#14 - If God Was A Woman

Artist: Richie Sambora
Album: Undiscovered Soul
Other Versions: None
Era: N/A (Richie's only got two cds and they aren't so distinctive from each other that I feel a need to classify)

Lyrics

I don't get it. At all. This is some of the most confusing songwriting I've ever heard - maybe I'm trying to be too literal. I know when I hear "if God was a woman / tell me who could we blame / would she make Jesus righteous / or completely insane" all I can think is wait, God is Jesus's father, so if he was a woman he'd be his mother, and Richie sounds like he's talking about a girlfriend. But I might be the only one who does that.

But as much as this song makes me go "zuh?", I like it. It's one of the songs David helped out on, and it once again has that mark of a more lighthearted side that his songs tend to have. I like that David helped on both Richie's solo albums, because I think those two make an amazing combination. For my money, they're the two most talented musicians in Bon Jovi, and I like both their voices better than Jon's (if David had done any singing with Richie I quite possibly would have died listening...but at least I would have died happy), so they working together is totally win-win in my eyes.

The problem is, it's fun, and when I listen to fun songs I like to sing. And when I sing I need to pay attention to the lyrics. And I don't like the lyrics of this song - I don't like that I don't get it, and I'm not a huge fan of "man, men and women are so totally different" ways of thinking so an entire song being about how things might be different if God wasn't male doesn't really match my whole thing too well. I mean, it's not insulting to women at all - if anything, it's more of a diss to men, but I just don't do well with battle-of-the-sexes type stuff. It's tongue-in-cheek, I take it too seriously and when I try to figure it out I get too literal, but I can't help that.

This is a song that I'm about 50/50 on as far as actually listening to it. I have to be in the right mood or I'll just skip right over it. It's fun musically, lyrically it's a giant bog for my brain, and I just don't like that combination too much.

My Rating: 4/10

By the way, if anyone reading this knows of any writings anywhere that have been done about this song, I'd love a heads-up. Knowing what other people think of this, how other people view the lyrics, is of great interest to me.

Edited 3/25/06: Added lyrics