Cat Stevens also had a most lovely song, The Boy with the Moon and Star on His Head that is wonderful to hear, but it has a deep undercurrent of misogyny. The protagonist pauses on his way to his own wedding to schtup this nice lass under the holy magnolia, goes and gets married, and then “… a year went by and everthing was just as it was the year before …”. I guess the woman he deigned to marry was but a cipher.
Along the lines of beautiful songs that have a bit of darkness to them, there is one of my favorites, Velvet Green by Jethro Tull. The content involves more outdoor sex, couched in incredibly poetic and elegant vulgarity, but the woman is just used
We’ll dream as lovers, under the stars
Of civilizations raging afar
And as the ragged dawn breaks on your battle scars
You’ll walk home cold and alone upon velvet green
Sublime - Right Back Sleepin by yourself at night can make you feel alone Your girl friend said so but I don’t really know That don’t mean we fucked around that night last week when you left town
Sublime - Santeria I don’t practice Santeria, I ain’t got no crystal ball Well, I had a million dollars, but I’d, I’d spend it all If I could find that Jaina and that Sancho that she’s found Well, I’d pop a cap in Sancho and I’d slap her down
For some reason, a lot of people have the expectation that a singer should be living the life they’re singing about. I know back in the 90s there was an expectation that rappers lived a certain lifestyle, to the point where people like MC Hammer thought they had to appear to be living the gangsta lifestyle, but I don’t think we expected Bobby Darin to be Mack the Knife.
John Lennon doesn’t strike me as someone who “creates characters” on a regular basis. That’s Paul. John’s someone who writes his experiences and beliefs and pain. A lot of his songs include asshole behavior, and he’s admitted to being an abusive asshole with women. Those lyrics about being cruel to women and beating them are John’s experiences coming through in his lyrics.
The singer, borrowing his brother’s rifle, sees a lone rider nearby, and draws a bead on him to practice his aim, with a loaded weapon. The rifle goes off by mistake, killing the rider. The singer runs away, gets caught, and while remorseful, is put to death.
Perhaps not the best example, because he was remorseful, but seriously, the accident shouldn’t have happened. Have a little respect for the fact that you’re holding a loaded gun. And then running away?
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” by Bob Dylan is a great breakup song, but the last verse does reveal the singer to be a self-obsessed jerk;
So long, honey babe Where I’m bound, I can’t tell Goodbye is too good a word, babe So I’ll just say fare thee well I ain’t sayin’ you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don’t mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don’t think twice, it’s all right
The guy used to date the girl’s big sister, and he thinks of the big sister as a big of a slut now, so he figures he’ll try his luck with her. (By the way, he used to pull her pigtails and pinch her nose when she was a kid.)
That’s definitely the current zeitgeist - look at the careers of singers like Taylor Swift or Ariana Grande, not to mention Kanye West. For whatever reason, the prevailing theme in modern pop culture is that all art needs to be autobiographical.
Personally, I miss the days when singers made shit up.
I’m a-thinkin’ and a-wonderin’, walkin’ way down the road
I once loved a woman, a child, I am told
I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul
But don’t think twice, it’s all right
has been worrying me for a while.
Still, as you say, a song doesn’t have to be autobiographical…
Well Ian Anderson makes up for this with Hunting Girl, where the man is likewise.
I"m not seeing it. It’s clearly stated that she has treated him badly (he doesn’t exactly say how or why) but turns on the charm only when he starts to walk out. Against that background where is the self-obsession in saying “you wasted my time”?
What is worrying about that verse? He’s saying he loved her but she “wanted my soul” which would generally imply she wanted more than was reasonable, in some way (albeit unstated).
Dylan’s How Does It Feel is icky triumphing over a woman who has become so destitute that she has had to resort to prostituting herself to scary bums to survive. Just because she used to be better off doesn’t make this okay.
He’s quite specifically saying that she didn’t treat him badly, though, but that the love she had wasn’t good enough for him and/or that he wasn’t willing to commit (I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul).
You are taking the song as a whole very differently to how I always have.
In context, along with the lines “ain’t no use in turnin on your light babe, the light I never knowed” and “ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, gal, like you never done before” I have always taken it that he loved her but she was distant.
The whole point of the song is him expressing a diffidence that he probably doesn’t feel because he knows she hasn’t been unkind as such, but has been distant and cold. He’s saying in effect “don’t worry about it, you haven’t been positively bad, but it’s been a waste of time me loving you when you weren’t loving back”.
Edited to add: I guess I’m surprised you and its_the_daddy pick on this song given that dozens of Dylan’s songs are about the protagonist being unkind or worse to women. This is IMHO one of the few about a man being hurt by a woman.
While laughing at anyone’s downfall is unkind, the key element you miss is that she used to be contemptuous of the very people to whose level she has fallen.
