it's just a question of time

So I was listening to "A Question of Time" by Depeche Mode, and I mean, really listening to it and reading the lyrics. I had never listened to this song before and well, I came by it through a person who used to know how to shoot arrows right through my little dark heart. But that's beside the point. 

The point here is that I really love this song. Oh, by the way, little fact here: A Question of Time was first released on August 11, 1986. My birthday is August 11. Just thought that was a pretty cool coincidence. 

Anyway, let's be real here, it's definitely a problematic song. I read somewhere that Martin Gore, who wrote the song, was having an affair with a 15 year old at the time. So it's interesting that this is one of their popular songs. Should I feel bad about liking this song? It's my favorite Depeche Mode song right now. I've been thinking about it and I think that music, like any art form, is always open for interpretation and what it might mean to me can be extremely different from how someone else perceives it. The great thing about art being subjective is that we can edit out in our minds the parts that don't apply and still understand the feeling it conveys. 

To me, this song is all about that desperate need to have someone that perhaps you can't be with or shouldn't be with, and wanting to genuinely save them from themselves. What I really like about this song is that it's basically playing two parts, the savior role, but at the same time making it clear that it's more of a "Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't." We know he's just as bad as "his kind," if not worse, but he truly wants to believe he is the better option because he wants to "protect" her from the others but it's all, in reality, a selfish need. He wants the same thing they all do l, except maybe he wants to control that desire. And isn't that something that a majority of us have experienced? Lust we mistake for love or affection. Thinking we can save a person when we're the worst thing for them. Knowing we shouldn't pursue someone but being unable to help ourselves. Wanting someone only for ourselves just because it feeds our narcissism and we hate the thought of anyone else receiving their attention. 

Like most Depeche Mode songs it definitely has a dominant/submissive relationship vibe to it, but to me it seems a little unclear who really is the dominant here and who is the submissive. The pursuer or the pursued? The naïve girl or the 'wise' man? The one this song is about or the one whose need drove him to write it? The Dom/Sub dynamic is peculiar because the roles are always interchangeable, the two people involved are always a little bit of both. 

I definitely identify with the one being pursued. Been there many a times.