A Critical Examination of the Bruno Mars Song "Grenade"

Pop music was first invented when a trio of our early, ape like ancestor, while trying to impress the least hideous of the tribe’s women, all simultaneously, and quite by accident, sat on their balls, produced a strangely melodic high pitched howl. In those early days the genre was very hard on it’s pioneering performers, but the reward was all of the cave gash you could eat. As pop music evolved it was discovered that genital trauma was not an essential component of the process, thus opening the flood gates for anyone who could howl and whine as if they had just mangled their testicles.

But with this new influx of weaker, less hardened performers came whiney puss pop. Rather than singing about how they would sex up their next conquest with their still marginally functional bags of reproductive organ mush, these new pop stars, with their almost entirely unbruised gonads, had the sack to whine about being dumped, and as a byproduct, inventing the pity fuck.

This is the source of the ringing in your ears.
This is the source of the ringing in your ears.

Which brings us to today’s most infectious assault on our senses from the world of whine pop. Now, just to put this in some sort of context, I don’t listen to the radio and on average I sleep 19 hours a day, yet I still somehow manage to hear the Bruno Mars song “Grenade” no less than 400 times in any given late afternoon. I can’t always ignore it, try as I might, and it was in one of these forced listenings that I first began to examine the lyrical content of this latest ear virus. So I thought I would take an opportunity to delve fully into just how violently insane this “song” is.

To give these lyrics the proper context I think it’s best to imagine receiving them in one long series of increasingly erratic text messages. And it’s with that in mind that I delve into the sadness of Bruno Mars’ “Grenade”:

Easy come, Easy go,
that’s just how you live
oh, take take take it all,
but you never give.

From here I think it’s immediately safe to say that Mr. Mars was the dumpie. It’s a tough position to be in. With it comes a lot of self doubt and questions. It can make you kind of crazy, lashing out blindly and often stupidly, trying to find reasons when really it’s as simple as, “you’re kind of a lunatic.”

Should’ve know you was trouble,
from the first kiss, had your eyes wide open,
why were they open?

Gave you what I had and you tossed it in the trash,
you tossed in the trash you did,
to give me all your love is all I ever asked, ‘cos,

I think an equally valid question for Mr. Mars is “why were YOUR eyes open?” Already this is a sign of mistrust and paranoia. These seem to be symptoms of a history of bad relationships, which you are now bringing into this new one, thus dooming it to failure from the very beginning.

What you don’t understand is
I’d catch a grenade for ya
Throw my hand on a blade for ya
I’d jump in front of a train for ya
You know I’d do anything for ya.

I’ve found, in my admittedly limited experience with relationships, that screaming about the numerous ways in which you would mutilate yourself to prove your love, often doesn’t have the desired positive reaction that you would assume it naturally would. Honestly, what woman wouldn’t swoon when being shouted at that you would be exploded, lacerated or pulverized simply to show them how much you enjoyed their company?

Oh, oh, I would go through all this pain,
take a bullet straight through my brain,
yes I would die for you baby,
but you won’t do the same.

No, no, no, no.

If you had read this in someone’s mistakenly open e-mail, you would either laugh your ass off, or you would immediately call the police. This looks like someone backed out of a suicide pact and you should naturally be afraid for the life of the person that thought better of trading artillery to prove just how very much in love they were because it’s pretty clear that Bruno will finish this job.

Black black, black and blue,
beat me ’till I’m numb,
tell the devil I said hey when you get back to where you’re from,
Mad woman, bad woman, that’s just what you are,
yeah, you’ll smile in my face,
then rip the brakes out my car.

This is all at best speculative, and at worst prosecutable slander. And really, do you think you’re that important Mr. Mars that satan himself has sent a demon to break your little heart? A little perspective Bruno.

Gave you what I had and you tossed it in the trash,
you tossed it in the trash yes you did.
to give me all your love is all I ever asked,
cos, What you don’t understand is

I’d catch a grenade for ya
Throw my hand on a blade for ya
I’d jump in front of a train for ya
You know I’d do anything for ya.

Oh, oh, I would go through all this pain,
take a bullet straight through my brain,
yes I would die for you baby,
but you won’t do the same.

The lunacy of the lyrics aside, I’m left to wonder in what situation would it be necessary to catch a grenade for someone, with the intention of proving your love for them or otherwise. Grenades, as far as I understand, are very difficult to come by in America, even in the inner city. Perhaps this lost love of Mr. Mars’ was a summer fling in some war torn middle eastern country, where the metaphor of catching a grenade for a loved one would ring a little more plausible.

And in what context at all would throwing your hand on a blade be an acceptable way to show one’s devotion for someone else? That’s called “cutting”, and it’s predominantly practiced by attention starved teenage girls, which I guess, now that I think about it, goes a long way to explaining Bruno’s affinity for the imagery.

If my body was on fire,
ooh, you’d watch me burn down in flames,
You said you loved me, you’re the liar,
‘cos you never, ever, ever did baby.

It’s so sad, that even now, in his final verse, his unwavering, stalker love will not be denied. Even while calling this poor, lucky to have gotten out alive ex of his a liar and stopping short of accusing her of being an arsonist, and instead only labeling her a pyromaniac, still, even then he calls her “baby”. She’s not comin’ back Bruno, you’ve gotta let her go. And since by this point you’ve lost both of your hands to concussive explosives and poorly executed knife blocking, letting go shouldn’t be a big problem for you.

But darling, I’ll still
catch a grenade for you
Throw my hand on a blade for you
I’d jump in front of a train for you
You know I’d do anything for you.

Oh, oh, I would go through all this pain,
take a bullet straight through my brain,
yes I would die for you baby,
but you won’t do the same.

No you won’t do the same,
You wouldn’t do the same,
ooh, you never do the same,
no, no, no, no.

I’m oh so sorry, Bruno Mars,
your fates weren’t written in the stars.

You would not catch not one grenade,
not that the act would get you laid.

Not with a knife or on a train,
not with a bullet through your brain.

She hasn’t tampered with your cars,
she thinks you’re crazy, Bruno Mars.

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