Analysis of a 'Breakdown'

Breakdown by Mariah Carey is one of my favorite songs in the world and one of the most capable of reducing me to a sobbing pile of man on the floor. Hyperbole aside, it is a great song. I started thinking of why, and came up with this analysis:

The song starts with Mariah's ad-libbed vocals and Bone Thugs saying:

Break-breakdown

Steady breaking me on down

Thus, we know we are about to get into heavy business. We have a very soft lyrical start:

You called yesterday

To basically say

That you care for me but

That you're just not in love

We have a moment of clarity at the outset. We know how all of this began. Each of the line breaks indicates a pause in Mariah's singing, which I think is important. I can imagine her telling this story to a friend, trying to catch her breath, or trying to slow down as not to cry. Mariah continues her story, still rather soft-spoken, mirroring the sentiments of the lyrics:

Immediately I pretended to be feeling similarly

And led you to believe I was okay

To just walk away from the

One thing that was yielding and sacred to me.

To think that she could say all of that without breaking down is astounding, but she relates it rather 'nonchalantly' (an important word which shows up in the chorus). Next, we actually have the chorus:

Well I guess I'm trying to be nonchalant about it

But I'm going to extremes to prove I'm fine without you

But in reality I'm slowly losing my mind

Underneath the guise of smile gradually I'm dying inside

Friends ask me how I feel, and I lie convincingly

'Cause I don't want to reveal the fact that I'm suffering

So I wear my disguise 'til I go home at night

And turn down all the lights and then I break down and cry

In the sound of her voice, she is trying to be nonchalant, to pretend as though she isn't phased. I can imagine telling this story and acting as though I were okay, smiling as though I can get over it. It kinda reflects the 'denial' stage of grief, not believing it's over. Next comes anger...:

What do you do when (when)

Somebody you're so devoted to

Suddenly just stops loving you,

And it seems they haven't got a clue

Of the pain that rejection is putting you through?

She doesn't know why she's going through this, so she's asking 'What the hell do I do? How do I deal with this situation?' I can sense both the anger and sadness here. The rest of the verse:

Do you cling to your pride, and sing 'I will survive'?

Do you lash out and say 'How dare you leave this way'?

Or do you hold on in vain as they just slip away?

It seems as though she is a mix of strength, anger, and being defeated. We have a bit of a rise in Mariah's voice as she sings the second line, and as she sings the last, she seems to fade into the chorus repeat. After the chorus, we have the Bone Thugs rap:

It'll break you down
Only if you let it
Everyday crucial situation wrackin' my mind
Tryin' to break me down
But I won't let it
Forget it
Forget it
I've been feelin' like you're breakin' me down
Kickin' me around
Stressin' me out
I think I better go and get out and let me
Release some stress (stress)
Don't ever wanna feel no pain (pain)
Hoping for the sun
But it looks like rain (rain, rain, rain)
Oh, i just wanna maintain
Yeah, when you feel the pressure's on
But nevertheless
Krayzie won't fall
It's over
It's endin' here, here

The rap reflects some amazing sentiments. First, we have the idea that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.' Next, we have feelings of weakness, of being hit while we're down. After, we have emotions that reflect helplessness, a desire to see the positive but being unable to, a desire to just get through. Last, we have the idea that, no, this won't break us, even though we are struggling. The end of the song is where it gets good.

Among the repeat of the chorus, we have Mariah doing her most emotive work yet on the song. It has been building from the beginning. As she starts the story, relates her true emotions, questions what she's supposed to do. She cycles through various emotions to get to this point of release. Essentially, she is crying out, kind of like Dane Cook's idea of the 'I did my best!' repetition. This is the part of the song where, if I haven't cried during the rest, I start, especially if I'm singing, because I let loose. If I'm feeling pain, it is raw, out in the open. If I'm not, I experience the catharsis I often feel through crying.

I'm not going through exactly what Mariah is in this song, but it still allows for some emotions to be released. Sometimes, I do get close to wanting to breakdown. I have fallen to my knees, clutching my chest, though my pain was not physical. If I put myself there, where she is, I start feeling and things rise to the surface that I need to deal with or I need to pass.

This song's construction and meaning are extremely powerful, and they are a large part of why I love it. 'Breakdown' is surely a work of genius, of deliberate work.

Roles

This past Spring, I had the opportunity to visit H&M while in Ohio for a friend's wedding. H&M is my favorite store in the world and I was overjoyed to be able to shop there. I left with a few things, including a very short pair of swim trunks (like, at least 8 inches above the knee short). I love these swim trunks: you don't often see them on men, they show off my legs, they have a nice cut, etc. However, what is the perception of me if I decide to wear them in public?

Gender roles and expectations permeate many facets of our society, including clothes. Especially from within the often hypermasculine world of the Black man, there are certain things to wear and not to wear. Don't wear tight jeans or shirts, don't wear short shorts. Basically, don't wear anything remotely feminine. But why? High heels and skirts on a man don't hurt anyone, but they are enough to provoke people to violence. Violence is part of the reason I get a pang of anxiety even thinking about wearing these trunks in public. What if someone decides to attack me? What if someone perceives my sexual orientation and decides to hurt me because they disagree with either my presentation or some fundamental facet of myself? Yeah, what if. To even have to ask myself these questions, I have to live in a shitty world where my clothes are enough to provoke violence. I have to change myself, rather than the world around me changing, in order to be safe.

Such arguments fall under the 'Blame the Victim' mentality, that, somehow, some quality of a victim is what elicited violence. We hear this argument a lot: Well, if that woman had been wearing more clothes (showing less skin) she wouldn't have been raped. The more logical response should be, 'The fuck is wrong with him?'. I shouldn't be scared to wear short shorts, or even a dress if I damn well pleased, but I am. I'm working on that.

Yeah, I'm going to keep getting weird looks, but that doesn't mean I feel less at home in these shorts. I like them far better than many of the trunks offered to men (too long, less flattering). Why adhere to a social pressure to 'look' like a man at all times? I should care about my safety, but, really, who is going to attack me for wearing short swimtrunks?

Crazy?

I am currently helping a professor in the Psychology department gather research connecting integrated threat theory with mental illness. To get you up to speed, here is a quick lesson:

Integrated Threat Theory - the idea that different modes of perceived threat combine to create prejudice. Those modes are realistic threat (the fear of harm being done to one's body or possessions), symbolic threat (the idea that another group poses harm to beliefs or a way of life), inter-group anxiety (fears and ideas about another group based on an ingroup perspective), and negative stereotypes (longstanding negative beliefs about a group of people).

Through the scope of integrated threat theory, the professor wants to investigate attitudes toward people with mental illness(es). While I don't always approach things from a mental health perspective (in the sense of normative functioning, investigating disorders, etc), this is still right up my alley. It is all of the things I talk about, just from a different perspective. I'm already finding some interesting information.

For one, people desire social distance from those with mental illness. Another thing is that people feel sympathy and/or pity for those with mental illness. Some people view people with mental illness as dangerous and unpredictable. Others say they need help. An interesting bond to tie all of these assumptions is that people often do not know how to recognize mental illness, people often incorrectly recognize mental illness (schizophrenia =/= dissociative identity disorder, but it is readily painted that way in the media and common language; being bipolar is not simply switching from one mood to the next in the matter of moments), and, in general, there is misinformation about and misuse of the terms related to mental illness.

Why? People with mental illness are just like the rest of us. Some mental illnesses are dangerous, but even so, should we just write these people off as dangerous, as crazy? Should we throw around words like crazy and nuts (which I admit I do) as though they are nothing? And, very importantly, when we refer to someone as crazy, does that mean we need to separate ourselves from them as though they pose a real threat to us?

As with many things I talk about on this blog, this is not a black and white issue. As I said, some people with mental illness are a danger to themselves or others. However, people without mental illness can be a danger to themselves or others. It's time we took down the stigma surrounding mental illness and educated ourselves. It's time we learned how they are caused, what they look like, that mental illness does not mean people are going to chase us with knives, that having a mental illness (to even be diagnosed with one) someone has to be undergoing a tremendous amount of distress or pain, which is only compounded by the existing stigmas surrounding mental illness.

Maybe it's time to watch our language and treat people with respect. We don't have to keep pretending people with mental illnesses don't deserve respect or help, and we don't need to be patronizing. By changing ourselves, we can change the way people seek help, if they even do at all.

Also, insane is a legal term which does not suddenly absolve criminals of charges, and stop using the word retarded as a placemarker for stupid.

Invisibility

In high school, I was the kind of invisible that helped me navigate my social environment. My name wasn't constantly being spoken. Outside of my own circles, very few people knew me. I was no blip on the radar. While it meant spending weekends with few or no people (or wasting away at work...), it was nice not to be involved in any drama. I was the kind of invisible that helped me coast.

But now, in a time where I've developed much more of a racial identity, I'm dealing with a new kind of invisibility. Since I was 15, I've had plenty of time to develop a gay identity. Besides resistance from my parents and a change in faith, things more or less went on course. I have no problems assuming a gay identity. A Black identity, however, is something that has seemed beyond my grasp for so long. I had to get over the recognition of my difference (talking 'White', being called Oreo, saying 'I'm not really Black', and my unfortunate buying into each of these scenarios) but also a growing bitterness toward my own community (So I don't sag or listen to rap that often, why don't I belong?). Hanging around White people for my developmental years was also a big part in not assuming a Black identity besides checking that box on various forms of paperwork.

Yet, I've made leaps and bounds. I started to question the biases I've had toward Black people. I've started recognizing that though some conform to stereotypes, just as I do with a gay identity, it doesn't mean they are lesser people, it's just how some people express themselves and that expression just so happens to be congruent with established stereotypes. I've started to work past the issues regarding my Blackness, the Blackness of others, and what it means to be Black (still not sure, but I refuse to let anyone else dictate for me what my own Blackness means and how it should be showcased). What I have also encountered is the aforementioned invisibility that comes from the intersection of being gay and a person of color.

What I found is that I was immersed in and helped perpetuate a system that downgraded the value of LGBT PoC. I never felt like I belonged with people of my own color, so I hung around the White kids. In the LGBT community, I've found that, often, if you aren't White, you find yourself in an invisible struggle for a 'ticket', for a place at the table. I was in between worlds. It didn't help that I didn't push past my own biases until very recently, so I looked at and treated other Black gay men differently. I was caught, and still find myself, in a struggle to assert my visibility while furthering that bullshit system.

This struggle isn't easy to explain. In the LGBT community, race is a topic easily and apparently best dismissed. I've covered this before: that entire argument hinges on the assumption that what is not seen does not exist. However, even though I haven't been victim to overt homophobia and racism, I cannot deny the existence of a system that sees me as a lesser man for being gay, a lesser man for being Black, and invisible for being Black and gay. I also cannot deny my place within this system, as an agent of that same casting of invisibility of my Black homosexual, bisexual and trans brothers and sisters.

Shaking off my own invisibility can no longer involve getting those pretty White boys to date me (I've already dated pretty White boys who didn't have their heads up their asses and who were willing and able to engage in discussions of race). It can involve being honest about how I've felt, whether those feelings were justified or not. It can involve looking privilege in the eye and having the audacity to say something. It can involve seeing my Black, Latino(a), Asian, Native American, etc etc LGBT people as beautiful, just as I have come to see my own skin as beautiful.

I may still continue to date White men. I may still be an agent in a rather horrid system. Yet, at the end of my life, I want to look back to moments after this one, and know that I stood up and asserted my existence and refused to participate in systems that treat others as 'less than.' I'm not invisible. I'm not a less than. I simply am.