It’s an open mic. He’s waiting to go on, planning to sing “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers. He makes a connection between the man in the song he is going to perform and another man. He knows the man and he knows the woman he is with is not his wife. To his surprise, the woman takes the mic and despite her emotionless, bland performance, he is mesmerized by her, immediately, foolishly falling in love.
Then he has to go on. He almost doesn’t hear his own name called. But he can brush that off. He’s a professional. He falls in love all the time. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before.
He rips into the woman’s amateur performance, taking revenge for music itself and for manipulating him into loving her. He rejects his own attraction to her and rejects the notion of amateur hour in love and music by enthralling the entire room with his performance. The song he sings says as much :
Don't want your love anymore
Don't want your kisses, that's for sure
I die each time I hear this sound
Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown
This is the live artist’s declaration of “I don’t need your love when I have everyone’s love.” He has intentionally reframed his own obsession from a single woman to an entire room. It affords him attention, even a level of intimacy, but never real knowing. He will never know anyone. But he will love them anyway.
Of course, it’s all a sham. It’s a performance. He is exhausted from keeping up appearances. It’s a dance-marathon (a waltz) between sexual yearning and a spiritual connection he finds through music. From the mic, he sees a room full of potential shallow connections, and renounces his Oedipal connection, cutting one cord while plugging into another, abandoning the singularity of mother/ lover connection for the plurality of artist/community connection.
What started as unknowable love towards a single, specific character grows into an unknowable love for everyone, even himself.
Of course, everyone can’t love him back. He isn’t perfect. He’s just as flawed as Cathy’s clown dragging his dead China doll to open mics to sing for him. He gets close to realizing this about himself, but then decides against it. Instead, he turns the refrain on himself, deciding not to know himself, but to love himself anyway.
It’s an open mic. He’s waiting to go on, planning to sing “Cathy’s Clown” by the Everly Brothers. He makes a connection between the man in the song he is going to perform and another man. He knows the man and he knows the woman he is with is not his wife. To his surprise, the woman takes the mic and despite her emotionless, bland performance, he is mesmerized by her, immediately, foolishly falling in love. Then he has to go on. He almost doesn’t hear his own name called. But he can brush that off. He’s a professional. He falls in love all the time. It’s not like this hasn’t happened before. He rips into the woman’s amateur performance, taking revenge for music itself and for manipulating him into loving her. He rejects his own attraction to her and rejects the notion of amateur hour in love and music by enthralling the entire room with his performance. The song he sings says as much : Don't want your love anymore Don't want your kisses, that's for sure I die each time I hear this sound Here he comes, that's Cathy's clown This is the live artist’s declaration of “I don’t need your love when I have everyone’s love.” He has intentionally reframed his own obsession from a single woman to an entire room. It affords him attention, even a level of intimacy, but never real knowing. He will never know anyone. But he will love them anyway. Of course, it’s all a sham. It’s a performance. He is exhausted from keeping up appearances. It’s a dance-marathon (a waltz) between sexual yearning and a spiritual connection he finds through music. From the mic, he sees a room full of potential shallow connections, and renounces his Oedipal connection, cutting one cord while plugging into another, abandoning the singularity of mother/ lover connection for the plurality of artist/community connection. What started as unknowable love towards a single, specific character grows into an unknowable love for everyone, even himself. Of course, everyone can’t love him back. He isn’t perfect. He’s just as flawed as Cathy’s clown dragging his dead China doll to open mics to sing for him. He gets close to realizing this about himself, but then decides against it. Instead, he turns the refrain on himself, deciding not to know himself, but to love himself anyway.