First Day of My Life

Consumers of music plug their headphones in and drift off into the words musicians say.  In many of these songs today, the themes and messages revolve around the idea of love.  Some realistic in their portrayals of the four letter "L" word, and others not so much.  Some paint pictures of idealized scenarios, moments, and interactions between significant others that simply are not what the real world is always like.  In the words of Anne Bader, these portrayals exemplify themselves as "myths".  As a rather extensive consumer of music, I decided the best way to grasp the findings of Bader's study was to conduct a smaller, yet similar content analysis myself with my favorite “love" song.  I figured that applying Galician's 12 Major Mass Media Myths to the song "First Day of My life" I could see how prevalent these myths truly are.  

Yours is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

These two lines, which come in the second stanza of the song, hit on one of the music "myths" Galician talks about.  These lines represent the myth: "There's such thing as 'love at first sight'." The first time they met opened up a new world for him/her and he/she knew that this was the one.  

I especially am slow

But I realize that I need you

And I wondered if I could come home.

These lines refer to the myth: "The right mate 'completes you'-filling your needs and making your dreams come true."  In this case, the lover realizes that the he/she not only wants the other one but also needs her/him.  

I'm glad I didn't die before I met you

But now I don't care I could go anywhere with you

And I'd probably be happy

I believe that these words refer to the myth: "All you really need is love, so it doesn't matter if you and your lover have very different values."  Saying that you could go anywhere with the person and still be happy is truly putting love before anything else.

Finding three different myths in one song is a pretty solid foundation to assume that many of today's love songs contain potentially unrealistic expectations of love and many of the aspects surrounding an endearing relationship.  However, there is a profound contradiction in the overall meaning of the song.  Looking at First Day of My Life holistically, one can appreciate the realistic message about love it is portraying at the end of the song.  The last stanza goes, 

So if you want to be with me

With these things there's no telling

We just have to wait and see

But I'd rather be working for a paycheck

Than waiting to win the lottery.

Instead of just assuming that love comes easy and believing in a fairytale ending, these lines show that relationships take time and that it takes both people working hard to make love prevail.  I think this song is a beautiful contradiction between what is true and what is a myth.  Media tends to portray the myths of love, but it can also be a realistic example of how love really is.  Listening to this song as a kid, I hoped that one day I would love a girl as much as the relationship in the song shows.  It taught me at a young age that perfect relationships can happen, but not all the time.  If I wanted the perfect type of love, I would have to work at it.  Something that I still believe in today.

Bader, A. (2007). "Love will steer the stars" and other improbable feats: Media myths in popular love songs. In M.-L. Galician & D. L. Merskin (Eds.), Critical thinking about sex, love, and romance in the mass media (pp. 141-160). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.