I was listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast one morning when one of his guests said he liked covers of songs that sound nothing like the original, the covers that capture the essence and meaning of a song better than the original does. That is how I found out about Obadiah Parker’s cover of “Hey Ya”. I love Andre 3000 and “Hey Ya” is a classic that I’m sure most of you have heard and enjoy. I always loved the song because of its energy. Its melody was good enough so that I didn’t have to pay attention to the lyrics. Ironically, Andre 3000 knew that when he said “ya’ll don’t want to hear me, you just wanna dance”. The juxtaposition of the song’s melody with its subtlety cynical lyrics, is a perfect representation of Andre 3000’s genius.
When I used to listen to the original, I would listen just to put myself in a good mood, because the song has that effect on you. It’s a party song more than anything. That was until I heard the cover and I realized what the song really was- a tragic insight into the thoughts of every man in a monogamous relationship.
Andre starts the song off by singing “My baby don’t mess around because she loves me so and this I know for sure/ But does she really wanna but can’t stand to see me walk out the door?” The first line sounds like it’s coming from a guy who is in a happy, loving, and trusting relationship. The second line, expresses some doubt to the motive behind his girlfriend’s commitment. In context, the first bar sounds like a guy talking himself into believing something he knows probably isn’t true. The second bar establishes the fact that the man wouldn’t be satisfied with his girlfriend’s loyalty alone anyway, if the motives underlying it weren’t built on true love and adoration for him. He admits that yeah his girlfriend is most likely loyal, but is it because “she loves him so”, or because she’s too afraid to leave behind the comfort and security that comes with the relationship… definitely perks of a long-term relationship, but not the prime reasons to stay in a relationship. Or maybe she just doesn’t cheat because she knows how much it would hurt her significant other. Or maybe she’s a narcissist and if she can’t have him, nobody can. These are all possibilities for her staying in the relationship and staying loyal, but not building blocks of a stable relationship built on unconditional love.
This is such an amazing insight into what everyone thinks when they’re in a relationship. First and foremost, we wonder whether the person we are with is loyal to us. If they aren’t, we’re crushed and we probably leave them. But even if they are loyal, we want to know it’s for the right reasons. We want to know it’s because they couldn’t imagine themselves with anyone else. We couldn’t live with the fact that the person we’re with is simply with us to uphold tradition, or because they’re scared of being alone, or for whatever other shallow, superficial reasons there are to stay in a relationship.
Andre then goes on to sing “Don’t try to fight the feeling cuz the thought alone is killing me right now/ Thank God for mom and dad for sticking to together cuz we don’t know how.” He starts the bar off by saying the thought alone of his girl wanting to be with someone else is so sickening that he has to confront it now or else it would eat him alive. We know all too well just how accurate that is. When thoughts like that enter your head, especially about your significant other, the anxiety of putting it off is too much for anyone to bear. They need to be confronted and faced right away, and rightfully so, no matter how difficult it may be.
In the next bar Andre uses the trope of a happy marriage as the example of how love should be, or at least used to be. The irony in this is two-fold: 1) Who is to say our parents are happier than us? Who is to say they didn’t go through the same problems, or continuously deal with those problems? Who is to say marriage was a better, more stable institution when they got married? Maybe divorce was at a lower rate then because it was looked down upon, not because every marriage rested on true love. 2) Andre was raised by a single mother so he didn’t have a happy marriage to learn from at home. I’m not saying that the song is from his perspective, but it really doesn’t matter. There’s definitely a hint of satire in his saying we have our parents to learn from when it comes to love.
In his second verse Andre stops beating around the bush and asks the one question that we’ve all thought of at some point: “They say nothing is forever, then what makes love the exception”? The man in this hypothetical relationship is asking the question that answers all questions. Hollywood has convinced us that true love lasts forever, that unconditional love exists, and that there is one person out there for everyone who is a perfect match. Are we naive to think that’s how the real world works? Are we naive enough to believe that we could actually love someone forever. Are we even more naive to believe that someone could actually love our hideously imperfect selves FOREVER?! While I don’t have answers to these questions, it is perfectly natural to have these questions, especially when you start to question a relationship, or even look to move forward with it.
The song continues with a question that leaves a clear solution “Why are we so in denial when we know we’re not happy here”? It seems he knew the answer all along. It’s almost as if he was talking about himself when he was talking about his girl wanting to leave him. The second verse makes it clear that this man is afraid of getting too close to anything. I think his biggest fear is having a girl feel the way he does about them. That’s why he says “separate is always better when there’s feeling involved”.
As soon as the song asks its toughest questions and displays its doubts and insecurities about love and relationships, the second verse ends with “ya’ll don’t want to hear me, you just want to dance”. He knew his audience very well. He was talking to a hip hop crowd. He knew they came to hear something exciting, something ignorant. He told the girls to shake it (like a polaroid picture) and everyone to dance. He gave them what they wanted. He gave them a brutally sad song masqueraded as a party song. The cover doesn’t even include that last line of the second verse because the line before it needs to be digested. It’s the last thing you say in a relationship. It’s the end, the honest, tragic end.
And what’s cooler than being cool? Ice cold. So cold you can’t feel a thing.
This song isn’t just a critique on modern love, it’s a metaphor for life, for reading in between the lines. Too many people see what they want to see when they look at something, instead of what they know they need to see. When you hear this song, you hear a high energy you can sing along and party to. It’s a song you can enjoy without understanding what it means. The real story is in the meaning. The real story is in the cover. Life isn’t always what it seems to be. Life is a whole lot of suffering. It’s doubt, denial, heart-break- all consequences of leaving yourself vulnerable. Because to gain anything worth having, you must first make yourself vulnerable, whether that means opening yourself up to failure, rejection, embarrassment, or just pain. What’s cooler than being cold? Being open and honest with yourself and the world.
The two versions of the same song are two different perspectives of seeing the world. You can either choose to live in willful blindness and pretend to enjoy the present. Or…you can choose to face the world for what it is. You can choose to own up to the consequences of opening your soul to true, full love, even if it involves immense pain in the process. Remember, “It’s better to have loved and lost to have never loved at all.”
