Songs of the Romantic Undead

[naomikritzer]

Okay, in the car today I heard True Companion again and I started trying to analyze why this song always makes me think it needs a version about vampires. I'm not sure how familiar other people are with this song. A lot of people consider it sappily romantic, but I think it walks a fine line between sappily romantic and oddly creepy. Here's part of the first verse:

Yes, i'll climb a mountain
I'm gonna swim the sea
There ain't no act of god girl
Could keep you safe from me
My arms are reaching out
Out across this canyon
I'm asking you to be my true companion
True companion
True companion

So we've got the "nothing's going to keep you safe from me" combined with this image of scarily elongated arms. And then,

So don't you dare and try to walk away
I've got my heart set on our wedding day
I've got this vision of a girl in white
Made my decision that it's you allright

See, see, even without vampires, I have this image of the guy singing this below the girl's window as she screams down at him, "WHO ARE YOU? WHY HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING ME?"

Is this just me?

I'm not arguing that it's not a romantic song. If you assume (as you're clearly supposed to) that it's a man proposing marriage to someone he's been dating for a while, it's quite romantic. But, well, it's so easy to picture other alternatives...

And when i take your hand
I'll watch my heart set sail
I'll take my trembling fingers
And i'll lift up your veil
Then i'll take you home
And with wild abandon
Make love to you just like a true companion.

That verse always gets me thinking about cultures where kidnapping the girl you like is the acceptable preface to taking her home and marrying her.

When the years have done irreparable harm
I can see us walking slowly arm in arm
Just like the couple on the corner do
'cause girl i will always be in love with you
And when i look in your eyes
I'll still see that spark
Until the shadows fall
Until the room grows dark
Then when i leave this earth
I'll be with the angels standin'
I'll be out there waiting for my true companion
Just for my true companion
True companion
True companion

Despite all the prior in-my-head creepiness, the final verse always makes me tear up. (But then again, so does the country-western song "If You Get There Before I Do," which my friend Dave noted is sweet like rock candy dipped in high-fructose corn syrup and then topped with powdered sugar. He did not mean this as a compliment.)

Anyway, I think this song lends itself perfectly to a parody involving vampires falling in love. I am just amazed no one has written it. I mean, there's a vampire version of the Fred Small folksong Annie, for crying out loud, why is there no vampire version of True Companion? (The Fred Small song is about a closeted lesbian schoolteacher. The parody version involves a nocturnal computer programmer. My favorite Fred Small parody, for the Fred Small fans on my friendslist, would definitely be the Heart of the Apple Lisa, which is so geeky it has footnotes explaining some of the more obscure references.)

Comments

[silkblade.livejournal.com]

I've never heard this song before but this song is creepy.

[naomikritzer]

I had a coworker who had a singer do it at her wedding. None of my college friends have done that, though.

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with the creepy bit. Not a lovesong if you have to tell a girl nobody can PROTECT her from you, basically.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one around who gets teary-eyed over If You Get There Before I Do; unlike your friend, I really do like the song a lot.

[naomikritzer]

Yeah, I'm not generally a fan of country-western, but I rather like that one. Even if Dave thinks it's toooooooooo sweet. (At the opposite end of the spectrum, I also like "All My Exes Live In Texas.")

[one-undone.livejournal.com]

Well it's hard NOT to like any song that's funny and seems so "true." I like that song too :-D

[lilisonna.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly fond of True Companion mostly because I like the other songs on the album. It does have scary-stalker possibilities, however.

And the Apple Lisa song is hysterical. I'd never seen it before. Hmm. Must order Fred Small albums.

[lexiphanic.livejournal.com]

The sad part about that Apple Lisa song is that I didn't *need any of the footnotes, heh. I need to look up his other stuff.

[naomikritzer]

Well, just to be clear, the Apple Lisa song wasn't a parody written by Fred Small, it was a parody of a Fred Small song, "The Heart of the Appalloosa." Fred Small is a former folksinger (now a UU minister) who used to perform annually at my college. His best known songs are probably "Peace Is" (which gets sung a lot in UU churches, apparently) ("Peace Is...the bread we break / Love is...a river flowing") and "Everything Possible" (a gay-positive lullabye which used to get sung by the Flirtations).

[squigsoup.livejournal.com]

I have also always found that sound to be creepy and stalkerish. Of course, people will also play "Every Breath You Take" by the Police at a wedding, which is an avowed stalker song.

[naomikritzer]

People play "Every Breath You Take" at weddings? Oh my. The up-front stalkerishness of that one leaves the stalkerish lines from "True Companion" in the dust.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

i have not heard true companion before; it has a couple stalkery type lines, but mostly i think the lyrics are horrendously sappy.

now, duran duran's hungry like the wolf (http://www.lyricsfreak.com/d/duran-duran/43615.html)... so, so stalkeriffic. and maybe this isn't as good as being a vampire song, but it's definitely a werewolf song.

[naomikritzer]

It's hard to get more stalkeriffic than a song about literally stalking your prey. The werewolf imagery may be intended as a metaphore, but I've always thought of it as a straight-up werewolf song.