Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Can someone please explain the popularity of Clay Aiken's "Invisible"?

For those of you not familiar with Clay Aiken, he's a singer who got his start on American Idol. I don't know if he's gotten much exposure outside of the country, and I missed hearing anything about him for a long time because I don't watch the show.

Since leaving the show, though, he's started a successful career in the music industry. I've only heard one of his songs, and it's time on the playlists has, for the most part, already come and gone.

I did happen to recently catch a rerun of Saturday Night Live, though, in which he appeared and sang that song. The song has bothered me since I first heard it. I'd pretty much forgotten about it, but when I heard it on SNL, the old questions came back to mind. So, I decided to post here and see what sort of answers I could get.

The song is called "Invisible," and you can find the lyrics here.

For the purposes of this post, I'll quote the chorus, which is repeated fairly often and, really, is the part that bothers me the most.

Now, to some degree, this seems to echo Clark's feelings in "I'm Looking Through You." To a larger degree, though, I find it fairly disturbing.

Read it through and think about it for a while. It seems to me that what he's saying is:

If I could get away with it, I'd spy on you in your private domain. If I had the power, even though we don't have any kind of relationship at this point, I'd take you right now. If I had any courage, I'd ask you out or at least come talk to you and offer some compliments. Instead, though, I'm just going to watch you from afar and obsess about you, because, for some reason, even though I haven't told you I'm interested, you don't seem to be noticing me.

Now, if that doesn't say "creepy stalker" at the very least, I don't know what does.

Yet, somehow, he's popular, this is one of his most popular songs, and most of his fans seem to be women. I just don't understand it.

Can anyone explain it to me?

Paul

Oh, I think people know it's a "stalker" song ... I've heard many people laugh about just that. And face it, Clark was kind of a stalker in Pilot -- hovering outside Lois's window after her date with Lex; how creepy was *that*, Clark?? In fact, there is a great L&C music vid to this song which includes this scene. (One of Andrea's; there is a link to in the stickied Music Video TOC in this folder.)

But music isn't always about lyrics ... or interpreting lyrics literally. Just look at Matchbox 20's "Push" -- very popular, but it's a haunting song about intimidation in a relationship (I've read interviews with where they insisted it was not about physical absuse). Yet, just like "Invisible", the tune is very catchy, easy to sing along to. Even if you kind of know the lyrics could be interpreted in a creepy way, it doesn't stop you from liking the song.

(And I think in the case of "Invisible", you can easily interpret the song in terms of metaphor ... the *feeling* behind unrequited love, rather than the intention to actually *do* any of these things. It's the difference between fantasy and reality, literal interpretation vs. parable.)

That said, there certainly are a lot of "creepy" songs out there if you really listen to the lyrics, LOL. In fact, the syndicated radio morning show I sometimes listen to devoted their time to this topic just a few months ago. I wish I could remember all the titles people called in to suggest, but there were plenty!

Like the old song "Into The Night" by Benny Mardones ... "She's just sixteen years old, leave her alone, they say ... separated by fools, who don't know what love is yet" ... let's see, should we start with "statutory rape" or "jail-bait"? Either way, this song has played millions of times on the radio.

Kathy (who was amazed when a friend expressed offense at "Goodbye Earl" by the Dixie Chicks. OK, yeah, so it's about conspiring to murder your abusive husband, but it's darn good song. <bg>)

Fair enough, Kathy. I can still enjoy Meat Loaf's "Antything For Love" if I forget that I ever really looked into the lyrics. There are plenty of songs with catchy tunes which could easily be ruined by listening too closely. "My Sharona" is an obvious and common example.

The thing is, you don't even have to listen closely on this one. He says over and over again, "If I was invisible..." We're not just talking about hovering outside her window eavesdropping (which still isn't even close to right). Clark, at least, was facing away from her. This is more like hovering outside and X-raying through the wall.

As for metephor... Sure, I understand unrequited love (or at least strong interest), but there's a big difference between saying "I love you but you don't even notice me and I wish there was something I could do to change that" and repeating over and over "If I was invisible, I would just watch you in your room." Even at my most obsessive, I've never dreamed of invading someone's private space unwanted, let alone unseen. Yet that's the song's central theme, and women from around the country seem to love it. I just don't understand.

I suppose it might help if I liked the tune, but it's not really to my taste.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful reply, Kathy. I guess I'll just have to consider it "one of those things" and move on.

Paul

At the risk of hijacking the thread, I'll second Kathy's point about liking songs despite their lyrics. Most of the time the words to a song are really important to me, but occasionally I can ignore them or find... shall we say "creative interpretations" that make them okay . And plenty of songs make no sense when I look at the words. I adore "Kiss From A Rose," for example, but I couldn't tell you what it means to save my life

My brother claims "Love the One You're With" really means "cheat on your wife." I used to love "Into the Night," the example Kathy quoted, despite how creepy it sounds. And another of my favorites is J Geils' "Centerfold," which is basically about looking at a naked girl in a magazine. In that case I love the song so much that I learned to like the lyrics and just find them funny instead of offensive. The singer starts out all incensed by the idea that the perfect girl he had a crush on in high school is now posing nude in a magazine, but as the song goes on he warms to the idea...

I hope that when this issue's gone
I'll see you when your clothes are on
Take your car, yes, we will
Take your car and drive it
Take it to a motel room
And take 'em off in private!

Anyway, "Invisible" doesn't bother me. It's fun to sing along with and I can pretend it's more of a fantasy than a creepy stalker. Of course, there are songs that drive me crazy that other people think are fine. Brian McKnight's "Back at One" used to really upset me. So I guess everyone has their own tolerance levels for that sort of thing?

Kaylle
(Oh, no, I can't deny it... Oh, yeah, I guess I gotta buy it!)

I can't explain it, Paul, because my reaction to the song was "ewwww! creepy stalker!" *shudder*

Y'know, I don't think I've ever heard a Clay Aiken song, which is really remarkable, considering he's a local boy (his mom works about a mile away from me) *and* he's involved with autism-related charities...

These days, I'm more into country, where the words usually make sense. I read somewhere that one of the hallmarks of "country" music is the primacy of lyrics. There are lots of songs I like with only semi-comprehensible lyrics, but none of them are country.

As for a song about cheating on your wife, I like this one:

Then what? Whatcha gonna do, when the new wears off and the old shines through?
It ain't really love and it ain't really lust, and you ain't anybody anybody's gonna trust.
Then what? Where you gonna turn when you can't turn back for the bridges you've burned?
And fate can't wait to kick you in the butt... then what? Oooh, then what?

PJ
eek, thread drift!

OK, I'm not a Clay fan (never really heard any of his songs) but I just had to jump in with my own example.

There's this very famous song by The Police that you may have heard of. It's called "Every Breath You Take" - talk about your stalker song!

Sting refused to play it in concert for years since it's so dark. He had people come up to him after shows disappointed because he didn't play 'their' song.

Avia
(Who likes another 'stalker' Sting song much better )

Actually, Avia, while "Every Breath You Take" is very much a stalker song, there's a twist to the story.

It turns out that Sting felt he was being stalked by an ex, and he wrote the song as part of his efforts to understand her perspective. That makes a big difference to me. Of course, the fact that I like the tune helps a lot, too.

I guess, for me, there are some songs I can listen to and ignore the lyrics, some few I like only for the lyrics, and some I can't stand because of the lyrics. It depends on many factors, such as how blatant the lyrics are, how much I like the tune, how much the tune covers the lyrics, and what associations, if any, I have with the song.

There was a while, actually, when I stopped listening to the lyrics of any song. I found that doing so ruined too many of them for me. I liked Uncle Cracker's "Follow Me" until I made the mistake of listening to the lyrics. After that, I just couldn't stand to listen.

So, the other thing to learn from all this is that some people are more able to ignore/move past the lyrics than others.

Anyway, thanks again for the responses, everyone. Nice to be able to think this all through. Oh, and for what it's worth, I say don't worry about thread drift on this one. Go with what matters to you.

Paul

The fact that it's Clay Aiken singing it is what makes the song non-bothersome to me. No, I don't have a crush on the guy, but I'm an American Idol fan and I was a fan of his when he was on there. He's completely non-scary and non-threatening to me. And not to make this all about my weirdnesses, but I find a lot of guys threatening. But there's something cute and puppyish about Clay, and he seems harmless enough.

Really I think the song is saying: "If I wasn't so shy and scared, I would be like one of those suave guys who'd sweep you off your feet, who you'd fall for in a second... but I'm not. So dreaming about you is as close as I'm going to get."

I really think there's a difference between fantasizing, and being a stalker or even a potential stalker.

So anyway, the song doesn't bother me and that may be partially due to the fact that that boy in particular is singing it, but who knows.