I absolutely love the voice on Bruno Mars. When I first heard "Just the Way You Are" (a song which will be an entry at some point), I may have fallen in love a little bit. Before I heard the song "Grenade," a friend had a status message about the severity of the song, and it got me curious. I looked up the song, and it is indeed an intense type of love, especially given the fact that he acknowledges his partner's lack of reciprocation. He's aware of her lack of love, because he says, "Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash." He is clear that she is disregarding his affection. He even goes so far as to say, "Tell the devil I said 'hey' when you get back to where you're from." It's not just that she doesn't love him, but he has come to realize that the one he loves is evil, essentially saying that she came from hell. Isn't that sometimes the case? We think people are one thing when we meet them, but some time with them shows us that they are nothing like we thought. Their issues and insecurities began to ooze and affect the relationship. I'm aware that everyone has their stuff, but it's important to recognize when someone's stuff is what my friends and I call "diagnosable" - something that requires professional help and some time on a couch because of the depth of the issues.
But what I see as the major problem comes near the end of the song. He continues talking about the depth of her evils, saying, "If my body was on fire, ooh, you’d watch me burn down in flames. You said you loved me, you're a liar, cause you never, ever, ever did baby." He knows that he's in a relationship where he is in love by himself. After this line, he pauses to think, almost as if he's pondering what he's said about the fact that he's never even been loved in this relationship. And after the pause of thought, he goes back to the chorus, saying, "But darling I’ll still catch a grenade for ya, throw my hand on a blade for ya. I’d jump in front of a train for ya. You know I'd do anything for ya. I would go through all this pain; take a bullet straight through my brain. Yes, I would die for ya baby, but you won't do the same." So even after he establishes that he is not nor has he ever been loved in this relationship, after addressing the fact that she would likely watch him burn to death and not put forth an effort to help him, he is still willing to do some intense things in the name of love for her.
Now, I don't know about you... It's one thing to catch a grenade for someone who I love and who I know loves me back, but to do so for a person who I know wouldn't cross the street for me.... That is a lot harder to swallow, and so I have to question the self love that is involved in such a decision. While I understand that love is sometimes a difficult thing and it is not always 100% reciprocal and mutual, but willingness to endure bodily harm for someone who has no real regard for you... that doesn't seem wise. He recognizes the poison, but he doesn't love himself to stop drinking it. As yesterday's entry said, know that you deserve better and that you should be able to love and be loved in a relationship. It is clear that unrequited love can be painful and problematic as the end of the video shows, especially when you know that the person doesn't love you (and has no intentions of doing so), but you continue to choose an intense love for them. If you didn't watch it all the way through, I encourage you to, because it makes clear my point. Side note: because I love his voice, I'm gonna include the studio version of the song too.
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