MP3 – “My Bra” (excerpt) – Mya
Lyrics – See below
Last week, the big new music release was Radiohead’s In Rainbows. I am predicting that this week’s big talker will be “My Bra” by Mya.
Okay, perhaps this song won’t have people chattering about the end of the music industry business model, but it makes up for it with Devin Hester levels of ridiculousness.
The verses of the song are pretty unremarkable by themselves; they’re the kind of non-specific, meaningless I-am-dealing-with-adversity-but-will-persevere-by- staying-strong lyrics you hear in the trailers of movies featuring single women who have to deal with tragedy of some kind, be it death, divorce or public speaking engagements. In this case, the song comes from the upcoming Lifetime movie The Matters of Life and Dating, a title that conveniently omits the major plot point of the movie: that Ricki Lake’s single (see?) character undergoes a mastectomy and has to learn how to live life again.
(Sidebar: To my mind, the definitive life-after-mastectomy tele-film is The Ann Jillian Story, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.)
So on its face, writing a song called “My Bra” for a film like this makes a lot of sense. But instead of an introspective exploration of how items we take for granted are recast in a different paradigm after a major life change, you get lyrics like “You’re my legs when I start to stumble/My strength, my sun, my heart.”
But once you get to the chorus, the song becomes unintentionally hilarious.
I don’t mean to take away from the very real problem of breast cancer, which directly or indirectly affects anybody on the planet who isn’t a clone, but even if you’re not a 14 year-old boy, how do you not laugh at lines like:
When it’s just too hard to make it through another day
You’re lifting me up
My bra, my bra, my bra
After some further research, it turns out that “my bra” is slang in the breast cancer community for “my friend.” In that context, it’s cute and….well, supportive (pardon the pun). But hearing it over and over as a stand-in for an actual person just conjures up images of some woman cozying up to her underwires.
Perhaps if the verses weren’t of the Dr. Seuss school of rhyming (little surprise that Mya says “I literally wrote the song in five minutes”), I might have a different opinion.
In the meantime, I’ll take solace in the notion that my 99 cents contributed to breast cancer research, while I busily compose a Weird Al style ode to bro-mance titled “My Bro.” At first, I thought I could use the vernacular “bra” as a stand-in for “bro” but as Barney said in last night’s How I Met Your Mother, that word should be stricken from the lexicon. “It was fun for a week…now it’s over.”
You can find out how to do more to stop breast cancer without hurting your ears at Lifetime’s site.
“My Bra” by Mya
You never know….you’re my bra
You never know what you’re gonna get from day to day
I was sitting on top of the world never thought that would change
Had a life that dreams are made of and everything
And in a moment it all came crashing down and I’ll never be the same
Thought I was safe
I had it made
It couldn’t happen to me
Chorus:
You’re my bra, my bra, my bra
You’re my light at the end of the tunnel
You’re my bra, my bra, my bra
You’re my legs when I start to stumble
My strength, my sun, my heart
When it’s just too hard to take it
When it’s just too hard to make it through another day
You’re lifting me up
My bra, my bra, my bra
When the going got tough, you were there by my side
Telling me the things I needed to hear
You went the extra mile
I thank the heavens above
For your grace
‘Cause when I couldn’t find my courage (yeah)
You gave me your face
Your endless calls
Breaking down my walls
Getting down on your knees and breaking with me
Chorus
I’m fighting, fighting
Facing all of my fears
I’m surviving, I’m surviving
I keep on
Fighting, fighting
Taking it one day at a time
I keep
Trying, Trying
Gonna make it, gonna make it
Nothing’s gonna stop me from going on
So many reasons I gotta stay strong
Chorus (x2)
Fade out
