ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

I went to go see my grandma tonight after work and on my way home afterward I was listening to the radio and I heard the song “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles.  I hadn’t heard it in a long time and it’s never been one of my favorites anyway, but all the other stations were playing things like Yes or the Eagles so I listened to it.  In a way, it was like listening to this song for the first time, because I had never really listened to the lyrics before.  

The title of the song sounds really optimistic, like it’s saying, whatever happens, our love will endure, because, well, “we can work it out”.  

What I never realized before was that the conditions under which “it” can be “worked out” are very specific and only involve compromise on the part of one party.  Hint: not Paul McCartney.  

The song is written in the second person from the singer to some other particular person.  It basically says, “You think you’re right, but you’re actually wrong.  Try to see it my way, because if I let you have your way it will destroy our relationship, and I’m only trying to save us because there’s so much more to life than fighting over who’s right and wrong.  So admit that I’m right and you’re wrong, and in this sense we will have worked it out”.  

This song could be an anthem for some people I have known in my life, none of whom I have in my life any longer, although if I were going to be fair, it’s been my anthem at times too.  

Either way, I thought it was interesting.  I bet if you just asked a bunch of people, they’d probably think this song sounds like it came from someone with a healthy attitude about relationships.  

But when you really look at it, this song is even worse than anything the Police ever came up with.  And normally they are my psychological instability benchmark in the music world.  This song is worse because it’s masquerading as a campaign of compromise and goodwill, but in reality you could look at the whole thing as having a message of latent hostility.  The singer doesn’t really believe in “we” at all.  The only resolution is for the other party in this relationship to submit to his superior judgment and to subvert their own will to him.  

What a terrible song.  No wonder George is my favorite Beatle.