"Pulling Teeth": Not Your Typical Love Song

So, as you all remember, last week in class we did an activity based off of Bader’s (2007) chapter “‘Love Will Steer the Stars’ and Other Improbable Feats: Media Myths in Popular Love Songs.” While I was doing this activity, I did notice that a lot of the myths laid out in Bader’s (2007) chapter like “all you really need is love” and “the right mate completes you” really could be found in some of the music I would listen to on a daily basis (p.149). I started to go through my iPod one day and try to think of a song that actually didn’t follow some of these myths, and I could only come up with a handful. Although the majority of the songs that didn’t follow these myths were just about random things outside of love, I did come across one song that I thought directly contested a few of these myths.

I’m sure all of you at one point have heard a Green Day song, either on the radio, the television, the internet or whatever, but you may not have heard of their non-single track off of their first major album Dookie (1994) called “Pulling Teeth.” If you haven’t heard it, there is a video of the song with lyrics at the top of my post. After listening to this song numerous times and having my own conception of what the song meant, I searched the internet to find what other people thought the song was about. My thoughts were confirmed when I read several fan blogs dedicated to the band that the song was about a man who was in an abusive relationship who felt trapped in his girlfriend’s grasp, and therefore had to pretend to be in love with her. This is not your typical “love song” in any sense, and it certainly goes against some of the myths proposed by Bader (2007). The lyrics are simple and easy to understand: “I’m all busted up, broken bones and nasty cuts. Accidents will happen, but this time I can't get up. She comes to check on me, making sure I'm on my knees. After all she's the one, who put me in this state.” This line is clearly showing the abuse that the man in this relationship is suffering at the hands of his female partner, and that she “checks on” him to make sure that he is still there and obedient. This not only contests the myths that Bader (2007) points out in her article that “men should not be weaker than a woman.” (p.149). This line is in fact directly contradicting this myth by showing that the woman is indeed the dominant, more powerful partner in the relationship, and that this power is unbalanced to the point where it has turned to abuse against the man. 

Another part of the song goes: “For now I'll lie around. Hell, that's all I can really do. She takes good care of me. Just keep saying my love is true.” This line is also addressing a few of the myths in Bader’s (2007) chapter. One of the other myths that this song is contesting through this line is that “the love of a good and faithful true woman can change a man from a ‘beast’ into a ‘prince.” (p.149). These lyrics are giving us an inside look on the subject of the song’s thoughts about his partner saying that he has to tell his partner that he loves her because that’s all he can do, and that she “takes good care of him,” when she clearly doesn’t. This is sort of contradicting the fact that a woman’s love and care can turn a man into something wonderful because this is showing that this woman’s love is turning the man into a victim (a brainwashed one, at that.) At the same time this part of the song is going against the myth that “bickering and fighting a lot mean that a man and a woman really love each other passionately” because we can see through this man’s thoughts that he really only tells his partner that he loves her because if he doesn’t, he would be abused again (p.149). This is a little more extreme than “bickering and fighting,” but it shows that when a man and a woman fight, it isn’t just because they are passionate about each other, but that they could be trapped in the relationship. This is also reflected in the chorus of the song when the many says “I better tell her that I love her, before she does it all over again. Oh God, she’s killing me.” Here the man is clearly defining how he feels trapped in the relationship, and that love is merely just a necessity for the man’s survival.

Although it was tough to find songs that directly contested the myths found in most love songs (especially ones from the 90s), I feel like this particular song directly contradicts a lot of those myths. It’s interesting to actually search for songs that do this, because it seems a lot harder than you would think. Whether the band was aiming at dismissing these myths or not, they certainly did something that opposed most of the mainstream love songs that we often hear.