I Write the Songs

Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" (1975) has been glued in my noodle (I'm trying this as a rhymier replacement for "stuck in my head") longer than any song--since 1987.  It's because of the crescendoing, key-changing repetition at the end.  And the fact of this gluing is a shame because Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" is terrible.

Here are the lyrics (truncated):

I've been alive forever
And I wrote the very first song
I put the words and the melodies together
I am music
And I write the songs

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs

My home lies deep within you
And I've got my own place in your soul
Now when I look out through your eyes
I'm young again, even tho' I'm very old

Oh, my music makes you dance and gives you spirit to take a chance
And I wrote some rock 'n roll so you can move
Music fills your heart, well that's a real fine place to start
It's from me, it's for you
It's from you, it's for me
It's a worldwide symphony

I write the songs that make the whole world sing
I write the songs of love and special things
I write the songs that make the young girls cry
I write the songs, I write the songs

I am music and I write the songs



So, here's my reading:

1) Barry Manilow is singing a song from the perspective of Music, which is megalomaniacal.

2) Barry Manilow is singing a song from the perspective of God, which is megalomaniacal.

3) Barry Manilow believes that he is music and God, and that he invented rock and roll.  See above.

Further, Manilow's metaphors (penned by Bruce Johnson of The Beach Boys, to be fair) are strained at best.  How does music, in this construct, write the songs?  Wouldn't music be the songs?

I suppose God could be the songs, but certainly not this song.  That's heretical.  And I don't like to think of an old guy named Mr. Music sitting in an office building writing a lot of carbon-copied ditties, or of an old deity named Mr. God inspiring "Copacabana."

And what about these tearful "young girls"?  Why would God (if this song is from the perspective of God, as has been claimed) want young girls to cry?  This conception of God-as-ladykiller is disquieting.

Also, how does Music look out through my eyes?  I don't enjoy the idea that I am inhabited by a creature snooping on all of my friends.  And if Manilow is music, as his song suggests, then why does his character, music, declare the line, "my music makes you dance and gives you spirit to take a chance"?

Isn't this like saying I am weather and weather pours the rain? 

The lyrics force their performer to speak of himself in the third person, or the third-concept, if you will.

Meanwhile, I am criticism, and I write the rants.

All of this having been ranted, I find that Mr. Manilow seems to be aware of the tune's trouble: "The problem with the song," he once wrote, "was that if you didn't listen carefully to the lyric, you would think that the singer was singing about himself. It could be misinterpreted as a monumental ego trip."

I'll consider that an apology.  And turn my scorn to L. Ritchie's "Say You, Say Me."