UPDATE: How do you take a song about irrational, fatal desire, and change its lead singer from a 32-year-old male to a 13-year-old girl?

That was the task Devo faced when they handed off "Girl U Want" to the all-kid band they'd assembled for Disney's "Devo 2.0".

Though Disney's web site shows Nicole Stoehr singing a neutered version of "Girl U Want," the album has her singing "Boy U Want," a song where nearly every lyric has been changed.

I wondered if it might empower a generation of girls, with an animated male floating through the video as the object of desire. But in the song's lyrics, it's still the woman who's driving the man crazy.

You've got him thinking that he's out of his mind.
This kind of feeling isn't easy to find.

But then, look how strongly the song's writers (and re-writers) had felt about its original message. (Below is my original post about the song...)


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Sunday night, somewhere in England, a mysterious post-industrial figure types into Google U.K.

song meaning girl u want devo

Since I'm now the #2 match, I felt compelled to find the answer...

"It's about the essence of desire," says co-author Gerald Casale. "...aching desire. She sings from somewhere you can't see, like the famous myth of the sirens that used to lure the sailors to their deaths by singing to them in the night.

"They'd go try to find these girls that didn't really exist, and the boat would crash on the rocks and they'd die."

Thanks to YouTube, we can watch Devo performing this song (live in 1982) as well as many others!

See also: altered lyrics for Jerkin' Back and Forth and Through Permalink