Behave!

Song Meaning

The lyrics present a raw, almost primal struggle with self-control, particularly in the face of intense desire. The opening lines, "Okay stop, okay start / And please me, I don't care how," immediately establish a sense of urgency and desperation, a plea for immediate gratification that bypasses conventional politeness. This desire is so potent it feels animalistic, as suggested by the striking image of a "Big bad, big bad ape in a prison room / He's just itching to telephone you." The ape, confined yet yearning, mirrors the narrator's own internal conflict, where base instincts are barely contained. The central tension lies in the stark contrast between the command to "Behave" and the narrator's admission, "I don't know quite how to behave." This isn't a simple case of misbehaving; it's a profound confusion about the very nature of proper conduct when confronted with a specific person. The repetition of "When I'm around you" amplifies this, suggesting that the presence of this other person shatters any semblance of control, leaving the narrator utterly lost. The phrase "Leaves me, I don't know where" from Verse 2 further emphasizes this disorientation, a feeling of being adrift without a moral compass. The most compelling aspect of the writing is its unflinching honesty about the messiness of desire. The narrator confesses, "I make a mess on the stage with my mouth," a vivid and slightly shocking image that conveys a loss of composure and a public display of uncontrolled emotion or speech. This isn't about subtle longing; it's about a visceral, almost embarrassing inability to maintain decorum. The repeated, almost frantic, insistence on being around the object of desire, coupled with the inability to "behave," creates a powerful portrait of someone consumed by an overwhelming impulse. Ultimately, the effectiveness of these lyrics stems from their directness and vulnerability. By juxtaposing the external demand for control with the internal admission of helplessness, the song captures a universally understood, yet rarely articulated, aspect of intense attraction. The raw imagery and the cyclical nature of the chorus, which circles back to the core dilemma, leave the listener with a potent sense of the narrator's internal turmoil and the sheer force of the desire they can't seem to manage.