Song : Slide
Song Writer : John Rzeznik
Group : Goo Goo Dolls
The group has sold nearly nine million albums in the U.S. alone. While not a huge Goo Goo Dolls fan, I enjoy their ballads (e.g. Iris, Slide). Recently I was learning to play the bass line to Slide. It is a hooky (i.e. catchy) song and the upbeat chord progression is played in a beautiful A# minor pentatonic. The song reached number one in 1998 and 1999.
I never closely listened to the lyrics, however. I thought the song was a love ballad about two young people falling love and wanting to get married, mainly because of the words "I wanna wake up where you are" and "Do you wanna get married?".
The key to the song lies in the second verse.
Don't you love the life you killed?
The priest is on the phone
Your father hit the wall
Your ma disowned you
Don't supposed I'll ever know
What it means to be a man
It's somethin' I can't change
I'll live around it
The song is about abortion.
The teenage girl is Catholic. The question is, should they get married, or just abort the baby and run away and be together?
The young man says,
I wanna wake up where you are
I won't say anything at all
So why don't you slide
In other words, I won't question your decision to take the life of our child. I will let it slide, and you should just let it slide too. We will just learn to cope and live around the guilt of the decision.
The lie is that we can truly let things slide. We can't. Our decisions live with us and haunt us. Guilt is not removed by trying to wish it away and be happy.
The truth is that guilt can be removed. It can washed away by the grace and mercy of Christ rather than letting things slide.
Huh. Never even noticed that. But like you, I was never a big Goo Goo Dolls fan, and not particularly fond of the songs you mention.
Posted by: tgirsch | July 02, 2010 at 12:01
T,
You seem like a classic rock guy to me. Like any bands formed after 1980?
Posted by: Mr. D | July 02, 2010 at 14:11
Actually, you've got me all wrong. I'm not a classic rock guy at all. Although apart from country, opera, and a lot of the angst-y grunge of the 1990s, I like just about anything.
As far as favorite bands, I'd say /most/ of them were formed after 1980.
Posted by: tgirsch | July 15, 2010 at 16:48
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Posted by: Air Jordans | November 11, 2010 at 00:47