Front Page Reviews & AIR

Has the whole world gone crazy?

--Walter Sobchak

Let us consider that we are all partially insane. It will explain us to each other.

--Mark Twain

If you would understand love, look to the voles.  Yes, voles, those small, stout rodents with jaw-dropping reproductive capacities, whose females can turn out up to 12 litters per year, each of which includes up to 11 little voles.  The little voles, in turn, are sexually active by age 40 (days, that is), and so, as you can imagine, vole family reunions tend to be quite large and impersonal; no one can remember their sisters’ kids’ names, let along their cousins’…

But I’d hate for you to get the wrong impression of voles.  They have more than just sex on the brain.  They are really quite civilized.  For one thing, voles tend to be monogamous, and male voles, let it be known, do their part in caring for the little voles that they father.  In fact, it's only the Meadow Vole—the black sheep of the vole community—that can’t keep his dick in his pants; and let me tell you, the Prairie Vole and Woodland Vole do look down their cute little noses at the Meadow Vole and his lascivious ways. 

With all of this drama, you can imagine why scientists find voles such useful conversation partners in their studies of reproduction—and especially so because the vole has a surprisingly complex genetic structure with a high degree of variation, which makes them useful analogues to other species, such as humans.  For example, scientists discovered that the Meadow Voles’ Don Draperian behavior was caused by the number of repetitions of a microsatellite DNA, a DNA sequence also found in humans.  These scientists were then able to change a batch of promiscuous Meadow Voles into a crew of decent monogamous gentlemen simply by lengthening the strands of this DNA, which they did by introducing a single gene into the brain by way of a virus.  They thus proved that the voles with the longest strands of this DNA were the ones that stayed with their mates and their children for the longest period of time.  Whereas the Prairie Vole and the Woodland Vole tried to turn the whole monogamy thing into a family values stance, all along it was just a matter of DNA.  Certainly, it must be that simple for humans too: Charlie Sheen just got the short straw.  Yeah right.

I bring up voles not to reduce human sexuality to that of rodents under microscopes (no offense if that’s your thing), nor to make points about monogamy (though the monogamy pill is coming soon), nor even to make predictions about MADMEN Season 5 (O, come quickly).  I am talking voles today because voles helped us to discover the science behind crazy love.  Before there was Tina and Ike Turner, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love, Rihanna and Chris Brown, there was Mr. and Mrs. Vole.  Scientists noticed that when voles were with their mates (not just sexually, but even just watching MADMEN on the sofa together) they exhibited high levels of vasopressin, dopamine, and oxytocin.  Oxytocin, in particular, is the very same stuff that is found in high levels in humans who are getting their crazy on—like extreme OCD, manic episodes, etc.  This observation inspired scientists to conduct studies in which they measured the levels of oxytocin in humans who had fallen in love, and sure enough it was coursing through their veins.  And, thus, it was scientifically proven that Kurt and Courtney’s “falling madly in love” and/or someone giving Van Morrison “Crazy Love” were more than just hyperbole.  It proved that (a certain kind of) insanity and (a certain kind of) love were bed fellows. 

But did we really need scientific proof?  Hasn’t it been obvious to everyone since Shakespeare that there is a kind of romantic love that induces temporary insanity?  That throws things out of whack?  That upends the world of reason and logic, space and time, cause and effect?  That makes you say and do and create things that are just plain batty?  Isn’t the history of rock’n’roll all the proof we need?

It's certainly not the case that all rock’n’roll songs are borne of crazy love, just the good ones!  No, some cerebral and sane tunes have made it into the canon too, but a major chunk of the tradition comes from the experience of sheer abandon to an all-encompassing, often-obsessive, this-won’t-end-well kind of love, á la oxytocin.  Its knit right into lyrico-harmonic DNA of the tunes. 

Sometimes this crazy love is directed at a divine figure or a pet, but mostly its directed at a human lover.  In fact, even when its directed at a divine figure, I think its still directed (indirectly) at an unattainable human lover.  The pet thing is a different story.  You vole owners know what I am talking about.

But back to the music.  Let’s look at examples of the all pervasiveness of crazy love.  It would be too obvious to take up Madonna’s “Crazy For You”, Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”, or even Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” (of which I’d like to hear a Cee Lo cover):

I’m crazy for trying/

and crazy for crying/

and crazy for loving you. 

And it would be too pretentious to analyze a work like Guns N’ Roses’ “You’re Crazy”:

You know you're crazy, oh my!/ 
You're fuckin' crazy, oh child/ 
You know you're crazy/ 
Ay,ay,ay,ay,ay,ay,ah,ah,ah,ah, yeah!/ 
Woh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah/ 
Oh na,no,na,no,na,no,na,no,na,no,no,no/ 
No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no,no/ 
No,no,no, no, no, no, no,no,no,no,no,no/ 
no,no,no! Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, Oh no, ow! -Woooh, yeah! 

So let’s take up an apparently innocent tune like “When a Man Loves a Woman”—where we shall see that all of the tell tale signs of insanity are nonetheless present…

When a man loves a woman/
Can't keep his mind on nothing else/

Nurse, note how the patient suffers from mental captivity; distractedness; obsession. 

He'll trade the world/                
For the good thing he's found/

Nurse, he seems to have lost all sense of comparative value.

If she's bad he can't see it/
She can do no wrong/

Nurse, he turns a blind eye to objective reality; he can no longer distinguish between moral and immoral behavior. 

When a man loves a woman
Spend his very last dime

Nurse, all of his financial scruples have been thrown out the window. 

Tryin' to hold on to what he needs
He'd give up all his comfort.
Sleep out in the rain
If she said that's the way it ought to be

Nurse, he seems to care nothing for his own well-being, and he can no longer think for himself. 

When a man loves a woman/

Deep down in his soul.  

Nurse, what kind of perfume is that you’re wearing?

You can see just how intoxicating this whole thing is.  The man in love really does exhibit all of these insane behaviors, and quite literally. That’s what’s great about this song; it is so literal.  Percy Sledge is not being metaphorical here—you can hear it in the plaintiveness of his tone.  He’s saying, “I know it sounds crazy, but this is really how it is, and this is how it goes…”

A man falls in love, gets crazy, then he makes a song out of it, and we just nod and sway and sing along, feeling touches of that insanity ourselves, or remembering when we used to feel it, maybe wishing we still did, and at no point seeing anything wrong with it.  Its because we’ve grown up on this stuff.  This is popular music for us.  These are acceptable, “normal” behaviors—“normal” ways of talking and thinking and acting—within the grammar of a popular love song.  But yet its all so crazy.  Maybe it’s a deeply imbedded cultural instance of what Mark Twain called the partial insanity in each of us, which when mutually recognized explains us to each other.  Maybe we create and listen to crazy love songs as a tacit recognition of this partial insanity—and of its inherent connection to the way we reproduce.  Its Percy saying: I’ve been there too.  I know what you’re talking about.  It’s a crazy little thing.