Searching for meaning in Justin Bieber lyrics
What a year old Biebs has had. His public profile has gone
from one of those kids that hang around on street corners asking you if you’ll
buy them a packet of cigarettes to UN peace envoy, seemingly overnight. Last
time He was in Dubai he turned up 2 hours late to a performance and racked up 6
speeding fines. This type of perception transformation should usually only
be possible if your PR firm is run by Rumpel Stiltskin. I checked the books,
and he’s not on there, so how has he achieved it? To try and uncover the source
of miraculous media metamorphosis – I have been searching his written texts for
some clues, some hidden ancient wisdom that might help us all on the path to
enlightenment and total awareness.
These are the results:
Justin Bieber, Where Are U Now?, 2015
“I gave you the key when the door wasn't open, just admit
it, See I gave you faith turned your doubt in to hoping, can't deny it”. Nope,
this was not taken from any of the old school Gospels, this is a direct quote
from the assembled works of Bieber entitled ‘Purpose’, his album released late
last year. Justin has clearly positioned himself here as some kind of redeemer
figure. Which is both brave and ironic given his position in the mass public
mind-set before the release of this song. But is seeking redemption through the act of redeeming others
such an ignoble act?
“I gave you the shirt off my back what you sayin”. Justin offering to take his shirt off is
probably enough to win over 50% of the population, but what if we drill down in
to this a little deeper, what if he’s not offering to take his shirt off – what if he’s talking about the way we treated him during
his period in the wilderness, or his fans at least. And what if the question
‘Where are U now?’ is indeed introspective, and he’s seeking the whereabouts of
his own inner self? To achieve any great growth or change, we must at first
strip down to our most base form, understand our most central identity. All those
years doing English literature homework is really paying off here, massively
reading in to things that really probably aren’t there.
Justin Bieber, What Do You Mean? 2015
The second single released from the album. The second posed
as a question. WHAT, INDEED, DO YOU MEAN
JUSTIN? It’s like a lyric within a lyric, a trail of musical breadcrumbs
leading up to Christopher Nolan’s house. “When you don't want me to move, But
you tell me to go, What do you mean?” Bieber seems to be asking a lot of
questions in this song, but he actually only ever asks us one, ‘what we mean’. During the song, the question is often asked
after our (us being the subject of observation) seemingly erratic behaviour. “First
you wanna go to the left then you want to turn right”, this isn’t the furious
response to using google maps as a sat nav, this is him commenting both on the
polar nature of our opinions on him and on a simpler more human level: that our
own desires are often contradictory. No I don’t want any chips darling, but
actually if you order them I WILL STEAL EVERY SINGLE ONE FROM YOUR PLATE. By
asking us what we mean, he is asking us to disrupt our inclinations towards
indecision, vanity and excess. Either that or he’s rubbish at sharing chips.
Justin Bieber, Love Yourself, 2015
It’s a scientific fact proved by science in science class by
scientists that every teenager has, at one point said (or written, tweeted etc)
the line – ‘before you can learn to love someone else, you have to love
yourself’. But this is of course superficial nonsense. In reality, it means
absolutely the opposite: Narcissism is a clinically certifiable mental illness.
The track ‘Love Yourself’, is absolutely not an indulgence of this broken
soundbite – quite the opposite, it’s a critique of those too quick to love
themselves. A warning to us, to perhaps not fall in to the trap his own ego set
for him. Either that or ‘Love yourself’ is a thinly veiled euphemism for asking
somebody to go and [insert another four letter word] themselves.
And even if somehow, defying all the odds and for the very
first time, I’m wrong and he’s not actually not an Oprah, Obama, Chopra, Dylan,
Dalai Lama or Aristotle, what we can probably all agree on is that he has
superhuman ability is to, at the very least, appear grounded. I cannot begin to
imagine the titanic disaster of a human being that I would become if I had only
a small percentage of Bieber’s looks, talent and six-pack. You would probably
have to kill me with fire. So when he’s
back in Dubai, and he will be back; he has an album to promote, lets welcome
him with open arms. And I don’t mean ny clotheslining him like this Belieber
did at a concert in
Dubai, back in 2013:
