Song 40:
"Ain't It Funny" by Jennifer
Lopez
Peak: 1
Year: 2002
Year end position: 13
Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 1/13
Chronological Songs by Artist: 6/13
Video?: Yes
Wikipedia?: Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_It_Funny
Spotify?: Yes
We're up to the 5th "Ain't" song. I told you there would be a lot of them. We're not even half way done with them. This one is a little different than the
others that we've heard so far in that it is the first #1 song. It is very similarly titled to the last posts
"Ain't it Fun", and like that song, the correct grammar of
"Ain't" is "Isn't".
That would make today's song "Isn't it Funny". I'm not sure why this just occurred to me,
but I can see why, as a songwriter, you would use "ain't" over
"isn't". There are some
instances when you have an economy of syllables, and the extra syllable in
"isn't" would not fit in with the song. I think my mind was processing that as
"this would sound wrong", but I think the syllable explanation is the
reason.
One of the first things that I do when a song comes up in
the alphabetical list is go to YouTube to see if a video exists. I did the same for this song, and the I was
staring at the screen with a puzzled look on my face, as the song that came up
didn't even sound remotely familiar to me.
That almost never happens, and almost certainly never happens for any
song that was released after about 1974.
It turns out the video I was watching was for the remixed version of
"Ain't it Funny" which starred a couple of rap verses, and a
completely different theme for the song.
In many ways, it's as if Jennifer Lopez wrote and recorded a completely
different song and just titled it "Ain't it Funny". I was pretty positive that this was not the
version I was used to, and after a little searching, I was able to find the
more common version. What Jennifer Lopez
did with this song is (I think) the first time we have come across this
phenomena on the blog. It is an
interesting one. When I was growing up,
there was pretty much only one version of a song, and wherever you went, you
would always hear that same version. At
some point in the 90s, acts started to put out multiple versions of the same
song. Occasionally those alternate
versions would gain enough popularity to chart as individual songs. Instead of filling the Hot 100 with 2 or more
versions of the same song, they decided to consolidate whatever sales or
airplay of the remixed version into the total for the main song. That probably helped a song like this one get
to #1.
I've also come across another phenomena with this song that
I hadn't heard too often, but seems to make some sense. This song was written while Jennifer Lopez
was filming the movie "The Wedding Planner". It was inspired by the "Wedding Planner",
but didn't appear on the soundtrack.
Apparently, the director of the movie thought that the song sounded too
Latin to fit with the movie. I don't
think that is an inaccurate description of the song. All of the instrumentation has a distinctly
Latin feel. There's some timbales,
castanets and Spanish guitar throughout the song.
The lyrics of the song start out telling the story of two
people that have a connection, but circumstances are keeping them apart. The last two lines of the first verse point
to this: " But yet we find ourselves in a less than perfect circumstance /
And so it seems like we'll never have the chance". You don't know what that circumstance is
besides the fact that it is keeping Jennifer Lopez from the dream man that she's
met. The chorus asks the question
"Ain't it funny?" referring to the little things in life that can
have such a large impact, whether they be feelings or moments. The second verse seems to start off as a
continuation of the first. She's feeling
pretty down about the fact that her and the guy can't be together. The last part of the second verse seems a
little departure from the trajectory of the rest of the song. She says " A deeper love I've found in
you" and "I feel that I don't have to be afraid", making me
think that maybe things will work out somehow.
By the time we get to the bridge, it seems that whatever obstacle was
there in the first verse is no longer there, and she finishes saying " I
guess this means / That you and me were meant to be". That's a good outcome for Jennifer. It seems
like love wins again.
One strange thing I noticed about this song is that Jennifer
Lopez doesn't really sing much on the chorus.
It's almost as soon as the chorus comes around, she turns into a
background singer. It's a little strange
convention, but it seems to work pretty well in the song. I just don't think I've heard that too often
in other songs.
As I mentioned earlier there is a video for this song (at
least two, actually). The one I watched
featured a lot of what looks like Paso Doble dancing and heavy eye makeup. It's actually pretty good eye candy. I couldn't decide if the people in the video were
supposed to be Spanish or Gypsies or both.
I'm thinking Gypsies since one of them tells her fortune at the
beginning. It's not a bad video
though. It doesn't seem to follow the
story in the song, but it is fun, and all the people are really
attractive. I'm not sure what more you
would want from a video.
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