The Standard Review

January 18, 2012

The Crystals - Then He Kissed Me

Everyone knows this as the song that plays during the famous tracking shot of Henry and Karen entering the Copacabana in Goodfellas. And obviously that’s a great scene and all, but this song is also very good in its own right. But for the sake of this post, I’m using it merely as a jumping-off point for a more broad discussion.

You see, this song was covered pretty meekly by The Beach Boys. (And I say that as the biggest Beach Boys fan I know.) Their version reversed the gender pronouns, as was the norm when male singers covered female singers (and vice versa) during that era, but it also went a step further: it reversed the passive and active voices, and was retitled “Then I Kissed Her,” not “Then She Kissed Me.” Because heaven forbid an independent woman show any assertiveness!

This model is adhered to throughout the whole song; lyrics like “Then he asked me to be his bride” are changed to “Then I asked her to be my bride,” and so forth. One could justifiably chalk this up to being a product of its era, but it still makes me sad. Very few people in the pop music world of the early ’60s had the courage to challenge gender norms, and The Beach Boys weren’t about to carry the torch of progressivism. I’d like to say things have changed, and to some extent they have, but we’re still living with many of those outdated views, especially in pop music. Just look at Joss Stone’s lazy White Stripes cover, “Fell in Love with a Boy.” Come on, now.

My resistance to songs that reverse gender pronouns isn’t reflective of a view that covers need to be faithful to their source material—I’m all for changing the lyrics, melody, or any other aspect of a song in potentially radical ways. Rather, it’s a frustration at the apparent fear artists have of being perceived as gay, or at the very least non-heteronormative. Consequently, covers that maintain the original gender pronouns—such as this and this—seem exciting and wonderful to me.

Ultimately, I believe art should be devoid of rules and artists should do whatever they damn well please. But I also believe in having the courage to be different. Heck, If you lose a fan because you’re a woman singing about loving another woman, you’re only losing a bigot of a fan anyway.