Sorry, I think I misvoted. I think the song conveys #2, but means to convey #1.
I never got the sense the Tiffany’s couple stayed together though. They are breaking up, and decide they have one thing in common. So they break up with one happy memory as they walk away.
The Pina Colada couple seems like they tried to break up and ended up stuck with each other.
Nah, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the guy is trying desperately to prevent the breakup, so he grasps at one very superficial thing they agree on. My feeling is that it doesn’t work.
I expect in the real world after they get past their embarrassment at looking around and their amazement that they’re perfectly matched after all, they’ll realize that they were cheated on and that will be that.
Or I could be wrong…
Yeah, but the things that unite them are extremely trite and are likes/dislikes shared by thousands of other couples. It’s not like they’re searching for a soul mate who loves Eraserhead, absinthe, and Captain Beefheart.
This is how I’ve always heard it. It’s supposed to be a breezy, fun little cute pop number with a happy ending but, goddamn, I just cannot get past the whole “I was going to cheat on you, and you were going to cheat on me” scenario of the song. I really don’t see something like that ending in a rekindled romance and just shrug of the shoulders and laughing the whole thing off as “what a wacky coincidence! We both like pina coladas, and dancing in the rain! And are open to cheating on our spouses!”
Yes, that relationship is a winner.
I voted “affirmed” because that’s how I *interpret *that it is meant. But I agree, in real life, it would have ended with teeth on the floor.
This concept was handled better in The Munsters, where Herman and Lily, both wanting to get an anniversary present for each other, surreptitiously get part-time jobs as welders. They meet on the job, but are both wearing heavy masks, and don’t know that they are each other. They start flirting, with no nefarious intentions, but things get out of hand. I seem to recall that the resolution acknowledged both interpretations were possible.
vI think the couple is too stupid to realize their relation ship is doomed. They THINK they affirmed it, but it is rotten at the core.
Since the song is 40 years old, they have since broke up, she is now a yoga instructor, he’s working at a menial job and imagining himself 28 years old and attractive to women, neither of which is true any longer. He wears his Hawaiian shirts unbuttoned and leans in too close when he hits on 20 somethings in bars.
I think you messed up your poll by asking two different questions.
I think what the song is trying to convey is the first option. But *my interpretation * of the relationship in the song is far more negative (though not totally hopeless).
The relationship is doomed, and the song sucks. End of story.
*Mad *magazine ran an article that was a series of one-panel cartoons, You Know You’re Really Divorced When…
One read, “You finally sign up with a ‘computer dating’ service, and the only name they send you is your ex”.
Of course I have to post this.
Damn this thread is, like, crawling with ninjas! I was gonna quote Tom Servo, but no, here comes Cumberdale to spit up all over it.
That last line about spitting up is from MST3K too.
Hah! Bet you didn’t see that one coming Cumberdale!
Lessee you ninja that!
E(TPCS) is as lame as you can get. However, Rupert Holmes had a lesser-known but far better song called Answering Machine with an absolutely SICK groove.
Now that I think of it, Him also has a pretty sick groove, and cool chords too, kinda Steely Dan-ish.
Rupert Holmes was basically a cooler version of Stephen Bishop. (Yeah I know, not the highest bar to clear.)
Edit - it’s worth mentioning that I was exposed to the latter two songs by the Yacht Rock channel on Sirius XM - worth checking out if you like that kind of style.
The implication I get is A, that their relationship is renewed by learning more about each other and realising they’ve been foolish and had been missing out on things from each other.
The reality is more complex, and I don’t expect their marriage to last more than a couple of years after this. The truth is they’re bored with each other, and this rediscovery is just a blip.
Yeah, but that’s a really good song.
According to wikipedia, he changed the lyric at the last minute - something tells me it wouldn’t have been the deathless singalong hit that it is if he had stuck with “If you like Humphrey Bogart…”
I was still a wee lad in the early seventies which seems to be the setting for this song, but by the early eighties I had a very different idea of relationships. During those years I recall a decided shift away from ‘traditional family values’ and it being quite the topic of derision for my mother’s coffee klatches and my father’s poker games. Besides the obvious observation that this new generation was taking our beloved America to hell in a hand basket, was the seemingly obvious fact that everything was disposable in this modern world and marriage (when these youngsters bothered with it at all) was a temporary thing at best and not the sort of institution my parent’s generation build their stability upon.
Women were working outside the home (in a non Rosie the Riveter sense) for the first time in history if my parents and their friends knew what they were talking about. Rita Rudner had a joke about relationships just after this time that really scored: “Is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?” Relationships and much of society were just less nuclear family traditional than they were in our little suburban traditional neighborhood. My point is that things changed back to a more monogamous ethic due to some brand new PERMANENT and/or DEADLY venereal diseases.
For example Bill Murray’s character from STRIPES loses his girlfriend in the first reel and it hardly has any impact. Things were just more temporary and transient in those days from my perspective and I think the value of the song is that it captured that time perfectly. One could reading the personals while one’s significant other slept next to them—and later a relationship can be rekindled by some very shallow information.
Exactly. And just as realistic.
I voted the relationship is affirmed. Boredom had set in and almost derailed it. Hopefully this adventure will provide the spark to keep things moving along.
I’ve had periods in my marriage where the spark was fading. Takes work to get past the low points. The pendulum will eventually swing in the opposite direction if both people are patient and communicate openly. Never assume everything is fine just because your partner isn’t saying much.