Recently, "2 become 1" by the Spice Girls (a friend told me the name) was played in a context where there was no sexual innuendo. I was giggling. Because the song has a lot of sexual innuendo. A friend of mine said that was purely in my head. I seek, now, to prove him wrong.
The song indeed has some "ordinary love" context. There's no innuendo without a second, more conventional meaning. The song begins in this context:
Candle light and soul forever
A dream of you and me together,
Say you believe it, say you believe it,
Free your mind of doubt and danger,
Be for real don't be a stranger,
We can achieve it, we can achieve it
There's nothing there. Whilst one could argue that "achieve it" could mean climax, there's simply far too little information to conclude this. In any case, there's far more solid evidence immediately following:
Come a little bit closer baby,
(Get it on, get it on),
'Cause tonight is the night when two become one
Without the middle line, which is actually sung by the backup singers (the other two by the main singer), we're pretty much innuendo free. Again, one could argue what this closeness is leading to, but she could well be talking about some
spiritual closeness. However, the entirely separate context of the middle line, and the fact that it's sung by different people, in the background, shows that there's more than meets the eye. Then, if we look at the actual words: "Get it on, get it on", almost chanted gregorian style, we can begin to wonder: "What exactly is 'it', and what exactly is entailed by getting it
on?" I'll leave you to decide.
The same dual-context can be seen in the chorus:
I need some love like I never needed love before
(Wanna make love to ya baby)
I had a little love, now I'm back for more
(Wanna make love to ya baby)
Set your spirit free, it's the only way to be
Now we can even see a convergence within the two contexts. I will leave to you whether "wanna make love to ya baby" can mean anything
but sex (hehe, buttsex), but now we can begin to question "I had a little love, now I'm back for more". Exactly
how is love quantifiable? How exactly could I take some quantity of love and (presumably leave) then return for more?
This cycle then repeats. Six lines of relatively mundane material:
Silly games that you were playing,
Empty words we both were saying,
Let's work it out boy, let's work it out boy,
Any deal that we endeavour,
Boys and girls feel good together,
Take it or leave it, take it or leave it
Followed by:
Are you as good as I remember baby,
(Get it on, get it on),
'Cause tonight is the night when two become one
Again, the convergence of the innuendo and "conventional" lyrics is apparent. "are you as good as I remember". Good at what?
In true pop fashion, the rest of the song is the chorus, which has already been discussed, except for the enlightening bridge:
Be a little wiser baby, put it on, put it on,
'Cause tonight is the night when two become one
I'm going to leave it at that.