Life o Adventure

moty ricklin asked:

The poem Hips Don’t Lie represents for me some of the highest quality pop poetry:

Hips Don’t Lie

Ladies up in here tonight

No fighting, no fighting

We got the refugees up in here

No fighting, no fighting

Shakira, Shakira

I never really knew that she could dance like this

She makes a man want to speak Spanish

Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa

Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that

You make a woman go mad

So be wise and keep on

Reading the signs of my body

And I’m on tonight

You know my hips don’t lie

And I’m starting to feel it’s right

All the attraction, the tension

Don’t you see baby, this is perfection

Hey Girl, I can see your body moving

And it’s driving me crazy

And I didn’t have the slightest idea

Until I saw you dancing

And when you walk up on the dance floor

Nobody cannot ignore the way you move

your body, girl

And everything so unexpected – the way

you right and left it

So you can keep on taking it

I never really knew that she could dance like this

She makes a man want to speak Spanish

Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa

Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that

You make a woman go mad

So be wise and keep on

Reading the signs of my body

And I’m on tonight

You know my hips don’t lie

And I am starting to feel you boy

Come on let’s go, real slow

Don’t you see baby asi es perfecto

Oh I know I am on tonight my hips don’t lie

And I’m starting to feel it’s right

All the attraction, the tension

Don’t you see baby, this is perfection

Shakira, Shakira

Oh boy, I can see your body moving

Half animal, half man

I don’t, don’t really know what I’m doing

But you see to have a plan

My will and self restraint

Have come to fail now, fail now

See, I am doing what I can, but I can’t so

you know

That’s a bit too hard to explain

Baila en la calle de noche

Baila en la calle de dia

Baila en la calle de noche

Baila en la calle de dia

I never really knew that she could dance like this

She makes a man want to speak Spanish

Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa

Shakira, Shakira

Oh baby when you talk like that

You know you got me hypnotized

So be wise and keep on

Reading the signs of my body

Seסorita, feel the conga, let me see you

move like you come from Colombia

Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi, say it!

Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi

Yeah

She’s so sexy every man’s fantasy

a refugee like me back with the Fugees

from a 3rd world country

I go back like when ‘pac carried crates for

Humpty Humpty

I need a whole club dizzy

Why the CIA wanna watch us?

Colombians and Haitians

I ain’t guilty, it’s a musical transaction

No more we do snatch ropes

Refugees run the seas ’cause we own our

own boats

I’m on tonight, my hips don’t lie

And I’m starting to feel you boy

Come on let’s go, real slow

Baby, like this is perfecto

Oh, you know I’m on tonight and my

hips don’t lie

And I’m starting to feel it’s right

The attraction, the tension

Baby, like this is perfection

No fighting

No fighting

It is poetry: Even when we hear the poem for the first time, the poetic nature of the title is very clear:

· Not fully understood

· Intriguing

· Unusual

· Metaphoric

· Sensual

· Popistic

The poem seems at a first glance to be a pop song, but actually it is poetry at its best, pop poetry. Shakira did not write a poem full of gaps that is hard to follow. Such a poem would not pass as a pop poem. Shakira’s technique was to plant a key verse that makes it clear that this is poetry, and not a pop song.

If there was only one such verse, it would not have been poetry. Many of the verses are symbolic, even though they seem light. In this essay I will disregard completely Third World elements, such as refugees. I will consider only the dance/show motive. I claim that all dance/show lines have erotic symbolic meaning.

For example the innocent-looking verse: “I’m on tonight”, seemingly meaning “I am performing tonight”, but it might be interpreted as: “I am hot tonight”, or something similar, of an erotic nature. The symbol is not completely clear, but interesting. Again poetry.

Sometimes the erotic nature of the verse is very explicit and clear: “And I’m starting to feel you boy”

The feeling of the poem: The poem constructs a correlative object, which is colorful, popistic, uplifting, stirring, and sensual. A complex feeling, such that exists only in true poetry, and of the utmost quality. Even if we read the poem, without music, it will have a strong impact on us. This special kind of feeling can exist only in pop poetry. Pop poetry can bring into poetry the exciting the rhythmic, the uplifting, and the stirring.

Psychological elements: Shakira is metonymically represented , through the physical: hips, dance, sensuality. Throughout the poem, Shakira does not think. At most: “You make a woman go mad”.

Philosophical elements: The poem praises the physical, the immediate, that is obtained through the senses, rather than through thought. This is exactly how the poem is transferred to the reader, and with it, the feeling.

The poem’s meaning: The poem is Shakira. Shakira singing from her hips. Shakira, physical, and unthinking. Shakira, of dance and sex (and also, Spanish, and Third World).

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