While the nameless beloved in songs such as Alan Jackson’s ‘I Don’t Even Know Your Name‘ may have comedic value, and even a swiping pass at truth, in their ability to make social commentary on the tendency of some to ‘fall in love’ with those they see in dive bars, Denny’s, or the drive through, the proposition of sexual one-offs with the nameless stranger seem to challenge the American predisposition for exchanging names to something of a dialectical face-off.
For those not following your local pop station, let me give you a couple examples of the songs I speak of:
In Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl (and I liked it)“, the young woman confesses:
No, I don’t even know your name
It doesn’t matter,
You’re my experimental game
Just human nature,
She later goes on to say that it “Don’t mean I’m in love tonight”, and also hopes her “boyfriend don’t mind it”.
In Baby Boy’s “Ya No Llores (Let Me Love You)” he argues — most eloquently, to be sure:
The way you want it,
I got it, come and get
Get it started dami mami
I want more!Amor I want to be into
Let me love youGirl I don’t need to
Know your name
We just need to feel
the same
And, indeed, he seems quite convinced by this line, and there is some implications pointing that the line works on his intended ‘Girl’.
In both of these two songs is the explicit reference to sexual interaction between two parties whose names remain entirely absent from the market place of interaction. What might easily (and I think properly) be considered the most intimate interaction between two parties on the physical plane is being experienced without one’s name–sans identity.
Juxtapose this with the standard scene in your corner coffee shop: customers hand over their name to the baristers without the slightest hesitation; persons who have no interaction beyond the two minutes they see each other during their morning commute know each others’ names, and often only that.
In the first case, actual, intimate interaction takes place without the identities of the participating parties. In the second, the only thing that is being exchanged is the markers of identity, without any actual intimacy of persons.
The first seems to be problematic as it demonstrates a perceived disconnect between the identity and its physic, the second because it likewise demonstrates a perceived disconnect between the identity and its sign.
