{"id":31270,"date":"2021-12-06T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/?p=31270"},"modified":"2021-12-06T08:11:34","modified_gmt":"2021-12-06T16:11:34","slug":"two-faces-cynthia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/06\/two-faces-cynthia\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Faces: Cynthia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong><em>[su_box title=&#8221;Editor&#8217;s Note&#8221;]<br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><i>Katy Crane returns today with her third <strong>Two Faces<\/strong> entry. This one&#8217;s a little bit different, though, and I&#8217;ll let Katy explain why.\u00a0<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><strong>Author\u2019s note:\u00a0<\/strong>This is going to be an unusual post: one where Ken and I agree completely about what\u2019s happening in the song. Usually, I write counterpoints to Ken\u2019s posts, which means I write about songs where Ken and I have radically different takes: about the tone of the song, what\u2019s happening in it, whether it\u2019s good or not. The problem&#8211;and this is a funny problem to have&#8211;is that Ken and I agree a lot. And that doesn\u2019t leave me many songs to write about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Ken has already made my central point about \u201cCynthia:\u201d that it\u2019s a more enlightened version of Roy Orbison\u2019s \u201cOh, Pretty Woman.\u201d But I think there\u2019s more to be said about just how Springsteen accomplishes this. So this will be a companion post rather than a counterpoint, a close reading to sit alongside Ken\u2019s more comprehensive overview.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>[\/su_box]<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s a video of a <em>Late Show<\/em> interview from 2016, in which Stephen Colbert challenges Bruce Springsteen to name his top 5 Bruce songs. Springsteen gets through the first four pretty easily &#8211;\u201cBorn to Run,\u201d \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2020\/11\/21\/roll-of-the-dice-the-rising\/\">The Rising<\/a>,\u201d \u201cThunder Road,\u201d and \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2018\/04\/16\/roll-of-the-dice-nebraska\/\">Nebraska<\/a>\u201d&#8211;and then stalls out. The audience tries to help as Bruce dramatically ponders his choices. Then a woman\u2019s voice rises above the rest, shouting loud enough to get Bruce\u2019s attention. \u201cCynthia! CYNTHIAAA!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bruce, unsurprisingly, goes with \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2021\/10\/03\/roll-of-the-dice-racing-in-the-street\/\">Racing in the Street<\/a>\u201d instead.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"758\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/W8CsEqYCg68?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;start=8&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>But my heart goes out to that mystery fan, using her moment in the Colbert audience to stand up and testify for \u201cCynthia.\u201d And I think I understand why this obscure outtake from the <em>Born in the U.S.A.<\/em> era might inspire such devotion, why someone might believe that Bruce&#8211;who didn\u2019t put it on an album at all until <em>Tracks&#8211;<\/em>should nonetheless rank it among his favorite songs.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"758\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wzCpphwK8vk?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p>And that\u2019s because \u201cCynthia,\u201d a goofy outtake that skirts the boundary between Roy Orbison pastiche and outright Roy Orbison parody, is also one of Springsteen\u2019s most explicitly feminist songs. Ken, who notes the Orbison influence in <a href=\"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/06\/roll-of-the-dice-cynthia\/\">his original <em>Roll of the Dice<\/em> entry<\/a>, writes that \u201cCynthia\u201d is \u201ca deeper, more mature (albeit marginally) song than \u2018<a href=\"https:\/\/estreetshuffle.com\/index.php\/2019\/08\/25\/matr-roy-orbison-and-bruce-springsteen-oh-pretty-woman\/\">Oh, Pretty Woman<\/a>.\u2019\u201d I would go further. I think \u201cCynthia\u201d is a deliberate point-by-point feminist re-write of \u201cOh, Pretty Woman,\u201d in which Bruce takes everything that\u2019s wrong (from a feminist standpoint) with the original song, and <em>fixes it<\/em>. (A bit like Kelly Clarkson and John Legend rewriting \u201cBaby it\u2019s Cold Outside,\u201d but more tongue-in-cheek, and also better.)<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s start by taking a look at the lyrics of \u201cOh Pretty Woman,\u201d the most famous song ever written about catcalling women on the street.<\/p>\n<div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"758\" height=\"427\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3KFvoDDs0XM?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/div>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Pretty woman won&#8217;t you pardon me<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman I couldn&#8217;t help but see<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman that you look lovely as can be<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Are you lonely just like me<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Pretty woman stop awhile<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman talk awhile<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman give your smile to me<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Orbison\u2019s singer doesn\u2019t just reduce his subject to her looks, he does it again and again, sometimes twice in the same line. \u201cPretty woman&#8230;you look lovely as can be.\u201d <em>Hey, pretty woman, you\u2019re pretty! <\/em>Nice one, Roy. Real smooth.<\/p>\n<p>He wonders if she\u2019s lonely. Why would she be? He makes demands on her time, asks her to stop and talk. <em>He<\/em> <em>tells her to smile. <\/em>And then he tries to guilt-trip her into spending the night with him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Pretty woman don&#8217;t walk on by<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman don&#8217;t make me cry<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Pretty woman don&#8217;t walk away, hey<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And it works! Realizing what a terrible thing it would be to make Roy Orbison sad, the pretty woman turns around and presumably goes home with him. Happy ending!<\/p>\n<p>So given that the original song is basically a list of sexist tropes loosely stapled together, does it seem improbable that anyone could create a feminist, or at any rate a not horrifically sexist, version of \u201cOh Pretty Woman?\u201d Well, hold onto your cool and stylish hats, because Bruce Springsteen is about to show us the most respectful way to holler at a woman on the street.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Cynthia, when you come walking by you&#8217;re an inspiring sight.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Bruce is off to a good start here; the woman he\u2019s talking to has a name! Where Orbison lets us know from the start that his subject is pretty, but doesn\u2019t bother to name her, Springsteen does the opposite. He calls Cynthia by name, and instead of commenting on her looks, he tells her she\u2019s inspiring. It\u2019s a goofy and charming word choice, a compliment so consciously respectful it tips over into absurdity.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Cynthia, you don&#8217;t smile or say hi, but baby that&#8217;s all right<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You can almost see Springsteen going through Orbison\u2019s song line by line, ticking things off. He\u2019s <em>not<\/em> going to tell Cynthia to smile. He\u2019s <em>not <\/em>going to tell her to talk to him. In fact, he doesn\u2019t expect anything from her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>&#8216;Cause I don&#8217;t need to hold you or taste your kiss<br \/>\n<\/em><em>I just like knowing, Cynthia, you exist, doll, in a world like this<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here, the song makes a quick swerve into one of the major preoccupations of the <em>Born in the U.S.A.<\/em> era: the general awfulness of the world. This is, of course, the time period of Springsteen\u2019s first major depression, and even in a joke song like \u201cCynthia\u201d there\u2019s an assumption (played here mostly for laughs) that being depressed is just the standard way to be. Here, everyone in the song seems to be depressed except for Cynthia; the singer works on a construction site populated by men who are all equally bummed out and in need of inspiration.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Well you give us a reason to stop just for a while<br \/>\n<\/em><em>To stop, stand, baby, and salute your style<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Salute your style. <\/em>Notice that we still don\u2019t know what Cynthia looks like. The emphasis is entirely on her style, her attitude, her general vibe.<\/p>\n<p>Springsteen makes it clear that unlike Roy Orbison, his character is not going to be laying a guilt trip on Cynthia.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Well now you ain&#8217;t the finest thing I&#8217;ll never have<br \/>\n<\/em><em>And when you go the hurt you leave baby it ain&#8217;t so bad<\/em><\/p>\n<p>She cheers him up, sure. But that doesn\u2019t mean she needs to worry about making him unhappy when she leaves; he\u2019s a rational adult; he can handle it. He\u2019s still a little worried, though, that he and his buddies might be overstepping, that it might bother Cynthia to know she\u2019s being talked about. So he asks her.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>There ain&#8217;t a man in this whole town who&#8217;d say you ain&#8217;t fine<br \/>\n<\/em><em>You hear them guys talking, tell me, baby, do you mind?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Once again he implicitly apologizes, reminding her that she\u2019s a bright spot in a miserable world, that by ogling her on the street he\u2019s just trying to alleviate his own depression. That he feels the need to justify himself at all sets him aside from Orbison\u2019s singer, who feels fully entitled to approach any woman as long as she\u2019s pretty. Springsteen\u2019s character is still going to talk to Cynthia, or at least talk about her, but he needs her to know he has a good reason for it.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Well you make us happy, honey, when we feel sad<br \/>\n<\/em><em>To see something so good in a world gone bad<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As proof, he gives us a quick snippet of dialogue, two guys reassuring each other: <em>\u201cThere\u2019s still Cynthia.\u201d \u201cOh yeah.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>In case we\u2019re worried that these emotionally needy men might start stalking Cynthia, he lets us know she\u2019s still safely a mystery; they don\u2019t know anything about her beyond her name.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Cynthia, no one knows your number, no one knows where you live<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Cynthia, I wonder do you understand this strange thing you give<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Yeah well baby is it your style, the mystery in your smile<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Or just how cool you walk, in a world gone wild?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s catalogue the words we\u2019ve heard applied to Cynthia, shall we? She\u2019s inspiring, she walks cool, she has style. We\u2019re now most of the way through the song, a song that\u2019s entirely devoted to admiring Cynthia, and Springsteen has not once called her pretty. \u201cFine\u201d is the closest we\u2019ve gotten.<\/p>\n<p>Springsteen ends with a specific callback to Orbison\u2019s first verse. \u201cPretty woman, I don&#8217;t believe you,\u201d Orbison sang, \u201cyou&#8217;re not the truth.\u201d Springsteen sings, \u201cI gotta be pretty na\u00efve to believe in you,\u201d but here it comes across not as flattering or insulting but just as realism: he\u2019s acknowledging that he doesn\u2019t know Cynthia, and that any hopes or beliefs he\u2019s built around her are just in his mind. And that\u2019s okay, because as he assures her one last time, he doesn\u2019t expect anything from her. He\u2019s going to let her keep walking now, and unlike Orbison\u2019s pretty woman, she\u2019s not going to turn around.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>Yeah now baby, now this ain&#8217;t no come-on<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Now walk on, Cynthia, walk on<\/em><\/p>\n<p>As she walks away, Bruce finally lets loose with some hoots and hollers.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\"><em>You make me holler, yeah, yeah, all right<br \/>\n<\/em><em>I said yeah, yeah, all right<br \/>\n<\/em><em>Well she&#8217;s a yeah, yeah, all right<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m torn as to how to take this ending. Pure, joyful, goofy celebration, Springsteen having fun at the end of an essentially silly song? Or are these whoops what Cynthia actually hears as she\u2019s walking past the construction site, unaware of all the high-minded, idealistic thoughts that lie behind them?<\/p>\n<p>Either way, this song is essentially sketch comedy, not to be taken too seriously. It\u2019s like an SNL skit on respectful catcalling. But for such a light song, it manages a neat balancing act: it\u2019s both a loving homage to Roy Orbison and a hilarious, welcome gift to every woman who\u2019s ever cringed at the lyrics of \u201cOh, Pretty Woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>So if some of us, at odd moments, are moved to holler \u201cCynthia!\u201d at Bruce &#8211; well, what can we say? It makes us happy when we feel sad, to know that in a world like this there\u2019s still \u201cCynthia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katy Crane explains why &#8220;Cynthia&#8221; is a feminist rewrite of Roy Orbison&#8217;s &#8220;Oh, Pretty Woman.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12862,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3326],"tags":[1505,3353,108,383],"class_list":["post-31270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-two-faces","tag-cynthia","tag-katy-crane","tag-oh-pretty-woman","tag-roy-orbison"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t<!-- 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