantics? Is that club for pop only, or is it a reference to lyrical content?
Whitesnake, “Is This Love”
Def Lepard, “Love Bites”
Are those New Romantics?
Either way, here in the States they got the crap kicked out of them by
2 Live Crew, “Me So Horny”
Guns n Roses, “Welcome to the Jungle”
Madonna, “Justify My Love”
Fun fact: “Justify My Love” was written by Lenny Kravitz, who has long been considered too cool for school…Alpha. Listening to it as a song from a man’s perspective is illuminating to see what the feral woman wants from–and sees in–the feral man. A perfect cross-dressing crossover for Madonna; Lady Gaga’s mentor.
Cane Heiss : have a gander at “Adam & the Ants” for a definition. Revolting. But not as bad as their chum Gary Glitter (common rhyming cant for “Up the …”)
it was okay because the alpha was still in the mix, and overall women were not nearly as alpha-starved as they are now
Them being “alpha-starved” is entirely their fault. This is the world they wanted. It’s not my problem, and not the problem of any other man either.
Boy George’s allure was as “The Fop,” and not serious sex appeal to young women.
‘Them being “alpha-starved” is entirely their fault. This is the world they wanted.’
They wanted to be the alpha and to have an alpha. It’s one or the other.
Leave it to the fanbois here to put a spin how gamma were certain TV shows and songs. I enjoy the entertainment.
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“Arguably the greatest movie ever made, The Shawshank Redemption, we find even at the end of the movie, the innocent-of-murder-but-19-years-incarcerated Andy Dufraine (Tim Robbins) is confiding to his best friend Red (Morgan Freeman) that he admits to killing his wife (figuratively, not literally) by “not being there/pushing her away” (whatever-the-f-ck that means) thus excusing her infidelity with the golf pro. It was a giant beta-male-hamsterization gone turbo. It made me sick just hearing it. And then Freeman whiteknights for Andy’s late wife and calls his friend “…a bad husband, maybe.” It was pure feminist imperative.”
Absolutely! That scene hit me like a freight train… appalling! Okay I exaggerate, a little.
Reading this blog post, I think of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning… it’s some years since I read it but he describes a situation, I think it’s bitterly cold and they, prisoners in the concentration camp, probably dressed in little more than rags, are being marched somewhere to do hard labour (something along these lines) and he has this profound sense of joy thinking of how truly blessed he had been with his wife.