Manic Monday - "Want"

The word of the day for Manic Monday this week is "want" and even though there are a lot of things I want I felt that perhaps just writing a laundry list of them and using it as a post might be a bit boring not to mention taking the easy way out so instead, as seems to be the case for my last few Manic Monday posts, I went in search of a good song to use.

I dismissed "Wannabe" by the Spice Girls right off the bat as even though the lyrics "Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want, so tell me what you want, what you really really want ..." certainly do fit the requirements for the word of the day, I want to let you know right here and now that I really don't like that song or that group! I briefly toyed with the idea of using the song "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys as, if I'm being honest, I'll admit to having liked the group as I thought their vocalizations and harmony were fantastic, boy-band or not! Besides, the girls liked them for awhile (just don't remind Amanda of that!) and I was able to use them as an excuse for listening to their music. However, not wishing to incur the derision of fellow bloggers I dismissed that idea. Oh, and for the record I might as well admit that I liked N'Sync and 98 Degrees, too - so there!

Moving along I then thought about the song "I Want You to Want Me" by Cheap Trick, a band that I saw at the very first big concert I ever attended at the Philadelphia Spectrum way back in 1978 when they opened for Foghat. Wow - that was 3o years ago, wasn't it?!? Okay, now I've made myself feel old ... Anyhow, I was actually going to use that song and write a bit about Cheap Trick but then I came across the following video and decided to use it instead -

"I Want Love" by Sir Elton John

"I Want Love" was released in 2001 and is off of Elton's 27th studio album, Songs From the West Coast. This single was hailed as Elton's finest in almost 20 years and, if you're an Elton John fan as I am, it's easy to see why this John Lennon-inspired ballad is certainly worthy of being called that. The video features actor Robert Downey, Jr. lip-syncing the lyrics in one continuous shot as he wanders around an empty mansion. When director Sam Taylor-Wood came up with the idea for the video, Downey was in drug rehab and he felt that the lyrics were pertinent to what he was going through; Elton thought it was the perfect choice and so they went with it.

Being the curious sort, I always like to try to find out what a song means but despite a rather exhaustive search, I wasn't able to find precisely what it was that Bernie Taupin meant when he wrote the lyrics to this song. I did, however, find a wide range of opinions as to what other people thought he meant. One person felt that, "While the singer may want something a little akin to a one-night stand rather than truly lasting love, it still speaks to any listener who has wanted some kind of affection, no matter what."

Another offered up the following, "The words are those of a man who is seeking a love that isn't the lighthearted, idealized, over-romantic type of the young, but rather, a love that is honest, without illusion. He is worn and beaten, and so is blunt as to what he expects. He might want us to believe he's been through so much that he has nothing to lose, but I think in just uttering all that he does, he is more vulnerable than he lets on. In the end, he wants a love that itself is blunt, real, raw, catastrophic, with feeling, it matters not, just so long as it is honest."

Yet another person felt the song referred to the fact that, "We've all been burned and it is hard to open up to someone again when you're afraid of being hurt but we all want love ... just a different kind ..." while another stated that, "It's about someone who wants to love, but they're unsure if it's now possible after so much emotional scarring they've endured." And, of course, there were a lot of others who mistakenly thought that the song was about Elton being gay as they seemed to have missed completely the fact that it was Bernie, who is not gay, who wrote the lyrics and not Elton, who had been out of the closet for quite a long time before this song was even released. " It is about his gayness and how he's always getting hurt in his gay relationships." Uhm, no ...

Whatever the song is about, and I think that all songs reach different people in different places, it's a very moving song and definitely one of Elton's finest - at least IMHO! We all do want love, even those of us who have been burned by it before. For those of us who have had, shall we say, difficulties with love the lyrics that speak the loudest in this song might just be -

"I want love on my own terms
After everything I've ever learned..."

The problem, of course, is finding it or - maybe even more difficult - letting it find you.

Now, having said that, I want to dedicate this post to two people who I know most definitely want and deserve love - Morgen, who recently experienced the heartbreaking end of his 15-year relationship to someone who neither deserved or appreciated him and is still trying piece his life back together bit by bit; and Mimi, who, if possible, is even more of a romantic than I am and who had one of the most special loves I've seen in awhile take place right here in the Blogosphere only to have it undermined and weighed down by the complexities of everyday life. I truly do want you both to be happy and in love. You both deserve it.

So, that's what I want but what do you want? What do other people want? Leave me a comment and tell me what you want, what you really, really want (erg!) and then click on over to Morgen's Manic Monday post at It's a Blog Eat Blog World to see what other Manic Monday minions want. Go on - you know you want to!