If you don’t believe me, let me persuade you. If you’ve never heard it then I’m going to do you a massive favour. I think this is a driving tune, so get in your car and turn up the volume. If you don’t have a car, headphones will do, but this song deserves to be played a little louder than normal.
I understand that the band Heart doesn’t like this song because of the message it conveys, and they no longer perform it live. I think that’s a shame. It’s true that the message is pretty awful, but to me that’s what makes it powerful.
“Under the bridge” by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers is about doing heroine, which is also a pretty awful message, but it’s still a great song. Songs should be complicated and explore the darker nature of the human soul.
Although it was released in 1990, to me this is the classic 80s rock sound. This song epitomises “soft rock” or “rock ballad” or “power ballad” for me and it does everything right (just like the lonely boy in the song). The key changes, the screaming guitars, the driving baseline, the powerful drums but most of all, the story combine to create the single greatest song ever recorded.
If you’re familiar with this song, just think about the lyrics for a moment. What goes on in the lines of this song is mind blowing. It’s really weird that this song was commercially successful considering the content.
This is a song about a woman who has sex with strangers, hoping to become pregnant because for whatever reason her husband is unable to impregnate her. During the song, she meets a stranger, takes him to a hotel room, has sex with him and then skips out before he wakes up. Some time later he discovers that he has a child to this strange woman, and the whole truth comes out.
Just think about that for a moment, that’s a crazy premise for a song to be based on. The woman is heartless, in that she doesn’t seem to be interested in the stranger’s feelings at all, but I think a more sympathetic reading is required. I think that the for the woman in the song, time is running out for her to become pregnant. If we consider the situation from her point of view, it’s not inconceivable that one would go to such lengths to have a baby. People regularly pay thousands or tens of thousands of dollars for IVF. It makes me wonder whether this is what women were forced to do before IVF became commonplace.
I view the “lonely boy” – The stranger in this song as being pretty much innocent. Young men are driven by sex and will rarely refuse it. She offered him sex and he enthusiastically agreed.
The woman, I have mixed feelings about. One cannot begrudge her the feminist ideal of being 100% in control of her own reproduction, that seems laudable, but the way she goes about getting pregnant is pretty abhorrent. She doesn’t seem to care for the stranger at all, she just wants his superior genetics and sperm. When you balance these two viewpoints, she’s a bit of a monster, but I admire her for doing what she feels she has to do, even if it’s wrong.
Let us go over all the lyrics in turn, line by line:
It was a rainy night when he came into sight
Standing by the road, no umbrella, no coat
The man is never given a name in this song, more about that later, but I think it’s important. The whole point of this song, right from the very start, is that the man is not particularly relevant to the woman’s experience.
These two lines at the beginning set up the story. It allows for some doubt on the part of the listener. Did she spot the man in rain and take pity, or is this a hunting strategy?
So I pulled up along side and I offered him a ride
I like to think there is a double entendre at play here, because she offers to drive him, but also, you know, she wants to have sex with him.
He accepted with a smile so we drove for a while
Of course he accepted, it’s raining, clearly this is a man in need of a lift and a kindly woman with a warm car. At this point the “boy” is innocent, he has no idea what’s in store for him
I didn’t ask him his name, this lonely boy in the rain
She didn’t ask him his name because it’s not relevant to her devious ulterior motive. It’s not about companionship or even sex for her, it’s about something much bigger. She doesn’t need his name, she needs his sperm. I think this indicates the selfishness of the woman, both towards the lonely boy and to the other man (more about him later). She didn’t even bother to find out the name of her potential baby’s father – she might be a sociopath.
Fate tell me it’s right, is this love at first sight
For me this line is complicated, we find out later in the song that love is not the motive here, but could it be that the physical attraction she feels to the lonely boy in the rain is the same as the attraction she feels to the other man, and therefore would this lonely boy suit her needs – Hence – “Fate tell me it’s right” – This lonely boy will become perhaps the second most important person in her life, as the father of her child, even though she will never see him again, it’s important that she get’s it right
Please don’t make it wrong, just stay for the night
Again this harkens back to the innocence of the boy. From the later lyrics we can assume that the woman is married, perhaps the boy is protesting, something like “but you’re married…?” and she’s trying to persuade him to sleep with her anyway. I think this is the closest we get to her showing remorse for how she treats the “lonely boy”. She must know that what she’s doing is wrong, but she needs to accomplish her goal.
Chorus:
All I want to do is make love to you
Say you will you want me too
All I want to do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin’ arms to hold on to
There isn’t much subtext here. It’s pretty clear that she wants to have sex with the boy, but it’s important to her to get his consent. This is somewhat laughable once we know her true intent, and we are absolutely certain that there wasn’t a condom involved.
She didn’t ask his consent to father her child, only to have sex. I think there is a clear line between those two things that she should have identified. Some people might say that making children is the whole point of having sex, but by 1990 I think at least some people were doing it for fun as well (obviously this is sarcasm, it’s always been fun).
If asked the question: “Do you want to make a baby with me?” Most young men would say no, unless they were drunk. If it’s a question of simply having sex “Do you want to have sex with me” or, to paraphrase, “Say you will, you want me too”, most young men would happily agree. This is why we have informed consent – to make sure that someone is aware of all the facts before they agree to something.
The last line is not only meant to persuade, but I think also to indicate a teaching or caring role in this one night relationship. She is telling the lonely boy that she will guide him through the experience. I think this tells us that the woman is quite a bit older than the “boy”. I think she must be mid thirties, and the boy might be under 20. She is the dominant partner in the relationship. She doesn’t have to be that much older, but I can imagine the pressure of the biological time bomb forcing her to make unpalatable decisions so that she can get pregnant before it’s too late.
So we found this hotel, it was a place I knew well
This suggests that she’s been picking up lonely boys by the side of the road for some time. If she’s in her mid thirties and wants to become pregnant, time is running out for her (especially in the 80s or early 90s). She doesn’t want to be an older mum, and she doesn’t want complications. Maybe she’s been doing it for years, or maybe just the last year or so. Even so, I think we can understand from this line that this isn’t the second or even third time at this hotel, she’s a frequent guest.
We made magic that night. Oh, he did everything right
I’m no romantic, but I think this means he was good at doing sex. She obviously enjoyed it. Makes me wonder whether I “do everything right”. I think that compared to the lonely boy I probably don’t stack up very well.
He brought the woman out of me, so many times, easily
This is my favourite line to sing in the shower, there’s a bit of a key change. It needs to be shouted loud. I’m pretty sure this line shows that he was easily able to bring her to orgasm multiple times.
And in the morning when he woke all I left him was a note
By the look of this line, I think she leaves the hotel and goes on her way long before he wakes up. The song doesn’t relate whether or not the woman paid for the hotel room, or left the lonely boy to pick up the tab in the morning. I like to think that she paid everything for him, but knowing the way she behaves, I wouldn’t be surprised if she stuck him with the bill. Anyway, before she leaves, she writes him a biologically confusing note:
I told him I am the flower you are the seed
We walked in the garden we planted a tree
Don’t try to find me, please don’t you dare
Just live in my memory, you’ll always be there
It’s kind of self explanatory, but also it isn’t. I think what she’s trying to say is that she has an egg, and he has a sperm, and through last night’s actions both egg and sperm have combined to become a zygote. I am the flower, you are the seed, we walked in the garden, we planted a tree is not how all this works at all, however I’m willing to forgive for a couple of reasons:
- It’s difficult to make biology rhyme – You work with what you have
- The song is written from the point of view of the woman. We don’t know her level of education or whether she’s a biologist, so it’s understandable that she might not be entirely clear on the process, but she gets the gist of it. And she made it rhyme , so I can forgive
The next lines of the note are much more clear, don’t try to find me, I’ll always remember you.
Because the song is written from the woman’s point of view, she has told the boy to not bother looking for her. Little did she know that in all likelihood, the boy had absolutely no intention of looking her up. It could present a problem if he later finds that he has an STD and needs to contact his previous partners, but he has been told not to, so that’s that.
I don’t think many young men try to trace previous partners on the off chance that they have a previously unknown child, in fact I think that’s the exact opposite of what 99% of young men are interested in finding out.
She could have got away with it by simply leaving with no note, which I think would have made more sense, especially to the lonely boy. Leaving the note was a especially cruel to me, because now the lonely boy will find his mind wandering about a child that was taken from him, that he can never meet or raise – For a more sensitive soul this would be torture. Because of the aforementioned nods towards the innocence of the lonely boy earlier, I choose to believe that this note made him bitter.
She basically says: You’ve made me pregnant, don’t try to find me, I’ll always remember you. This is a pretty heartless thing to do. She has no idea what he thinks about fatherhood, she didn’t get a medical history to discover whether he’s likely to pass on any congenital defects etc. It might be that natural selection is doing all the work here, in that she finds the boy attractive, and traditionally that is a good signifier of genetic fitness.
Chorus again – no point in going over it
Break:
Oh, oooh, we made love
Love like strangers
All night long
We made love
I’ve heard it said that strangers have better sex because they are more adventurous. I don’t know if it’s true. Either way, these lines tell us that they had sex all night. From the lonely boy’s point of view this was probably awesome. From the woman’s point of view, she just wanted to be absolutely certain that she got as much sperm out of him as possible to maximise the possibility of pregnancy.
Then it happened one day, we came round the same way
So it looks as though at some point in the future they meet each other again. They are very lucky to recognise each other, but then that’s just my own experience, I’m terrible with faces. Anyway, by chance, they bump into each other.
You can imagine his surprise when he saw his own eyes
This lyric implies that the woman is travelling with her child, the offspring of their union. The man is perceptive enough to recognise the child as his own! I find this unlikely, but let’s say the man has some distinctive feature or other that was genetically propagated to the next generation. The song mentions eyes – so he must have distinctive eyes.
So the “lonely boy” is surprised at having met his own child that he didn’t know he had. I’ll bet he was surprised! That would surprise me too.
The song now takes a pleading, screaming tone:
I said please, please understand
I’m in love with another man
This is another two lines that can be shouted rather than sung in the shower. Key change again. It’s quite self explanatory, she pleads with the boy to understand that she has another long term partner. Presumably they are married but this doesn’t really matter. The point is that before the one night stand, she and this other fella were in love, and they still are…
And what he couldn’t give me (oh oh oh oh)
was the one little thing that you can
SPERM! The whole song is about sperm. Now we don’t know the particular reproductive issues that the other man is having, it could be low testosterone leading to low sperm count, low motility, auto immune disorder whereby his sperm is attacked by his own immune system, chainsaw accident etc – either way, the woman wanted to have a baby, the man she was in love with was not able to provide one, so she sought out a stranger to have sex with and become pregnant.
What isn’t made clear is whether the woman told her long term partner what she was planning, or whether the man knows that he’s impotent, or whether the man knows that the child that he is presumably raising as his own really is his own!
Personally I’d love to know what the other side of this relationship looks like, but according to the way the woman callously refused to consider the feelings of the “lonely boy” earlier in the song, I think it’s highly likely that the “other man” has no idea that she had sex with strangers in order to get pregnant, and if that’s the case, he doesn’t know that the child isn’t his.
If i’m right about the distinctive trait that was passed down through the generations allowing the stranger to recognise his own child (the song says that it’s the eyes – let’s say he has red eyes, like a white rabbit or satan) – then it’s quite incredible that the “other man” doesn’t have his suspicions. It’s perfectly possible that he does and that this isn’t addressed in the song, but I would like to believe that through the power of denial he is willing to accept that this child is his own flesh and blood.
If he truly loves the woman, he will stay with her and care for the offspring anyway. If she truly loves “the other man” she would have explained everything to him even before she started picking up random strangers and taking them to the hotel.
Fade out to a couple of rounds of the chorus
That’s the end of the song! What wild tale. So complicated, so many feelings… It reveals something unpleasant about human nature, but at the same time I think it’s absolutely the best song ever written.
Here are the full lyrics, maybe there’s something I missed:
It was a rainy night when
He came into sight
Standing by the road, no umbrella,
No coat
So I pulled up along side and
I offered him a ride
He accepted with a smile
So we drove for a while
I didn’t ask him his name,
This lonely boy in the rain
Fate tell me it’s right,
Is this love at first sight
Please don’t make it wrong
Just stay for the night
All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will
You want me too
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin’ arms to hold on to
So we found this hotel,
It was a place I knew well
We made magic that night.
Oh, he did everything right
He brought the woman out of me,
So many times, easily
And in the morning when he woke
All I left him was a note
I told him
“I am the flower you are the seed”
We walked in the garden
We planted a tree
Don’t try to find me,
Please don’t you dare
Just live in my memory,
You’ll always be there
All I wanna do is make love to you
One night of love was all we knew
All I wanna do is make love to you
I’ve got lovin’ arms to hold on to
Oh, oooh, we made love
Love like strangers
All night long
We made love
Then it happened one day,
We came round the same way
You can imagine his surprise
When he saw his own eyes
I said “please, please understand
I’m in love with another man
And what he couldn’t give me, how-oh
Was the one little thing that you can”
All I wanna do is make love to you
One night of love was all we knew
All I wanna do is make love to you
Say you will, you want me too
All night long
All night long
All night long
All night long
Songwriters: Robert John Lange
All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
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