Sing Me A Story: Before He Cheats

What, only one song this time? When you think of a narrative about cheating you probably think of the movie Fatal Attraction, a movie that no man, even a faithful one, should probably ever see with his significant other. Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” is also a story about getting revenge on an unfaithful partner. However, while I’m certainly anti-“playa” (since it not only makes us guys look bad but means there’s less women for nice guys like me to choose from for no good reason), there is a slight flaw in this song that leaves an unintended opening.

I once mentioned to other parties (I couldn’t find the comments in question or there would be a link here) that in a song the narrator (in other words the singer) is considered a sort of “word of God“. (By the way, BW Media Spotlight takes no responsibility for the time you will lose at TV Tropes when one concept leads to another.) Unless the writer fully intended for us to see that person as pretty much insane or obviously wrong, what they say happened in fact happened. Even in the actual video we do in fact see the guy in question, making me wonder if you’re dating a hottie like Carrie Underwood what’s your problem?

However, Word of God here gives us a line in the actual song (and we’ve seen plenty of videos that don’t always connect to the song; ever see Meatloaf’s “Anything For Love”? Show me the line about having lesbians crawl all over you while you crash into detectives with your motorcycle while looking like a deformed demon?) right at the beginning that could be interpreted in a way that really frags up the whole song.

Right now, he’s probably slow dancing with…

“Probably”. This could also be interpreted, ignoring the video that came afterwords, to be that she doesn’t really know. Unless there’s a history or she actually saw him “on the prowl”, neither situation being mentioned in the song, she could be operating under a false assumption. And even if she isn’t, smashing the hell out of his truck and leaving her name as evidence? Who wants to bet that she isn’t at least sued if not arrested for that? It seems like a rather poorly thought out revenge ploy. Next time just dump the guy and post it on your blog or Twitter or something. It will save you the legal fees later.

Also interesting? This song was written by two dudes. I wonder if they and Carrie (and the video creator) were on the same page. 🙂

Related Article from the “jerk move” department

• Radio Station Bans Carrie Underwood After Husband’s Hockey Trade (omg.yahoo.com)

Some people take sports way to seriously. And yes, I do realize that I took this song way too seriously, but there’s fun and there’s stupid.