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An analysis of the social content of Donna Summer songs

For once, Donna dares to face subjects in her songs which exceed the couple's love duality and gets deep into grounds of Sociology

LET THERE BE PEACE

Someone let communication out the door
Someone decides it's worth fighting for
Why haven't we learned by what we've done before?
Don't you know history's keeping score?
And just once more

For every boy and every girl
Let there be love all over the world
For everyone under the sun...

Let there be peace on Earth
Let every voice be heard
Let there be peace on Earth
Brother to brother
'Til it's felt around the world

There's only one world in which we all must live
Heaven show us how to forgive
And on that marble wall which holds a million names
Generations of dreams gone down in flames
Isn't, isn't it a shame?

For every boy and every girl
Let there be love all over the world
For everyone under the sun...

Let there be peace on Earth
(Why don't you try just a little harder?)
Let every voice be heard
(My brother)
Let there be peace on Earth
(Oh, if we could just get it together)
'Til it's felt around the world...

We're running out of time
As our leaders roll the dice
The human spirit cries
It's a precious, precious, precious... sacrifice

Let there be peace on Earth
Let every voice be heard
Let there be peace on Earth
Brother to brother
'Til it's felt around the world

Save the babies, save the babies
If we only get it together
If we could only get it together
I think we could make it
I think we could make it
Save the children...
Save the children...

Donna Summer's words are beautiful, appropriate and, without a doubt, cuttingly suitable in these times when sadly some haven't wanted to listen or understand their message. "If we could just get it together...". It's a wonderful idea, almost utopian... and unfortunately so naive. I wish everything were so easy as simply getting it together, but in some people's opinion (count me in), other factors take part in the equation making the situation much more complex than to be solved just by a simple exchange of opinions.

Other verses in the song are those, like I said before, cuttingly suitable: " ...on that marble wall which holds a million names (there are) generations of dreams gone down in flames...". The human spirit is a sacrifice too precious to be rolled by our leaders' dices. I find very appropriate the focus in the song emphasizing the verses: "for every boy and every girl", making evident the individualities, the p-e-r-s-o-n-s who suffer and die in any war, highlighting each human life as the precious gift it is instead of becoming part of a number, a statistic, of deceased or "acceptable losses". Acceptable losses? Acceptable for who? Did the dead people accept the loss of their very life? Was it accepted by their families and beloved ones? "Someone decides it's worth...". 

It's a chant to idealism and, in spite of its naivety, I find comforting to know that, through my subjective interpretation of the song, my diva shares some of my points of view about wars (though, without a doubt, others will find in their own interpretations the keys which let them defend an opposite idea to the one who writes these lines).

For once, Donna dares to face subjects in her songs which exceed the couple's love duality and gets deep into grounds that belong more to the realms of Sociology. It's this a sign, more or less common, in the lyrics of the songs contained in her last whole album, "Mistaken identity". Certainly, the social topic is something that the singer had already shown interest about before in tracks like "She works hard for the money" and "Woman", both songs in which the singer tackled the woman's role in the contemporary society... though in a way, let's say, somewhat contradictory, since in the first one she made a panegyric about the working woman, while in the second she pleaded for the housewife's submission to the working macho.

In "Mistaken identity", la Summer dares to take on more complex lyrics which deal with also more complex subjects (though, to tell the truth, nothing's more complex than the relationships settled in a couple, isn't it?). In the song that opens the album, "Get ethnic", she gives a call to the recuperation of the distinctive typical features of each ethnic group, however contradicting the apparent message shown in the album cover, where a "transvestite" Donna appears as a white, platinum blonde and blue-eyed woman. "Why that shocking image in the cover, Donna?", she was asked in an interview. "Because I wanted to", her sparing answer. 

Nevertheless, the cover image, according to somewhat more extensive and detailed further explanations, seemed to suggest a visual portrait of the message coming from the song which gives name to the album, "Mistaken identity", where Donna echoed (though not expressly) the deplorable (for not calling it shameful) happening in which the Afro-American citizen Rodney King was brutally beaten by a big number of Los Angeles Police Corps agents. 

In another track of the album, "Friends unknown", she expressed her profound gratitude to her lifetime fans who have stood by her through the good and bad times. Her lyrics are, no doubt, sincere and moving, and so it's her performance; it's a shame that the melody which goes with them is, to say the least, poor. 

And then it's, of course, the chant to peace that "Let there be peace" supposes, which has already been commented at the beginning of this article. 

Why do I assume that the aforementioned lyrics are the very Donna Summer's own work? Well, besides the fact that she appears as coauthoress of them all (of course), there's another reason. Each la Summer's good fan who's proud of it will find easy to sense when it's been her who's written the lyrics or contributed somehow in the composition. There's a determination, an intention, an extra force in each syllable which don't go unnoticed to the lifetime fan. I remember, years ago (you know, when Donna used to release records), as a training, I liked to listen to the album before reading the booklet and so I speculated about if this or that song was written by her. And the truth is that I used to get it right in a high percentage, though, no doubt, I also made my mistakes. Eventually, when through the Internet I came across the interviews she had made at the time and which we didn't know a thing about here in Spain, I understood that those songs where I had made a mistake guessing them as hers were ones in which, according to her own words, she had felt entirely identified with their message (like in "Forgive me") or, at least, with the musical style (like in "Hot stuff", where Donna went deep for the first time into the longed for, yet always forbidden by her record company, rock sound). 

The denomination of the team Summer/Moroder/Bellote, just like the tandems Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards, hided from us fans the real contribution of Donna in the tasks of composition for a long time; though, unlike the aforementioned examples, with rare exceptions, there hasn't been further information that clarified us which part of the triumvirate had more specific gravity in the composition (or if there were additional collaborators who didn't get the benefit of authorship). Until the release of "Bad girls", where finally the team unlinked assuming each part their real individuality, for lack of further information, it remains to the fans' trained ear to intuitively appreciate if the singer's occasional vigorous performance is due to her major contribution in the composition or to other reasons. 

Therefore, it's from "Bad girls" on where Donna Summer sees recognized final and deservedly her labour as composer, mainly in the tracks where she is credited as the only writer: "Dim all the lights", "There will always be a you" and "My baby understands", though it's easy to appreciate her important and definitive contribution in other ones, especially in "Our love", "On my honor" and "All through the night". From that moment on, Donna acquires a reinforced position in the ground of composition and manages to include at least one track only hers in the ulterior albums (with the exception of the temporary dictatorship by Quincy Jones in the album which, paradoxically, goes by the title of the artist's very name and which certainly has the least to do with her past and future trajectory). 

In her lyrics, Donna approaches different subjects which let clearly see the stage of her life she's going through. That way we come across "The wanderer" -where I have the feeling that she makes sort of a parable about her departure from Casablanca Records, her record company until that moment-, "Looking up" and "I believe in Jesus" -in which she expresses clearly her profound faith after her conversion to Christianism-, "Running for cover" -in which I wish someone explained the message to me since my poor English isn't enough for it... though I suppose that it must deal with her personal situation before finding her "cover" in the faith in God-, to mention just a few examples. 

Though it's in the subject of affective relationships where, in the opinion of who writes this, Donna Summer finds herself more at ease in terms of composition. Therefore, those songs seem to contain veiled confessions of her own personal life and sometimes even open letters ("Oh, Charlie B., don't you run away"). At the time, and still today, I found to be clearly revealing the verses contained in some of the songs of certain period. Songs like "(I do believe) I fell in love", "Sometimes like butterflies" and "Maybe it's over" go deep into the contradictory feelings which come untied in a couple relationship. The need of love versus the need to be free. Are they veiled confessions of a restless spirit who tries to sail on a stormy sea of feelings in conflict? Though certainly all the previous is no other thing than my assumption, it's in these songs where the diva shows herself as a human being, just like you and me, with the same conflicts and fears about the dependence and the sacrifice that supposes a love relationship. These are the songs which bring us closer to the woman who's beyond the diva. 

Now that this article comes to its end I've realized that I miss the sincerity that's always been in her compositions, I miss someone who sings with such a splendid voice songs which make me reflect on what I'm feeling or have felt, making me feel accompanied... or simply making me feel. Sometimes in an artist there are elements so outstanding and prominent that make others go unnoticed. Donna Summer is a great singer, she has a splendid voice (as it's said, maybe "the most underrated voice in the world of music"), but nobody should forget or overlook that she's also a splendid composer.

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