My husband, retired police officer and former upholder of rule and law, seems to have had a thing for bad boys, at least judging from his line up of formers and one terror of a hubby. He may have been the one wearing a ‘Get Wicked Tonight‘ t-shirt the first time he met my parents, but I got buzzed on a high ball with his Mom the first time I met his.
Being that this year marks our 25th anniversary of meeting (and 15th of being married) our early days have been on my mind of late. That kind of nostalgia is warm and sustaining, and sometimes it’s been what’s seen us through the rough days. As Andy once said to me at a difficult moment, “There’s history there.” I don’t think he realized how much I took that to heart, and how much I took him to heart.
The good girl in your dreams is mad you’re lovin’ me
I know you wish that she was me
How bad, bad do you want me?
You’re not the guy that cheats and you’re afraid that she might leave
‘Cause if I get too close, she might scream, “How bad, bad do you want me?”
‘Cause you like my hair, my ripped-up jeans
You like the bad girl I got in me
She’s on your mind, like, all the time, but I got a tattoo for us last week
Even good boys bleed
How bad, bad do you want me?
‘Cause you hate the crash, but you love the rush
And I’ll make your heart weak every time
You hear my name, ’cause she’s in your brain and I’m here to kiss you in real life
‘Bout to cause a scene, How bad, bad do you want me?
Before we ever met, Andy had seen me in Oh Bar when Suzie and I were out for a night of fun. I didn’t notice him, but he noticed me (and dismissed me with a ‘Bitchy Queen’ sizing-up assessment of my attitude. He would later tell me that when I walked by him the Jimi Hendrix song ‘Foxy Lady’ came to his mind.
Back in the beginning of our relationship, for one of our earliest get-togethers, I invited him for a pasta dinner at my parents’ home – they were out for the night. I made what I thought was a funny comment, but it was more cutting than anything else for him, and we had our first fight, which ended with him leaving. It was so early in our dating that I simply stood my ground and refused to yield or admit that I might have been wrong in what I said or how I said it. We didn’t know each other’s histories or trigger points then, and we didn’t quite know how special what we had would turn out to be.
You panic in your sleep and you feel like such a creep
‘Cause with your eyes closed, you might peek
So hot, hot that you can’t speak
You’re so fucked up with your crew but when you’re all alone, it’s true
You know exactly what we’d do – How bad, bad do you want to?
I was a bit of a hellion in those early days – at the young age of 25, I was just beginning to figure out exactly who I was, and it wasn’t easy. I didn’t always make it easy for Andy, or anyone in my life in those days, and if being bad was wrong, I never wanted to be right. There was a razor-sharp edge to how I acted in those days, and while I tried not to cut Andy as soon as I understood his sensitivity, it couldn’t help but happen sometimes. Hurt people hurt people no matter how careful we try to be, and in those days everyone around me ended up getting hurt. Those streets ran both ways though, and it’s not entirely accurate to paint me as the villain in every scenario. Not that I’d have been averse to such a characterization, and something told me Andy secretly thrilled at some of my more diabolical machinations. As I said, he didn’t mind a bad boy.
Which brings me to this latest Lady Gaga song, ‘How Bad Do U Want Me?’ I’m completely obsessed with it and all of its layered meanings. There’s the literal reading of its title, which seems to be a simple question of how badly you want or desire someone. A slightly deeper digs brings out the more resonant idea of someone questioning how bad they want their paramour to actually be, and how bad the object of one’s affection may actually want to be. It also posits the question of what exactly is bad?
‘Cause you like my hair, my ripped-up jeans
You like the bad girl I got in me
She’s on your mind, like, all the time, But I got a tattoo for us last week
Even good boys bleed
How bad, bad do you want me?
‘Cause you hate the crash, but you love the rush
And I’ll make your heart weak every time
You hear my name, ’cause she’s in your brain and I’m here to kiss you in real life
‘Bout to cause a scene – How bad, bad do you want me?
Over twenty five years, I slowly, and mostly, grew out of my bad boy eras, and at times Andy had his own bad boy moments, flip-flopping our roles and jolting us into an awareness of how precious and precarious love could be. I also grew to realize, with friends who stuck with me for decades, that I couldn’t be entirely bad all the time; the truly bad and the awful among us simply do not maintain friendships for that long. Sometimes we mistake being young for being bad.
And sometimes being bad is the best thing you can be.
Uh-oh, oh, you love a good girl
Uh-oh, oh, you love a good girl bad
Uh-oh, oh, you make a bad girl
Uh-oh, oh, you make a bad girl mad
A psychotic love theme
How bad do you want me?
