Frou-Frou – The Dumbing Down of Love – Details

It’s a mistake to take a song literally, but there are lines and lines in here which cover so much of DD’s and my relationship…

DD was full of good intent, full of “I love yous” and gifts and meaningless words. He tossed it around like it was easy to love someone, and I used to paint a picture of passion, pretending that I returned it and cared for him the same way. And yet he didn’t love me, I could tell from the start, but didn’t know how to deal with it so I just carried on in this lover without love game.
And DD was so sure that he was going to make it big, he was so full of plans and he’d got excuses for all his failures, he was going to be famous, be a star, own a dozen businesses and be recognised all over Taiwan. If he hadn’t got there yet, it was because other people weren’t believing in him. I faked my confidence in his potential when it was blatently obvious that he would never be more than a failure.
And his music… so convinced that he was a talented musician and lyricist. He wrote me a couple of songs, and he really poured all his efforts (I wanted to write talent, but I just can’t because he had no real musical talent) into it, but they just made me want to giggle. They were meaningless or stiff, roughly carved from stone when words should be silk, should be mist, should infiltrate your body and soul and hit you where it hurts. Some people, Gray included, don’t care about lyrics. Me, I love them. I can’t listen to a song with meaningless lyrics. I can listen to music without lyrics, and be just as moved, but how can you drone along to a song which makes no impression on you? I remember how much I loathed that Emilia song, “Big big world”… but I do, do feel, that I do, do will, miss you much, miss you much… urgh. To think it was a massive hit!
Anyway…
Music is worthless, unless it can
Make a complete stranger
Break down and cry
And “love” is worthless if it’s nothing but an empty word, a handy box to fit your emotions in until it gets too heavy and you toss out the contents to make way for new ones. DD loved me, he said, but he loved his ex too, and he loved the next girl who he hooked up within days, possibly hours, of our breakup…

Well-painted passion
You rightly suspect
Impersonation
The dumbing down of love
Jaded in anger
Love underwhelms you
No box of chocolates
Whichever way you fall
And if I tell you
Lover alone without love
What will happen
Lover alone without love
Will you miss him?
Lover alone without–without love
No, no I’ll get this
I want to treat you
You’re still not famous
And you haven’t struck it rich
Underachieving
‘Cause no one’s receiving
This tunnel vision
It’s turning out all wrong
And if I tell you
Lover alone without love
What will happen
Lover alone without love
Will you miss him?
Love alone without, without love
Music is worthless, unless it can
Make a complete stranger
Break down and cry
And if I tell you
Lover alone without love
And what will happen
Lover alone without love
And will you listen
Lover alone without, without love
Without love
Without love

~ by orange on June 27, 2007.