Like a Boy by Ciara

First impression: Ciara starts by naming things men can do but women can’t: pull up ones pants, take out the trash, be fast, put security codes on electronics, and put ones phone on vibrate. We’ve already established Lady Gaga can’t do that last one, so this song holds weight so far.

Ciara quickly expresses a desire for all those aforementioned things which her gender precludes her from. She wishes she could say I love you and then not call that person back. This is an obvious wish of many women. As a whole, women dread commitment and would love to never have to say “I love you.” I assume she would also be willing to take out the trash and would of course put her phone on vibrate. She then says she'd ask her man pressing and invasive questions such as “where you be at?” But she then says she’d be on the corner, doing her own thing. This is a classic female technique: ask a question when you already know the answer. She probably hired a private investigator (on her man’s dime, no doubt) to tail him. Far be it from me to pass judgment, but if I was out until 4 and didn’t give anyone warning I’d be out that late, and my girlfriend asked me where I was, I would just think she cared. But you go with what you know, and Ciara is an uncaring bitch, and assumes everyone else would be too. She has a lot in common with Riskay. For what it’s worth, I’d gladly let her stay out til four in the morning if she took out the trash.

She then asks “what if I had a thing on the side.” Ciara is obviously still hungup on cell phones (pun intended), and longs to have a holster which she could use to hold her phone. Since she can’t put it on vibrate, she needs to be able to answer the phone quickly, as to not disturb anyone around. This is genius. Moving on, she asks whether or not a cell phone holster would change things ("would the rules change up or would they still apply")? Would he show her how to put her cell phone on vibrate if he would always have to be seen with someone who wears a cell phone like a dueling pistol? She finishes by cursing the sky, wishing she was a boy.

Ciara then informs us that there are more things men are able to do, but she cannot. They can run the streets (it hurts her knees at anything more than a jog), come home late and sleep (she doesn't want to take her Ambien if she’s not getting a full night’s sleep, so she lays awake at night), be nice to your friends, act hard, keep a straight face, have friends, walk a mile in, presumably, stylish sneaks, and of course drive (ok, I made that one up). She expresses her overwhelming desire to be a man and be able to do these things.

There really isn’t much analysis for this one. After arranging all the pieces in list form, the song reveals Ciara’s true wish: to be a man. In a classic example of Freudian penis envy, Ciara is jealous of all the things men get to do, like taking out the trash. I can only assume that since this song is so envious of men, she’d only include things she wants to do. But this song has a deeper message: women are bad with electronics. She mentions cell phones explicitly and implicitly, with the end result of the listener being bludgeoned to death over the head with her message. It’s all in the song if you look hard enough.