‘50s-era teen idol Brian Hyland is best remembered for two hits, the rock ‘n’ roll novelty “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and the heartbreak ballad “Sealed With a Kiss.” In between those singles came the 1961 Top 20 hit “Let Me Belong to You,” Hyland’s first effort as a balladeer. Producers and songwriters Gary Geld and Peter Udell frame Hyland’s sobbing vocals with a silky smooth backdrop, featuring weeping strings, a softly “oooh”-ing vocal group, and a waltz beat perfect for slow dancing. It’s a quintessential teenage love song from the days before the Beatles – except for one thing. Six years prior to Lou Reed’s avant-rock literary adaptation “Venus in Furs,” Geld and Udell have – intentionally or not – captured the psyche of the male sexual submissive in pitch-perfect fashion. It’s not even subtle – the first lines of the song are “Make me your slave/Tie me down, make me behave/Let me belong to you.” In case you miss it the first time, Hyland recites these lyrics again later in the song, borrowing the spoken-verse gimmick heard on records like Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Any modern-day listener who doesn’t know what’s coming will surely stop and listen, open-mouthed, to what these guys managed to stick in a hit pop song from 1961. In this context, the second verse – “Make me be true/Tell me what I can do” – sounds like nothing less than a request for a chastity belt. In the alternate section of the song, Hyland sings “I don’t wanna be free” and that he has “no place special to go,” then returns to the main verse to beg the woman to “Make me your own/Never, never leave me alone.” Without that first verse, all this could be read innocently enough, but now that we’re in fetish territory, we’ve got an interior portrait of a natural submissive lacking a strong presence in their lives – the directionlessness of having no one to please, the lack of assurance, the willingness to give up their own identity for devotion to the object of their desire. It seems highly implausible that the intent of “Let Me Belong to You” was cultural subversion – ultimately, these guys were trying to score a hit. That’s how the music business used to work. And that's what makes this song so striking - they were trying to sell this. Perhaps it’s simply the calculated construction of a product that will hopefully sell to lovelorn teenagers, an attempt to capture the high drama of teenage romance, which ends up taking an entirely subconscious turn. Or perhaps it’s a conscious attempt to express personal, adult feelings in the guise of an innocent teenage love ballad, where it’s not likely to be read as anything other than adolescent melodrama. Whatever the ultimate source, “Let Me Belong to You” captures the weirder side of romantic obsession, something primal in the unconscious sexual wiring of a certain type of mind. As the saying goes, Freud would have a field day.Tuesday, October 20, 2009
999,939: Brian Hyland - Let Me Belong to You
‘50s-era teen idol Brian Hyland is best remembered for two hits, the rock ‘n’ roll novelty “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” and the heartbreak ballad “Sealed With a Kiss.” In between those singles came the 1961 Top 20 hit “Let Me Belong to You,” Hyland’s first effort as a balladeer. Producers and songwriters Gary Geld and Peter Udell frame Hyland’s sobbing vocals with a silky smooth backdrop, featuring weeping strings, a softly “oooh”-ing vocal group, and a waltz beat perfect for slow dancing. It’s a quintessential teenage love song from the days before the Beatles – except for one thing. Six years prior to Lou Reed’s avant-rock literary adaptation “Venus in Furs,” Geld and Udell have – intentionally or not – captured the psyche of the male sexual submissive in pitch-perfect fashion. It’s not even subtle – the first lines of the song are “Make me your slave/Tie me down, make me behave/Let me belong to you.” In case you miss it the first time, Hyland recites these lyrics again later in the song, borrowing the spoken-verse gimmick heard on records like Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” Any modern-day listener who doesn’t know what’s coming will surely stop and listen, open-mouthed, to what these guys managed to stick in a hit pop song from 1961. In this context, the second verse – “Make me be true/Tell me what I can do” – sounds like nothing less than a request for a chastity belt. In the alternate section of the song, Hyland sings “I don’t wanna be free” and that he has “no place special to go,” then returns to the main verse to beg the woman to “Make me your own/Never, never leave me alone.” Without that first verse, all this could be read innocently enough, but now that we’re in fetish territory, we’ve got an interior portrait of a natural submissive lacking a strong presence in their lives – the directionlessness of having no one to please, the lack of assurance, the willingness to give up their own identity for devotion to the object of their desire. It seems highly implausible that the intent of “Let Me Belong to You” was cultural subversion – ultimately, these guys were trying to score a hit. That’s how the music business used to work. And that's what makes this song so striking - they were trying to sell this. Perhaps it’s simply the calculated construction of a product that will hopefully sell to lovelorn teenagers, an attempt to capture the high drama of teenage romance, which ends up taking an entirely subconscious turn. Or perhaps it’s a conscious attempt to express personal, adult feelings in the guise of an innocent teenage love ballad, where it’s not likely to be read as anything other than adolescent melodrama. Whatever the ultimate source, “Let Me Belong to You” captures the weirder side of romantic obsession, something primal in the unconscious sexual wiring of a certain type of mind. As the saying goes, Freud would have a field day.
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