Tuesday, 7 May 2013

Problems I have with 'On The Metro' by Girls Aloud

Catchy tune, granted, but I have some real problems with the lyrics and the story being told in them. Perhaps I've been thinking about it too much. I've definately been listening to it too much.



1. There's five members of Girls Aloud. All of them sing about the same bloke at one point or another. This leaves three option. The first is that they've had the same experience, with a man disappearing after they come back from powdering their nose. You'd have thought, considering how deeply it affected them, they'd have told the others, and they could have avoided popping off to the 'powder room' when they meet a guy they really like. Unless there's a secret underground league of men who go to discos with the sole aim of upsetting a member of a girl group, spotting Cheryl Cole and moving in to try and cause her to cry on her way home, with their colleague having done exactly the same thing to Nicola Roberts the night before. The second option is that the girls can merge into one person, kind of like the Megazord in Power Rangers. The third is that when they say 'A little one-to-one', they mean 'A little five-to-one', with all of them obsessing over the same boy. If this is the case, I think he was well within his rights to do a runner.



2. The line "Sipping on my favourite soda pop". Eww. What a hideous phrase.

3. So this guy is shy and out of place. So why does he starting meaning business and getting all up in your space? That's a bit direct for someone who, from the initial description, is embarassed to be there.

4. So they "move into the wall for a little one-to-one". While they're doing this, the girly Megazord decides to pop off to powder her nose. She must have squeezed out in quite an awkward, difficult fashion. I'd imagine that this knocked the poor bloke's confidence, thinking that was that, that tending to her hooter was more important than her, so, understandably, he slinked off in a reluctant fashion.

5. "I hopped into the powder room". I like the image of her literally doing it on one leg. If this is the case, you can't blame the poor bloke for running like the clappers.

6. You're crying, in public, about a boy you've only met once, fleetingly, and never even spoken to. Grow up.

7. So you don't say a syllable. Great. What I gather from this is that you didn't speak to him at all. So how do you "only" know his name? Unless he's wearing a name tag. Which, firstly, would be weird, and you probably shouldn't be crying over him, and secondly, the only possible explanation for him wearing a name tag was that he's rushed into this particular disco straight from work. As such, you not only know his name, but also his occupation and place of work. Hunt him down. Can't be that hard. Yes, it's a bit creepy, but you're clearly so upset about this, Chezza, you might as well go the extra mile to get over it.

8. You wanted his number, but you don't say a word to him. Seeing as you won't recognise his voice when you call him, why not just ring a random number? That's a really stupid suggestion. I'm sorry. All the same, I don't think you can expect to garner somebody's phone number just through letting them get all up in your space. And if you can, perhaps I've been living my life all wrong.

9. She put his name 'on the window'. So either she's a vandal, and should be taken into police custody, or it's frosty outside. As such, there'd need to be a number of open windows on this train for it to condense this far in, assuming she's sat down whilst blubbing, which she'd have to be to write on the window. Close them. That might help. Alternatively, she says 'put' your name on the window, so she might have stolen the name tag and just left it on the window in public, which means you lose the only thing you had to help identify the man you're so infatuated with. Idiot. Unless you're trying to forget him, which really doesn't seem to be the case from the rest of the song.

10. What does 'Now they turn into a question mark' even mean? It sounds vaguely poetic on first hearing, but think about it. What?

11. If I left my heart at the disco, I wouldn't get on the Metro. I'd turn back around and try to find it. It's a pretty important thing to have left lying around. Truth be told, I'd be willing to miss my train home in order to gather any of my vital organs.

12. When you went in for a little one-to-one, and you stole his name tag, looks like he outdid you, managing to perform major surgery, removing your heart, running off with it. Perhaps this explains the underground movement set up in #1. They're not looking to devastate members of girl groups, but to physically disembody them. Maybe it's a search for human perfection. Taking the best bits of different celebrities. Perhaps they took a different part of all of them, but the heart is the only one they could get into a pop song, thanks to the secondary connotations of the organ. Maybe they took Cheryl's face (Which would explain why she nowadays looks like some kind of doll, having had her face reconstructed by Hasbro), Nicola's hair... The Saturdays had better look out. Una Healey, you might want better than Ben Foden to look after you.

13. "I don't know why, why did you go?". Did it not occur to you that, maybe, he didn't like you? What a big-headed attitude, to simply assume everyone loves you because you're famous. Grow up.

14. Only just realised she says "We danced two hours, minimum". He might be really, really tired. It'd be understandable. Two hours is also plenty of time to perform a heart transplant.

15. Two hours and not a word between you. I don't think that's a good sign, do you, Nadine?

16. The phrase "Getting all up in my space" has negative connotations to me, but there we go.

17. I somehow doubt a member of Girls Aloud would get so little attention when out in London that she could dance uninterupted with the bloke for over two hours.

18. Maybe he was just using you. You're nothing special to him, you're an anecdote. "I spent two hours dancing with that bird out of Girls Aloud" "Cheryl Cole?" "No, the one that looks like Alex Cuthbert."

19. If I went down the route of all five of them being there, I could list hundreds more issues I'd have with the song, but I'm not going to be pedantic like that.

20. I don't actually have 20 problems with it, but seeing as I got to 19, I thought I might as well round it off on a nice number.

I have, over the course of writing this, discovered that the song was written by Nicola Roberts. If I'd known this before, I wouldn't have had such issues, having already just accepted that Beat Of My Drum nonsense she churned out the other year with a mere eyebrow-shrug. You're great at being ginger, Nicola, but you're not Morrissey. Leave the lyrics to Xenomania.

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