Dauphin

At the request of a friend, I have agreed to review Justin Bieber’s song Boyfriend. Well not so much ‘review’, so much as ‘scrutinise’.

So the running order is going to be like this: the stupid lyrics to Boyfriend are below (I got them off the internet); I’m going to put little [numbers] by each notation I make and then list all of the notes below the lyrics. Two things to remember; everything except the choruses is rapped. The first verse is sort of quiet, and throughout the song is is this kind of whale-song sound. Not sure who had that idea.

Everyone okay with that? Right, let’s go.

If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go [1]
I can take you places you ain’t never been before [2]
Baby take a chance or you’ll never ever know
I got money in my hands that I’d really like to blow [3]
Swag swag swag, on you [4]
Chillin by the fire [5] while we eatin’ [6] fondue [7]
I dunno about me but I know about you [8]
So say hello to falsetto [9] in three two

[Pre-Chorus]
I’d like to be everything you want
Hey girl, let me talk to you [10]

[Chorus]
If I was your boyfriend, never let you go
Keep you on my arm girl, you’d never be alone [11]
I can be a gentleman [12], anything you want
If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go, I’d never let you go [13]

[Verse 2]
Tell me what you like yeah tell me what you don’t
I could be your Buzz Lightyear fly across the globe [14]
I don’t never wanna fight yeah, you already know [15]
I am ‘ma a make you shine bright like you’re laying in the snow [16]

Girlfriend, girlfriend, you could be my girlfriend
You could be my girlfriend until the —- world ends [17]
Make you dance do a spin and a twirl and [18]
Voice goin crazy on this hook like a whirl wind [19]
Swaggie [20]

[Pre-Chorus]
I’d like to be everything you want
Hey girl, let me talk to you

[Chorus]
If I was your boyfriend, never let you go
Keep you on my arm girl [21] you’d never be alone
I can be a gentleman, anything you want
If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go, I’d never let you go

[Bridge]
So give me a chance, ‘cause you’re all I need girl
Spend a week wit your boy [22] I’ll be calling you my girlfriend [23]
If I was your man, I’d never leave you girl
I just want to love you, and treat you right

[Chorus]
If I was your boyfriend, never let you go
Keep you on my arm girl you’d never be alone
I can be a gentleman, anything you want
If I was your boyfriend, I’d never let you go, never let you go
Na na na, na na na, na na na
Ya girl
Na na na, na na na, na na na ey
Na na na, na na na, na na na ey
Na na na, na na na, na na na ey
If I was your boyfriend [24]

1. So at this point, I’m thinking “what’s up with the whale-song?” and he just kicks off with the creepy quasi-abusive statement “I’ll never let you go”.

2. He’ll take me places I ain’t seen before. That, friends, is a lot of places. I’ve never seen Prague or Sydney or Thurso. Hell, I live in Edinburgh and I still haven’t been to the zoo or the castle yet. Speaking of zoos, Chester Zoo more or less pwns every zoo on the planet. I bet Justin Bieber hasn’t been to Chester Zoo. I don’t want him to go, it would cease to be cool if the elephants had to endure a visit from him.

3. A lot of problems with this line. Firstly, pop teaches us that money can’t buy you love. Secondly, the idea that he wants to buy a girlfriend is weird, especially since he’s established he’ll never leave her alone. Thirdly, the verb ‘blow’ and the next line “swag, swag, swag, on you”. If we rearrange the lines there… well: I wouldn’t let Justin blow his swagger all over me.

4. Yeah, to reiterate, I’m assuming from now on that when Justin Bieber sings ‘swag’ or ‘swagger’, he means semen.

5. “Chillin’ by the fire” is an oxymoronic statement. And at what point in this song did we go camping?!

6. I’m not old enough, or grumpy enough to say that “while we eatin’” pisses me off, my whole degree sort of teaches me that it’s legitimate and it’s language and whatever. But you guys have license to.

7. Fondue?! FONDUE!?!? FONDUE###? WHAT THE FUCK. Who in their right mind puts fondue into a tweenypop r’n’b track?

8. He knows all about you, and he won’t leave you alone. Again with the stalking.

9. Hello, falsetto.

10. It’s like he’s leaving a message on her answerphone at this point.

11. “Keep you on my arm” (like 18th century England!) “you’ll never be alone”. I’m starting to think this might just be one massive reference to Every Breath You Take, by The Police – and like Sting, Bieber sighs when he hears of infatuated tweens romancing to this tune when he intended it as a stark warning to mildly over attentive partners.

12. But then he goes back to the 18th century. Also: Justin Bieber will never be gentleman. You need land, and a sneer, and to have never have used the word “swag”, not even in the olden-days robbery sense (a gent would say ‘loot’).

13. See [11].

14. Be like Buzz Lightyear. Flying around the globe. Not only does Bieber betray a lack of knowledge about the role a boyfriend actually plays in a relationship (ideally, you’re an equal partner in a loving, caring, dynamic relationship, not a lifeless plastic toy that speaks when you press his multicoloured buttons. But that’s just me.) but also the fact that he clearly hasn’t seen Toy Story – because as we all know, Buzz Lightyear cannot fly. He can only fall with style.

15. He doesn’t want to fight her, which is good. It’s good when people don’t enter a relationship relishing the coming gladiatorial combat.

16. In the snow? First the campfire, then the fondue… now this? Basically, he’s going to kill you and bury you in the snow. In Canada. And then set fire to your frozen corpse, to make you “shine bright”.

17. Until the world ends. TOGETHER FOREVER. In the snow.

18. Yeah this bit is about him dancing with his burning corpse bride.

19. Wait! Oh wait! He just got self-referential again. Meta.

20. He actually says this bit out loud.

21. Maybe, when he refers to keeping you on his arm, he is actually referring to the massive, true colour tattoo he’s planning on inking onto his right arm. He’s drawn the preliminary sketches of face already.

22. He thinks he’ll have the job done in a week?

23. Courtship, young man, takes longer than a week, okay? Nobody is somebody else’s boyfriend after knowing them for a week. What sort of conquest would that be, anyway? “So, how did you guys meet?” “Oh I just followed her around for a whole week.” NO.

24. Oh, I get it at last. Daylight shines through. “If I was your boyfriend” is the equivalent of “it was all a dream”. This was just some hypothetical pitch to his potential girlfriend, whom he estimates after one week with the Bieber machine, will become his paramour. And then he’ll get a giant tattoo of her face and kill her in Canada.

Well if this doesn’t get an Ivor Novella I don’t know what will.