The music video for “Cause I’m A Man” by Tame Impala successfully conveys a message that helps me understand the song better, and interpret it accordingly. The video is extremely visually stimulating, packed with small details that tell the story of a broken man, who is attempting to love a woman,  but cannot seem to help but slip through the cracks of toxicity. An example of this is when the wedding scene appears, the screen then turns red as the woman slips away, then the man gets pills rained on top of him. As the song highlights the sense of empty promises and apologies, the video gives more context to what these discrepancies may be: alcohol bottles, pills, figures of multiple women posed provocatively. The man’s head is constantly taking different forms, this speaks to the instability of the relationship in the lyrics. In one instance when the woman is next to the man on the bed, his head turned to flowers. Then, they are on separate ends of the bed, and the man’s head turns to a ball of fire. These visual manifestations of the lyrics are beneficial to my understanding of the song as a message about a struggle between a man and a woman, at the fault of a spiraling man.

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/17416-tame-impala-cause-im-a-man/

The above pitchfork track review for the song basically affirms my understanding of the lyrics upon initial listen and analysis. The following quote from the article aligns with my previous listening posts:

“What have I done?” Tame Impala‘s Kevin Parker knows he’s made a mistake. He’s not disclosing what’s happened—just that he lost control and seems to be pretty torn up in the aftermath. He knows his apologies feel thin, he calls himself “pathetic,” and he’s generally lingering in the self-loathing portion of the fight. When asked why he did it, he chalks his actions up to human nature—being a “man” who doesn’t always think things through. It’s not a very strong way to explain why you fucked up, but it beats saying “I don’t know.”

The song functions in society as a showcase of a popular trope amongst women, who primarily agree that men oftentimes pity themselves instead of wholeheartedly understanding a problem they’ve caused by pushing apologies to the level of actions. Additionally, how pitchfork mentions the self awareness of the weak apologies helps me to understand that this song does align with mine and many other women’s experiences in society.