By Dr. Bruce Smith ——Bio and Archives--March 18, 2024
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It’s one of the most inspiring songs of defiance ever written. The way Gloria Gaynor sings it tells me she must have known the pain herself.
She has been betrayed, discarded. She remembers how she almost whimpered. The tune is sad, withdrawn, injured, almost crying.
She mourns the loss and then he reappears.
Ouch! “…back to bother me!” She’s not having it, not any more.
It’s an order, not a request.
Then she comes to the chorus. It’s loud. It’s defiant. It’s in his face. It’s a boot to his backside.
She’s telling him to pay attention. He threw her love away, so she still has it all to give. She’s a fighter. She’ll be okay. Then she returns to cast the story in a different way, just for emphasis.
She’s older and wiser now. She stands up straight again because she got out of the chains and is through with him. Does he really think she’s going to beg him to take her back? Not likely. He’s waited way too long to even think about coming back. Then she drops the bomb on him.
The notes soar upward. She’s letting him have it. This listener can feel my chin sticking out and my head a little to one side to give a withering look. Too late, loser. Somebody else is getting all her best now, and he even appreciates it. So she repeats the order to get out because he must be disbelieving and pretty dull.
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Singing with the lyrics makes the song universal. She always refers to “you,” not he or she, so anyone can sing it to the opposite sex.
It applies to everyone sooner or later and to every kind of circumstance, making the lyrics compelling to almost everyone at one time or another. It can be sung defiantly to some one, to a place, to a movement, or to a way of thinking. She sings it to a mistake in her past, and we can do the same. It even applies to our political situation and circumstances of injustice. It applies to the aftermath of disasters. Did you think I’d crumble? Did you think I’d lay down and die?
Oh, no, not I. I WILL SURVIVE!
Love Tracks album, 1978
I WILL SURVIVE!
Music and lyrics by Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren
Gloria Gaynor's official music video for "I Will Survive" from the album, Love Tracks. REMASTERED IN HD!
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Dr. Bruce Smith (Inkwell, Hearth and Plow) is a retired professor of history and a lifelong observer of politics and world events. He holds degrees from Indiana University and the University of Notre Dame. In addition to writing, he works as a caretaker and handyman. His non-fiction book The War Comes to Plum Street, about daily life in the 1930s and during World War II, may be ordered from Indiana University Press.