Shakira: a Pop Poet
Sunday, December 19th, 2010
The poem Hips Don’t Lie represents for me some of the highest quality pop poetry:
Hips Don’t Lie
Ladies up in here tonight
No fighting, no fighting
We got the refugees up in here
No fighting, no fighting
Shakira, Shakira
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
And I’m on tonight
You know my hips don’t lie
And I’m starting to feel it’s right
All the attraction, the tension
Don’t you see baby, this is perfection
Hey Girl, I can see your body moving
And it’s driving me crazy
And I didn’t have the slightest idea
Until I saw you dancing
And when you walk up on the dance floor
Nobody cannot ignore the way you move
your body, girl
And everything so unexpected – the way
you right and left it
So you can keep on taking it
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You make a woman go mad
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
And I’m on tonight
You know my hips don’t lie
And I am starting to feel you boy
Come on let’s go, real slow
Don’t you see baby asi es perfecto
Oh I know I am on tonight my hips don’t lie
And I’m starting to feel it’s right
All the attraction, the tension
Don’t you see baby, this is perfection
Shakira, Shakira
Oh boy, I can see your body moving
Half animal, half man
I don’t, don’t really know what I’m doing
But you see to have a plan
My will and self restraint
Have come to fail now, fail now
See, I am doing what I can, but I can’t so
you know
That’s a bit too hard to explain
Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle de dia
Baila en la calle de noche
Baila en la calle de dia
I never really knew that she could dance like this
She makes a man want to speak Spanish
Como se llama, bonita, mi casa, su casa
Shakira, Shakira
Oh baby when you talk like that
You know you got me hypnotized
So be wise and keep on
Reading the signs of my body
Seסorita, feel the conga, let me see you
move like you come from Colombia
Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi, say it!
Mira en Barranquilla se baila asi
Yeah
She’s so sexy every man’s fantasy
a refugee like me back with the Fugees
from a 3rd world country
I go back like when ‘pac carried crates for
Humpty Humpty
I need a whole club dizzy
Why the CIA wanna watch us?
Colombians and Haitians
I ain’t guilty, it’s a musical transaction
No more we do snatch ropes
Refugees run the seas ’cause we own our
own boats
I’m on tonight, my hips don’t lie
And I’m starting to feel you boy
Come on let’s go, real slow
Baby, like this is perfecto
Oh, you know I’m on tonight and my
hips don’t lie
And I’m starting to feel it’s right
The attraction, the tension
Baby, like this is perfection
No fighting
No fighting
It is poetry: Even when we hear the poem for the first time, the poetic nature of the title is very clear:
· Not fully understood
· Intriguing
· Unusual
· Metaphoric
· Sensual
· Popistic
The poem seems at a first glance to be a pop song, but actually it is poetry at its best, pop poetry. Shakira did not write a poem full of gaps that is hard to follow. Such a poem would not pass as a pop poem. Shakira’s technique was to plant a key verse that makes it clear that this is poetry, and not a pop song.
If there was only one such verse, it would not have been poetry. Many of the verses are symbolic, even though they seem light. In this essay I will disregard completely Third World elements, such as refugees. I will consider only the dance/show motive. I claim that all dance/show lines have erotic symbolic meaning.
For example the innocent-looking verse: “I’m on tonight”, seemingly meaning “I am performing tonight”, but it might be interpreted as: “I am hot tonight”, or something similar, of an erotic nature. The symbol is not completely clear, but interesting. Again poetry.
Sometimes the erotic nature of the verse is very explicit and clear: “And I’m starting to feel you boy”
The feeling of the poem: The poem constructs a correlative object, which is colorful, popistic, uplifting, stirring, and sensual. A complex feeling, such that exists only in true poetry, and of the utmost quality. Even if we read the poem, without music, it will have a strong impact on us. This special kind of feeling can exist only in pop poetry. Pop poetry can bring into poetry the exciting the rhythmic, the uplifting, and the stirring.
Psychological elements: Shakira is metonymically represented , through the physical: hips, dance, sensuality. Throughout the poem, Shakira does not think. At most: “You make a woman go mad”.
Philosophical elements: The poem praises the physical, the immediate, that is obtained through the senses, rather than through thought. This is exactly how the poem is transferred to the reader, and with it, the feeling.
The poem’s meaning: The poem is Shakira. Shakira singing from her hips. Shakira, physical, and unthinking. Shakira, of dance and sex (and also, Spanish, and Third World).
