By The Landlord
“I would be married, but I'd have no wife, I would be married to a single life.” - Charles Bukowski
“I may climb perhaps to no great heights, but I will climb alone.” - Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand
“I'm single because I was born that way.” - Mae West
“If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.” – Oscar Wilde
“Don't knock masturbation. It's sex with someone I love.” – Woody Allen
Unless you’re a planarian, one of the polychaetes, oligochaetes, or turbellarians, practise parthenogenesis, if you’re a starfish, from the lichen or fungi family, among the water fleas, or some ants, wasps, aphids, stick insects, and in rarer cases sharks, lizards and of course the T-Rex dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, the single life isn’t something we’re designed for. But rules can always be broken.
Singledom has its woes, but also its wisdom, comes in all forms, can be a source of loneliness, shame and social ostracisation, but also complete bliss and self-autonomy. So this week whether it’s the bachelor’s life for you, or being more Greta Garbo, it’s time to explore the idea and experience of it as expressed through the prism of song, and there’s a real buzz at the Bar, as tonight a whole crowd of esteemed visitors are queuing up for our very special Song Bar Singles Night.
Single combat: Cyrano de Bergerac (1950)
So, whether they be 45 singles or 12ins or album tracks, what sort of being-single songs might this include? In the distant past topics have come up such as ‘loneliness’ and ‘being alone’, and various breakup songs, upbeat or otherwise, but being single is significantly different, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re alone.
Upbeat breakup songs? Not necessarily. Being single is an ongoing state of existence rather than just a sudden event, it may or may not even consider how long that situation may continue, so breakup songs would have to be more about being single than the breakup itself. And so this week it may include all types of being without a partner, happy or otherwise, and also include the solace or joy of friendships, dating, and even masturbation.
So our guests are now assembled in what resembles a mass speed-dating event, constantly swapping places along rows of chairs and chatting to each other in sequence, but soon breaking up into an eloquent cacophony. And here at the Bar we don’t like to assume any sexual preference so the genders are all mixed up.
Already there’s a little huddle of great female novelists dipping into their works for inspiration on the rights and wrongs of being single. In Jane Austen’s day, being single for either man, or especially women, would be a source of shame and misfortune. Yet her character Emma (Woodhouse) encapsulates a contradiction – she is an avid matchmaker, but until events take their own course in the form of Mr Knightley, she has no interest in changing her wealthy, free lifestyle. “Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”
Jane Austen: social pressures
But many of Austen’s characters are weighed down under the same pressures: “Single women have a dreadful propensity for being poor. Which is one very strong argument in favour of matrimony.”
And here’s a similar line from the pen of Charlotte Brontë: “The trouble is not that I am single and likely to stay single, but that I am lonely and likely to stay lonely.”
Thomas Hardy is sitting opposite Charlotte, and quoting Under The Greenwood Tree, adds the line: “If we be doomed to marry, we marry; if we be doomed to remain single we do.”
And yet as we clamber towards the 20th century, there’s a realisation that single independence can be a happy state. “I don't believe I shall ever marry; I'm happy as I am, and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up for any mortal man,” quotes Louisa May Alcott from Little Women.
Greta Garbo, the silver screen darling of being alone, recalls how when asked by the Duchess of Windsor about this, she replied: “Why haven't I got a husband and children? Well, I never met a man I could marry.”
What an inspiration Garbo has been to many a songwriter. Also entranced by Garbo and sitting opposite her, here’s Orson Welles: “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for a moment that we’re not alone.”
Being single can have a triumphant misery about it. “I never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude,” reckons Henry David Thoreau.
And here’s Lana Del Rey: “Who are you? Are you in touch with all of your darkest fantasies? Have you created a life for yourself where you can experience them? I have. I am fucking crazy. But I am free.”
"You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody,” adds a very wise Maya Angelou.
William Blake is enjoying the Bar atmosphere is inspired to recall that: “No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings,” recalling a topic we had a few weeks ago.
Alfred Lord Tennyson feels compelled to add to Blake’s poetry with this:
“But while I breathe Heaven's air and Heaven looks down on me,
And smiles at my best meanings,
I remain Mistress of mine own self and mine own soul.”
“Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath,” says Mary Wollstonecraft, very much her own woman.
Writers need solitude. Why?
“Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone and leave it alone,” explains Thomas de Quincey, rather grandly.
“Solitude is the place of purification,” adds Martin Buber, raising it up a little further.
Charles Bukowski - ultimate single bar fly
Solitude and independence don’t necessarily point to be unmarried or single, but they certainly come with the territory. Whether single or not, writers certainly require solitude, and the creative process presents them with a dialogue with themselves. ““I’m single,” say Alex Karate. “Well, no. I’m a writer so I am one person with many others always running around my noggin, so I guess I’m a... plural?”
Christina Aguilera also hears someone to talk to when alone. “When there's no one else, look inside yourself, like your oldest friend, just trust the voice within.”
Being single is certainly cheaper financially than getting married and having a family. “I love being single. It’s almost like being rich,” adds Sue Grafton.
Voltaire agrees. “Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly.”
“Well,” adds Gloria Steinem, chatting to Voltaire with an ironic new twist, “the surest way to be alone is to get married.”
The writer Chuck Palahniuk is not a fan of marriage for more selfish reasons. “Ever since college, I make friends. They get married. I lose friends.”
“Too many women throw themselves into romance because they're afraid of being single, then start making compromises and losing their identity. I won't do that,” says the actress Julie Delpy.
Zsa Zsa Gabor, who hardly achieved in the singles department, considering that she married no less than nine times, still enjoyed a bit of time on her own: “When I'm alone, I can sleep crossways in bed without an argument.”
“Well, when I am alone I am happy,” adds William Carlos Williams.
Happy is the word: William Carlos Williams
“Hey!” says Billy Idol. “Isn’t this enough talking? How about some action?” He wants to know if anyone fancies a more physical expression of the subject. “Hey! On the floors of Tokyo, or down in London town to go, go with a record selection and a mirror direction I'm dancing with myself.”
Billy Idol’s a handsome chap who catches the eyes of the ladies. Is Katy Perry tempted?
“No. I don’t need Prince Charming to have my own happy ending,” she reckons, with a naughty smile.” Happy ending, Katy? To what are you referring?
Billy’s getting excited now. “When there's no one else in sight, in the crowded lonely night, well I wait so long for my love vibration.”
Things are hotting up here now. C’mon people! Surely Audrey Hepburn, who has now walked in, will add some higher-brow class to the proceedings. “Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm. I really hope no one misinterprets this quote as being about masturbation.”
Audrey! What have you started? Lily Tomlin for one.“We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.”
“Yeah,” says Cyndi Lauper. “ I wanna go south and get some more. Hey, they say that a stitch in time saves nine, they say I better stop or I'll go blind.”
Always reaching down for fun: Cyndi Lauper
“Masturbation is the thinking man's television,” reckons the playwright Christopher Hampton, whose very name suddenly adds a new dimension to proceedings.
“And if God had intended us not to masturbate, He would have made our arms shorter,” reckons George Carlin, with some extra reach.
“What I like about masturbation is that you don't have to talk afterwards,” adds director Milos Forman.
Woody Allen is back, and can’t let this discussion pass with another play. “Having sex is like playing bridge. If you don't have a good partner, you'd better have a good hand.”
Perhaps we should have a professional to round things up? “The only shame in masturbation is the shame of not doing it well,” intones a very serious looking man with a beard and round glasses. It’s only Sigmund Freud.
So now it’s time for you, learned readers, to delve into the inner workings of the musical and lyrical brain when it comes to all aspects of being single by placing your songs in comments below. Taking all of this in hand this week’s topic is our very own professor of lyrics and more - the one and only pejepeine! Deadline for nominations is 11pm UK time (BST) for playlists published next week. Let’s all be alone together.
New to comment? It is quick and easy. You just need to login to Disqus once. All is explained in About/FAQs ...
Fancy a turn behind the pumps at The Song Bar? Care to choose a playlist from songs nominated and write something about it? Then feel free to contact The Song Bar here, or try the usual email address. Also please follow us social media: Song Bar Twitter, Song Bar Facebook. Song Bar YouTube, and Song Bar Instagram. Please subscribe, follow and share.
Song Bar is non-profit and is simply about sharing great music. We don’t do clickbait or advertisements. Please make any donation to help keep the Bar running: