World of song littered with battered hearts of singers who put everything on the table

By Caitlin Ward

Don’t Make Me Wait
By Locksley

One look was all it took and everything was said, my darlin’
One look was all it took and you were in my head, my darlin’
I stood like an open book waiting to be read, my darlin’
One look was all it took and you were in my head, my darlin’

CHORUS
It’s something so surreal —
The stupid way you make me feel.
When everything is said and done,
Somehow you are still the one
Don’t make me wait so long
To hesitate would be wrong
Don’t make me wait so long

One day I think we may settle down together, baby
One day I’ll bet you’ll say, there is nothing better, baby
That day when you won’t stay — “someday” becomes “never” baby
That day is far away, so I won’t think about the maybes

CHORUS

Would you like a city by the sea?
You could build a life with me
Don’t think twice I think it would be nice, a life of over-flattery

CHORUS

I like spy shows. I think it has something to do with how spies must confront the ethical grey areas so many of us never have to face: this idea that people do questionable things for the sake of a greater good, sacrificing their personal morality for the safety and security of others. And then that begs the question, is it always or even often the greater good? Might it just be the machinations of powerful countries manipulating us all? It’s quite complicated, this spy stuff.

Or maybe I just like the explosions. I’m not too sure.

Either way, I watch a lot of these shows. It hasn’t made me more prone to conspiracy theories, or affected my trust (or lack of trust) in government, really. The only side effect I’ve noticed thus far is that strange turns of phrase have started creeping into my vocabulary. I didn’t realize it was happening until a recent conversation, when I said (quite sensibly, I thought), “ah. You see, that’s plausible deniability.” But apparently, no one else had been obsessively watching Chris Ryan’s Strike Back, so I was met with blank stares.

For those less obsessed than I, in the spy world (or, at least, the TV spy world) “plausible deniability” is about creating a situation wherein people (or government agencies) can credibly (or, at least, conceivably) avow innocence when they are probably really quite guilty. They might hire a free agent to break a political prisoner out of a jail in one of their ally’s countries, for example. It’s not a popular idea to steal prisoners from your friends, but it might be necessary for one reason or another. And because the agent can’t be traced back to the country that hired him, the country can claim to have had no prior knowledge.

I know, it’s very twisty. But the thing is, once you wrap your head around the concept, you see examples of plausible deniability everywhere. One of the more obvious places one finds it is in dating — that is, the times you suspect someone might be interested in you but as it’s never been expressed verbally, you can’t say yea or nay without coming off as presumptuous. At that point, it often descends into stilted conversations and awkward eye contact, and someone inevitably ends up in tears — though the person in tears is rarely either of the people directly involved in the situation. It’s more likely to be a patient but longsuffering friend. That is, me.

The slight irony of all this is that where the real world is full of people too nervous to say what they mean, the world of song is littered with the battered hearts of singers who put everything on the table with glee. Whether they come off as desperate, or sweet, or happy, or marginally psychotic, very few love songs can be accused of attempting plausible deniability.

Locksley’s Don’t Make Me Wait ranges closer to the sweet and happy end of the spectrum than the desperate and marginally psychotic end. It’s a lovely song and quite charming, mimicking the jubilant guitars and manic drums of the harder edges of the British Invasion. It skirts between clever and earnest, admitting strong feelings but always dressing them in a sense of fun: “it’s something so surreal / the stupid way you make me feel.” I’m not going to lie. I love this song. And perhaps one of the things I love most about it is that it is such an honest and open declaration.

I’m not confident that sort of declaration would work outside of song, though. Don’t Make Me Wait is about love at first sight, after all; it’s not a carefully considered marriage proposal. And as such, the song offers an ultimatum few are willing to give, expressing a passion most people would fear if they were actually confronted with it.

That’s not to say people are cowards or need to leap more than they look — it’s a pretty song, but it’s also only two and a half minutes long. It’s not literally asking you for a lifetime. Ultimately, though, that’s what the song is about: building a life together, because “one look was all it took.”

After careful observation for much of my life, I’m fairly confident you have to be quite particular about who gets your lifetime. And so, in real life, instead of rampant and regular declarations of eternal love (there are five on Locksley’s album alone), we circle around each other. Careful. We don’t want to spook anyone, and we don’t want to lay our hearts out too soon. It might be frustrating, but incremental steps forward and backward are how we seem to actually get places. Grand gestures have to be rare for them to mean something.

Ward is a freelance writer and aspiring documentary filmmaker based in Saskatoon. You can find her short bursts of insight and frustration at http://www.twitter.com/newsetofstrings