Tim: Most songs are about love and romance and stuff, aren’t they? And to be honest, after a while it gets tedious. Now, we have a song entitled Live While We’re Young, which is presumably all about enjoying life.
Tom: Well, it depends. The song seems to change its meaning entirely, depending on whether you watch it with or without the video. “Live While We’re Young” certainly implies that it’s about enjoying life…
Tim: Right, and the video implies that as well. But just listen to the lyrics, and while we have indeed left behind the love and romance, but we’re now onto just plain sex.
There are hints throughout, what with “get together”, “I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love,” and “Don’t let the pictures leave you phone.” And then there’s the big one, clarifying the matter once and for all: “Tonight let’s get some.”
Tom: Well, it’s all plausibly deniable. There’s certainly a lot of innuendo in there if you read it that way, but even ‘get some’ can technically have an innocent meaning.
Tim: Seriously? Because, come on, some what, precisely? Nothing, really, just some. In the sense of “Mate, did you leave the club with the hot one last night?” “Oh yeah, and boy did I get some.”
Part of me wants to think it’s a series of double entendres and all that, and that while it is about sex they’re trying to dress it up as young innocent kids actually having fun, like the title implies. But they’re really not – it’s not remotely subtle. This is One Direction stating they’re not the innocent people all the teenage girls and caring mothers thought they were. No. They’re five blokes in their late teens with libidos the size of Canada.
Tom: Without the video, I entirely agree with you. With the video, I can’t help feeling that we’re got cataclysmic levels of homoerotic tension going on here. Waking up in a large tent (who has a sofa in a tent?) with four other attractive young men, piling onto each other, and having a splash-fight? That’s basically Top Gun.
Tim: True, I suppose, and it’s a good video, passing on the live while we’re young message. You’re right – it’s like there are two completely different songs, one as a soundtrack to the video and one whose lyrics would sound appropriate on a Flo Rida single.
Tom: It’s a fairly canny marketing move: there are no girls in the video for their female fans to be jealous about, and the gay men are just as catered for.
Tim: Anyway, let’s move on from the meaning, and talk about the music. It’s catchy as hell. Backing is as it should be, even if it does get off to a slightly dodgy start that gave me a ‘hang on, what’s happening here?” feeling. I particularly like the guitar riff in the middle eight, and the chanting in the background towards the end. It’s all just great.
Tom: Of course it is. With this much money behind them, they’ve got their choice of every pop songwriter. If there’s a dud single from them, something’s gone very wrong.