Sleepy thoughts (its 3 am) on mans best friend is that it feels a bit like a satire.
A woman who bends over backwards to fit into an ideal that just might keep things perfect with her s/o. She becomes Mans Best Friend. She romanticizes the bare minimum to the point it becomes a fetish in Tears. She lets go of individuality in My Man on Willpower. She is uncombative as she gets increasingly less and less respect in Sugar Talking. And throughout theres this underlying nod and wink to the audience that YES these are shitty situations and YES the speaker doesnt want them to be happening but thats what will happen in trying to curl into the shape of something as inhumane as a fantasy. It comes to a head in We Almost Broke Up Again Last Night and Nobody's Son where the speaker has accepted the loss of all beautiful things in this relationship and has begun to see it that way in relationships in general. Never Getting Laid is the end of that relationship and its interesting.
I wanted to look into this album because i was curious where Sabrina would go with the concept art. What was she alluding to? And I think that this is meant to be a little horrific. I think the audience is supposed to look at these situations and be a bit disturbed by the defeated tone of the speaker and hear in Sabrina's humorous tone that no person should accept that. I'm also taking clues from the decision to make the Tears MV somewhat influenced by horror movie themes. It's intended to shock you away from the central antagonist.
I think the general theme of the album has its thesis in Manchild. It's true that it takes two to be in a relationship and if a person has string of bad loves then maybe its not men. I think this album is a direct attack of that. Here is a woman that is trying everything to change herself to attract the "right men" and "do the right thing" and it doesnt work out.
A woman's attempt to better herself in a relationship is stunted by the structures and expectations of dating and occasionally because of the men. The protagonist of these songs turns into something the patriarchy would love and becomes something vicious and defensive. In Dont Worry I'll Make You Worry, she realizes all these awful experiences have made her as much a hazard in dating as the men.
She has to relearn the way that love works. She becomes assertive in House Tour and finally gains a bit of pride in Goodbye.
Its interesting but it might go over peoples head OR i might be wrong idk anything. Im an idiot. I like it bc i relate. As a cis woman with needs its frustrating to run into dog shit men. It isnt about Decentering. it's about whimsy of love and the humanity in it. Humans were made for worship, smart enough to know there are bigger things but never clever enough to do better than to cling to the mirage of a unifying truth. We are bound to baseless beliefs and for some of us that baseless belief is in love.
Man's best friend: You want to be one and, they'll treat you like one. Dontβ¨οΈπ
