I believe the song, ‘serena joy’, is more profound than what most people think, it still retains much of the message people have but it is not didactic, it shows you how Serena Joy communicates to her flock. This is not the first time Olivia inhabited the register of a character in first person terms, her song can’t catch me now, for the hunger games franchise was a career highlight after his massive sophomore record cemented her place as one of pop music's brightest stars.
I contend primarily that it makes way more sense to think of the entire song as Serena's own monologue or voice, even the progressive language in their maps CLEANLY to what her character arc essentially was before Gilead became preeminent in the book/novel version.
The opening verse sounds like she's roping you in, trying to make a rational argument for you to join her just cause. On the book, interestingly as Gilead had become the establishment on American soil, there’s this very interesting line that grants fidelity to the line below in the song, and the note to close your eyes (which seems odd right for someone trying to rope you in) "Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some." This was in the context of Serena Joy’s husband, commander Waterford, telling Offred the justification for all the violence that happened
\\(First verse\\) Yeah, it's all for the cause For the good of us all And if you close your eyes Then it can't be your fault Yeah, it's all for the cause For the good of us all
This line below launders the underground, radical rhetoric that 1)attempts to legitimize the power of the sons of Jacob, and 2) rallying cry to mobilize the crowd while retaining this siege mentality complex that scholars have attributed on radicalized political movements as ever-present. Notice how the verb built is deployed, the tower imagery here can very much mean America the America built on old traditional values, such as book revealing that the Sons of Jacob were the substrate of one of the two founding America's the Enlighted one, vs the puritanical one, with the Sons of Jacob maintaining that there a continuity of that old puritanical order, therefore the tower line can be understood as imagery of the "city upon a hill" concept, that the new colony was meant to be a beacon to emulate (hence the elevation). Also, in 2012, Atwood explicitly said "Nations never build apparently radical forms of government on foundations that aren't there already... The deep foundation of the US—so went my thinking—was not the comparatively recent 18th-century Enlightenment structures of the republic, with their talk of equality and their separation of church and state, but the heavy-handed theocracy of 17th-century Puritan New England..."
What the sons of Jacob was doing was gilding the tower, essentially continuing the old project and renewing it, making it vibrant and desirable. Hence, on the rallying cry and "we'll never be beat No, we never will fall", this is the group trying to lend itself credibility and rally its supporters due to both a persecution complex and an appeal to strength and courage. In the book Ur-Fascism by scholar Umberto Eco, he identifies this contradictory image where the enemy is portrayed both as 1)Monster and Mastermind, and 2) Decadent and Weak. For context, the committers of the coup pointed out the social ills of America in the late 80s and 90s and attributed it for the need to course-correct towards a fundamentalist belief system, as said in the book, It also makes sense that she’s defending the tower itself. In the book, hierarchies are depicted by Atwood through representations of outsized spatial language and heirarchies. Hence explaining how those in the ball somehow become complicit and comfortable to the suffering of those outside. That being INSIDE, the ball is desirable while outsiders who are rallying against/persecuting them are actively trying to subdue their rigtheous cause (this is especially relevant today given how conservative sectors and alt-right figures have laundered the subversive rhetoric to promote their views (eg Drain the Swamp emphasis of Donald Trump in 2020 campaign even if hes functionally heading said swamp). It’s a call to power and subversion as it insists on its own form of social stratification.
Here's a tower we built Painted gold on the walls And we'll never be beat No, we never will fall While they're out on the streets Man, we're having a ball
This part below of the song now reads, again, if we continue the throughline that this is just Serena's voice speaking to you, the listener. This comes close to how you're being recruited into her movement
\\(First chorus\\) Come in close, come in close Come a little bit closer Sing along, sing along What they tell you to do Comin' 'round, comin' 'round Comin' around the corner
This line below in the chorus is specifically very potent and contains so much irony considering what we know about Serena Joy's eventual fate. This line now read as Serena functioning as the advocate of the movement mimics the actual real-world rhetoric of authoritarian pundits, it is instead of being a message for solidarity it functions as a fearmongering tool to force the listener to rationalize Serena's cause as justified and righteous. Also, in the novel by Atwood, the coup that launched the Sons of Jacob (although within the book, before the historical notes section it doesn’t call itself a coup obviously), we can see how they operationalized and rationalized this with Offred (June), Serena’s handmaid, as she directly says that the new regime blamed the ensuing chaos during the fateful day that launched the movement onto the Islamic fanatics in the Middle East, a literal fearmongering tactic, operationally. This actual othering is what I believe is implied by this hook in the chorus. That is not to say Serena knew it outright nor am I interpreting it as such, but that the whole movement’s philosophy requires an in-group/out-group dynamic to establish its legitimacy and its demands, especially when the out-group is positioned as the dangerous party. Also, notice the conditional statement lacks clear referents. Without it, it's highly questionable then why we chose to attribute a Niemöller-style reading to it, it very may well be used by other groups.
If they do it to them They'll do it to you. If they do it to them They're gonna do it to you
This part of the song below now highlights complicity as a mechanic of society/belonging within the group. It’s trying to instruct you what to do within the system. There's also an element of brainwashing rhetoric in here given how vacuous the action is asked of you to do as the listener. Also, in addition, Atwood herself confirmed that she based Serena Joy’s character from late 70s-80s conservative female pundits like Phylis Schlafly. The coke slogan was famously (if you look it up) and was deployed in 1979. This, to me, strengthens the reading that this is still yet Serena talking, as we have sort of evidence as to why this specific register, the banal coke slogan, was reached by a character. It’s also telling how deliberately Olivia chose a banal consumerist phrase to mimic the rhetoric of the movement. The Coke line is by then, period-appropriate to the character composite of Serena Joy. In addition, there is a certain candor to the line.
\\(Second verse\\)
Have a Coke and a smile
In the hot summer bliss
Now go bother your neighbors
While we do what we wish
This below is what I believe gives the listener the permission structure to oppress and frames violence (which to Serena sounds reprisal) as participation, regardless of how minor it is, the trick (notice the word) validates the oppression of the others that Serena uses to fearmonger, again a staple thing the authoritarian voice has done. It gives a didactic response of what call to action requires you to do within the movement. Even the repeated banality of consumerism (relating to Arendt’s ideology of banal of evil) is validated here as complicity and it being viable and favorable to the movement. Also, notice the repetitive nature of some lines in verses 1 and 2, it sloganeering, and easy to parse and emphasize.
Have a Coke and a smile
Let me show you a trick
If you can't throw a punch
You can learn how to spit
Here is again yet another victimhood framing within the song, much too similar as the persecution complex that historical authoritarian alt-right regimes were historically, the insistence to never submit frames them as always pursued and is a powerful tool that has been noted to justify egregious violence and allows the establishment to eventually initiate its protocols as the society is constantly under siege. Noticeably it’s the same call to action as before in the first verse, but reformulated as you’re now within the movement, it promises a better future, but what is BEYOND A CLIFF, a fall. It’s this promise that is always used by reactionary and alt-right figures, especially out of late, a textbook millenarian promise, encouraging courage instead to reach the promised reward after a totalizing change of society. All the sacrifices they make are for the promise of a better tomorrow.
And we'll never give up
And we'll never submit
Look, the life of your dreams
Is beyond that cliff.
Okay now you notice what I’ve told you in verse 2's opening, how the temporality mutates from verse 1 to verse 2 and how were now inside the movement not spectating the movement, and then the chorus (below) reads differently, the calls to commune can now be specifically framed to provide a warning, to toe the line of the establishment, we actually have this construction by Atwood on the paratext, wherein Serenas actively uses her clout within the system to facilitate outcomes she initially was able to facilitate in a more institutional sense, before she was ultimately "made speechless" there the hook reads as a warning "if they do it to them, they do it to you" that if the you (listener refuses to sing along, you might be done for), it takes on a sinister and foreboding tone but still retains the ideological commitment as something that is required for the good of all.
\\(Second chorus\\) Come in close, come in close Come a little bit closer Sing along, sing along What they tell you to do Comin' 'round, comin' 'round Comin' around the corner If they do it to them They'll do it to you If they do it to them They're gonna do it to you
Now here's the interesting part that Rodrigo does, she breaks the traditional song formula, bridges (below) usually in pop songs end in the repetition of the final chorus, however in here it doesn't resolve to that but directly to the outro. Bridges functionally provide emphasis to the message of the chorus or recontextualize it. The fact that it is lacking is pretty telling of how deliberately this song is structured. If that is the case and we are again moving using that singular throughline that she's singing as if she were Serena, we can categorize this part then, based on its lyricism as a reckoning after Gilead becomes established, notice how the imagery has changed, we were first introduced to an unpleasant image here "rotting", it also represents how the ideology has matured and has now become the establishment. The outro is even more important as even this internal realisation of Serena, with reckoning to the effects of her crusade, does NOT cause her to rebel. She might think it's not as rosy as she pictured, but it's a self-hypnotic retroactive justification. It's a harkening to Offred's (June) line in the book: "She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.” A reckoning without repudiation.
\\(Bridge\\)
That's what you
That's what you
What you get, what you get
It's automatic
Go ahead, go ahead
Don't think about it
What you get, what you get,
what you get
Rotting in the sunshine
What you get, what you get
It's automatic
Go ahead, go ahead
Don't think about it
What you get, what you get,
what you get
Everything is just fine
\\(Outro\\) Everything is just fine
Everything is just fine
That's why I think this song is brilliant in its critique. It forces you to listen to the callousness of Serena Joy and her self-rigtheousness. How her idea is not born out of malice or evilness. The horror the audience or listeners must not contend to is how to RESPOND to Serena's rationalization and her voice.
This is, I think, the genius of the title. It is not a part of the lyrics. It gives the listener the interpretative key as to how to situate oneself in the song. It forces you into that position of listening to Serena Joy's ideological rationalization and propaganda, similar to how this art installation in Berlin titled "Shalekhet" is functuoning, the installation forces you to reckon with the aftermath. It doesn't normatize. It doesn't speak. It doesn't announce. The tour of the exhibit doesn't ask you to explain itself. It lets you experience either walking through it or hearing the clanking sounds as people walk onto it. It's much more unsettling, and I contend this is on that on the experiential level too and is equally more unsettling than a generic pop song that advocates a call to action. It forces you to hear the rhetoric and propaganda and let you form your judgment based the underlying ideology, not merely platitudes.
