Sunday, September 16, 2007

Get Outta My Dreams (and into my car)-an analysis in three parts (Part one)


I am trying hard to make sense of the lyrical richness in Billy Ocean’s “Get Outta My Dreams (and into my car)." I lean towards the view that in this song Mr. Ocean presents a Heideggerian conception of man/artifact/world combined with a Buber-like exposition of “I and Thou.” I will present this interpretation in the upcoming weeks. For now I merely present the music video that Mr. Ocean selected to accompany his masterpiece. This video presents its own set of interpretive problems: I am not certain if the roller-skating duck is supposed to highlight the non-representational content of his music (i.e. to remind the listener not confuse his finger popping beats with the significance of his lyrics) or if the duck is indicative the mental retardation of Mr. Ocean himself:

In the video:
1) Mr. Ocean tries to pick up a prostitute
2) Mr. Ocean goes through a carwash with a car of diverse forms and colors
3) Mr. Ocean breaths and sings under water
4) Mr. Ocean has a kick ass time
5) Mr. Ocean sees a duck
6) Mr. Ocean races his car against a duck with a boom box
7) Mr. Ocean has a great time
8) Mr. Ocean watches a movie of Mr. Ocean singing to a duck with a saxophone
8) The movie version of Mr. Ocean emerges from the movie to become a real life Mr. Ocean. Mr. Ocean watches this and thinks it to be awesome.

2 Comments:

Blogger Plop Blop said...

I think this is an audio/visual representation of how Billy feels while date-raping himself.

5:12 PM  
Blogger Josh Krauter said...

I see that the album this hot track comes from is called Tear Down These Walls. In light of the video's final scene, I believe the walls Ocean is demanding be torn down are fourth walls. Could it also be that Ocean alludes to Vietnam and animal rights? Probably not. Unfortunately, his highly politically charged comeback single, "Get Out of Iraq, Get Into My Knapsack," stalled at number 132 on the R&B chart.

9:27 PM  

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