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Holly Golightly :: Virtually Happy

Hey boys, have you ever wanted to be a girl? Have you ever whined: “Girls aren’t forced to play sports. Girls are better at studying. Girls don’t have to get jobs. Girls don’t have to wear ties. Girls never have to beg.”? How often do you hear a girl beg for a date? They either just get one, i.e. someone offers, or they don’t worry about it.

I love Holly Golightly because she has a unique voice and an attitude. She can beg. Her voice goes low, which can be a great talent for a girl (re: Nina Simone). Often, I think of gender theory, or what those theorists call ‘blurring the boundary.’ Virtually Happy was written in the style of what I like to call ‘boy begging’: it has a modified blues set-up, which is appropriate as most blues songs are about begging for returned love. Many other women singers have begged for love in the past in the tradition of country or blues. But why that little topper of ambiguity at the end of the phrase? Why only ‘virtually’ happy?

Hey all you gender theorists out there, what’s hidden in this song?

Virtually Happy (4.9MB MP3)
Holly Golightly (homepage)

emily said on thursday, july 03rd, 2008

anika said on wednesday, july 09th, 2008