rolling in the deep

In what appears to be an embarrassingly growing trend in me liking songs about women standing up to or wishing revenge on their exes (What's that about?), I'm finding that I'm somewhat drawn to Adele's ridiculously popular Rolling in the Deep.  The lyrics are not written for me at all, but for whatever reason I enjoy the song.



I have every reason to not like the song.  I think it's the anthem of a woman who does not understand the role she had in someone leaving her, so she wants to stew in revenge mode.  One line from the song, emphasized below, gives away the singer's mistaken perspective.

The scars of your love remind me of us,
They keep me thinking that we almost had it all.
The scars of your love, they leave me breathless,
I can't help feeling,

We could have had it all,
Rolling in the deep,
You had my heart inside your hand,
And you played it to the beat.

This hearkens back to something that I noted that I have learned in the time since being married.  Many phrases mean something completely different to a typical woman than a typical man.  In my opinion the "it all" that they "could have had" has almost no connection with whatever the guy who left her wanted in the relationship in the first place, and that is why he left her.  He didn't understand her and she didn't understand him.  She had some fantasy about the relationship that she assumed had meaning to him, but that he probably did not even know existed, and so things played out the way they do when two people don't understand each other because they're only concerned about fulfilling their own irrational fantasies.

I am torn on enjoying this song for this reason.  Vengeance fantasies feed off self-righteousness, and this song is definitely a revenge fantasy, but in this case it seems screamingly obvious that the self-righteousness is unfounded.  The woman isn't without the man because she is too good for him.  She is without him, can't figure out why, and feels self-superior because she is stuck in the mindset that her fantasies should have been their fantasies.

I think that a lot of the popularity for this song comes from the fact that a lot of people—while it would be women in this case men are just as guilty—see relationships as ways to meet their own fantasies without concern for the other person's needs.  When the other person either takes advantage of the him or her using the fantasy or breaks up recognizing how much effort the relationship is going to be, a song like this speaks to the person whose heart and fantasies have been broken.

This is probably too much thought to give to a pop song, isn't it?