Devil Inside

The first time I heard that song, "Lips of an Angel," I was driving through the middle of nowhere, listening to some college station in another state and thinking how lucky I was to have found a station that didn't play "Turn the Page" or "Low Rider" every other song. Or "Calling Baton Rouge," for that matter.

The song was pretty good, I thought. Harkened back to the power ballad days of my youth, when girls could well up at the thought of Vince Neil singing "Home Sweet Home" just to them. I didn't really listen to the lyrics more than to figure out what I needed to sing when they got the chorus.

(I am that girl. That girl that sings to herself in the car. Really loud. The girl that people look at when stopped at intersections.)

Now they're playing it quite a bit. And the video is getting regular airplay. Well, as regular as any video gets these days, which is to say between the hours of midnight and 7 a.m., before the Parental Control marathon starts. So I've listened to it more since then. And I must say that it is kinda pissing me off.

Honey why you calling me so late?
It's kinda hard to talk right now.
Honey why are you crying? Is everything okay?
I gotta whisper 'cause I can't be too loud

Well, my girl's in the next room
Sometimes I wish she was you
I guess we never really moved on...

And on. And on. He never wants to say goodbye and she makes it hard to be faithful with her angelic lips. Then he notes that, gee, it is weird she's calling 'cause he just had a dream about her. Then they compare notes about their respective others, wondering if their continued phone contact is going to cause problems with their new relationships. It is nice to know they are being so considerate. Then on and on about the lips of an angel and how hard it is to be faithful, yada, yada.

I'm not quite sure what it is about this song that irks me. I can understand why it is so popular. Everyone likes to put themselves in the place of the star-crossed lover. Women imagine themselves to be the girl on the phone, still exerting power over that poor schmuck they dumped five months ago because, while he was great in the sack, he always used to throw breadsticks at her at Olive Garden and was never going to advance further than assistant manager at the body shop. Namely, he's good enough to sleep with but you don't want to take him to the office Christmas party for fear of him wearing his keys chained to his belt.

The guy, of course, is pining for this woman who dumped him, the love of his life, the girl that first taught him that wine bottles sometimes come in bottles with corks rather than from boxes with taps. He wants her back, nothing can replace her. But, in the meantime, he's hooked up with the blonde waitress from the corner bar who is usually up for a good time. You know, on weekends when she doesn't have custody of her five kids. With three guys. Let me tell you, coordinating that is a bitch.

So, they carry on this clandestine phone relationship. She's now dating the manager of the local Kinko's. A real go-getter. But they just don't have the same chemistry. So she keeps the old guy on the line. He loves her. He wants her. But he's got needs, so there's the waitress.

Ah, romance.

The thing is, you listen to this song and you think you know just what that's like. Being a star-crossed lover. Having a relationship in which the timing was never right. Its the same old story: women want the man they could have had, men want the woman they couldn't.

But, honestly, when I listen to this song, and the more I listen to it, I find myself in the position of the waitress. I've been that girl who doesn't have a clue, as Mr. Hinder so artfully puts it in the second verse. And I think more people have been in the position of the cheated-on, whether they knew it or not, than the cheaters.

That's what ticks me off about this song. We're being sold a bill of goods: a portrait of a doomed love affair. We're being told that, really, these people have absolutely no choice--they've been swept away on a sea of lust and desire and fate. But, honestly, he can't keep his dick in his pants and she's the one who can't let go. The song is only a few steps away from Fatal Attraction before Glenn Close gets nuts. She would have totally called Michael Douglas in the middle of the night, crying, in an effort to get laid. It is almost Hard Candy without the pedophilia and maiming, because I wouldn't put anything past those two. It is just like that guy I dated at the resort I worked at who bought me roses after he stood me up for a date because he was busy getting busy with his ex-girlfriend. Well, kinda like that, anyway.

If you'll excuse me, I think I have to go listen to some Journey. Or Air Supply.

Or Buckcherry.