Prove Me Wrong: Strong Enough is a Terrible, Terrible Song


I was just sitting in a park, mulling over life and some past relationships (as you do) and the Sheryl Crow song Stong Enough popped into my head, so I decided to give it a listen.

My goodness.

I love the tune but I kind of hate this song!

I am going to pick it apart now, and I really hope someone will explain to me how I completely misunderstood the whole thing and it's actually really great because I'm bummed to have realized that this song has a terrrrrrible message.

First of all: the whole "strong enough to be my man" thing is kind of empowering but also kind of says, "it's really difficult to be with me, can you handle it???" Don't love that.

And how about THIS: "Lie to me, I promise I'll believe / Lie to me but please don't leave." 

EXCUSE ME???? This made me realize that this song isn't about a strong woman who needs a strong man to be her equal. This song is about a woman who values herself so little she is begging a man to just please stay and it doesn't matter if he tells her lies. (AGAIN, please tell me how I am wrong!)

"Just try to love me if you can"

STILL with the not valuing herself at all. Like, "I'm really hard to love, just see if you can do it, pleeeeeeeease."

This is how I now interpret this song as a whole: a couple just had a big, terrible fight. The woman feels broken. She feels like hell. She is upset and wants her man to come and pick up the pieces and make her feel better but she's not sure if he will even care to do it.

So what does she do? She describes how she's feeling (which does take a certain amount of courage and honesty) and then she (perhaps internally) begs and pleads for him to say whatever he has to so she feels complete again.

It's an understandable feeling, but dang if I don't want to spend time with it in a song.


The Receptionist Delivers!
Sign up for my email newsletter for a bi-weekly digest and bonus content!

No comments:

Post a Comment