Lyrics open to interpretation...

[michaelwescott]

Consider the song "New Lace Sleeves", when Elvis sings "...socialite sisters with their Continental fingers that have never seen working blisters / Oh I know they've got their problems / I wish I was one of them". Everybody I ask assumes that "one of them" refers to the "socialite sisters", but I've always heard "one of them" as referring to "problems" ---- That is, "I wish I was one of (their problems)." I think it's a lot better that way. Anyone with me? Or have you noted similar ambiguities?

[Ypsilanti]

I would say that you are correct. He wishes he was one of their problems. Absolutely.

[The imposter]

Umm, never thought about it this way, it seems better.

another ambiguity that puzzles me is - "There are soldiers who will kill but refuse to die" (from Alibi) Is that a good trait or a bad one ? for a soldier it might be considered good..

[Otis Westinghouse]

There's no reason he would want to be one of the 'socialite sisters', whereas wanting to be on of their problems has a lovely comic touch to it. The people you've been asking seem to have an odd interpretation. I'm as into ambiguity as the next person, but to me this one is very black and white.

The 'Alibi' seems to me a ref to contradiction and hypocrisy, and blaming others but not taking blame yourself. 'I'll dish it out, but not take it in return.' But I am the only one who knows this...

[Neil.]

I've always thought it's "I know they've got their problems, but I'd still like to have their life rather than mine". This would be the narrator character in the song having that thought. I've never even considered any ambiguity - but ambiguity's cool! Both work!

[Ymaginatif]

I thought he wanted to be one of their fingers?

[bambooneedle]

Can anyone make sense of:

God if she'd grant me her indulgence and decline
I might as well wipe her from my memory
Fracture the spell as she becomes my enemy

from God Give Me Strength?

[Ypsilanti]

I think he's talking about a last chance, saying...

God, if I can convince her one more time to listen as I tell her how much I love her , but she still says "No", that is the end. I will give up on my hopeless crush and try to forget all about her.

[TX_Fan]

I've always liked this song, but when pressed for the meaning from my wife (who takes some offense to it) I struggle for a good description....Any thoughts:

You'll never be a man
No matter how many foreign bodies you can take
You'll never be a man
When you're half a woman and you're half awake
With a face full of tears and a chemical shake

[Jack of All Parades]

Always thought a nasty song[You'll Never Be A Man"] fueled by alcohol and mean spirits-the character is clearly feeling superior to the individual he is verbally torturing-the lyric is constantly threatening to spill over into physical violence like the sister song "White Knuckles"-it teeters that way between the two protaganists with one taunting the other that he/she will "never be a man" even with a massive ingestion of "foreign bodies" [as if alcohol makes you a man]-not only will you not be a man but you will only be 'half a woman-half awake-face full of tears and a chemical shake[may very well reference fellatio and its aftermath] with the under the table reference aka "Shampoo"-taunts rein down-"are you so superior"? is your pain greater than mine? "are you porcelain?" -the ignominious boast that "I just want to last"-the last couplet positions such a scenario with the protaganist's eyes dropping onto the profile of the victim scanning only for a "point of possible saturation". I think your wife rightly takes offense to this song.

[Paul B]

The song always seemed to me to be about the brutalizing machismo that a lot of males are brought up to have – not a totally unfamiliar theme in Elvis’s work! – mixed up with his own experiences of drugs and fame at the time. It’s complex stuff, I remember Elvis in the 90s saying even he didn’t know what a lot of the songs on Trust were about. My thoughts on that verse would be:

You'll never be a man (like the oaf you've been conditioned to be)
No matter how many foreign bodies you can take
(no matter how many class A or B drugs you put into your system and – one of Elvis’s double meaning puns – no matter how many exotic females you sleep with)
You'll never be a man
When you're half a woman and you're half awake
(you’ve a female side while your male side is, true to form, lazy and habitually either drunk or hungover)
With a face full of tears and a chemical shake
(crying - the female side again - while having a minor drug induced fit from all those chemical foreign bodies)

The song I’d most relate it to in Elvis’s canon is You Tripped At Every Step, which is similar though more compassionate.

I don’t think the ‘half a woman and half awake’ line is an attack on a woman or women in general – if that’s what your wife takes offense to!

[bambooneedle]

Thanks, Yps. Funny how he'd go from a fragile hope-she'll-listen situation to, if that doesn't work, being totally grudging. I like the neurosis... like, how could he actually forget her when she becomes his enemy.

"when you're half a woman" sound to me like the flip side of the machismo... ego-pumped big man guys naturally experience moments of self-pitying deflation and of feeling ashamed of not living up to their big man images, when they fail. Confronted by the reflection of their more foreign not so "hardarsed motherfucker" suppressed intuitive side, they think they're being too wussy, ie. womanly in their minds. Elvis is laughing at men like this, whom I've observed to usually be clueless mummy's boys trying to compensate (and I hate how they get sympathy from some women), kind of saying "You think you're a big man but I know you're just a pathetic sooky little baby."

[Ypsilanti]

You'll never be a man (like the oaf you've been conditioned to be)
No matter how many foreign bodies you can take
(no matter how many class A or B drugs you put into your system and – one of Elvis’s double meaning puns – no matter how many exotic females you sleep with)
You'll never be a man
When you're half a woman and you're half awake
(you’ve a female side while your male side is, true to form, lazy and habitually either drunk or hungover)
With a face full of tears and a chemical shake
(crying - the female side again - while having a minor drug induced fit from all those chemical foreign bodies)

Paul B--love what you had to say here. It is, as you mentioned, complex stuff. I'd just add that the thing about this song that really stands out for me is Elvis seems to be singing about himself and to himself. This song, like so many from this era (White Knuckles, Boy With a Problem, Man Out of Time, etc.) are just oozing with self-loathing. With the adultery & the drugs & the failed marriage & other bad behavior he had plenty of things to regret and with his characteristic Giant Balls, he put it all out there.

[Jack of All Parades]

Re: "God Give Me Strength" I take a slightly different interpretive tack- the lyric opens with a picture of an individual in dialogue with his supreme being through prayer-hence the God give me strength refrain throughout-the narrator is going to need 'strength' because the urge to try to get back to the lost loved one is still strong-the will to be alone is malleable subject to a 'break'-feeling isolated with 'nothing to share' can 'throw away into the air' all caution- hence the need for strength- the narrator vacilates between 'can't hold on to her' and can't let go-hence again a prayer for strength to steal one's heart because the reality is 'the phone doesn't ring" and all heavenly day dreams or 'imaginings' of love leave one tumbling 'back to the earth'-the prayer for strength is twisted into a supplication for some sort of Papal indulgence to be dispensed from the former loved one as a declination- that then frees the narrator to 'wipe her from my memory, fracture the spell' allow her to become an "enemy' a person to now be despised and no longer sought after or worshiped-the nicest twist is the bridge towards the end where perspective is switched and the narrator is able to sublimate by now picturing the former loved one as being totally void of thought of the narrator having 'washed' this person out 'like a lip-print on his shirt'- wanting him 'to hurt'- it is a neat psychological conceit this sublimation and may very well be the 'strength' sought in the supplication throughout the lyric.

[bambooneedle]

A bit lofty...

[TX_Fan]

Thanks for the "You'll never be a Man" interpretations guys!
Great stuff! I think EC would smile in reading this thread.

[DeathWearsABigHat]

I've always thought that the line "no matter how many foreign bodies you can take" was more literal and the song was about a soldier.
I have no evidence from elsewhere in the song to back this up, other than the songs sounds like it belongs on Armed Forces.
I guess that what's so great (or frustrating) about so many of his lyrics from that era. They're open to interpretation in so many ways.
I like the way that the subject of the songs change so often, from you to he and she and (slightly less common in those days) I.