Ayoade on Top

by Richard Ayoade

As Donna moves into her imperial phase of cabin-crewing, ‘I’m Not Anybody’s Girl’ by Kaci Battaglia plays non-diegetically. It’s a moving manifesto of self-attestation, in which the titular girl rejects her former lover and strikes out on her own. The verses outline what an absolute barnacle this bloke is, and how there is nothing he can do for her that she can’t do for herself, and when push very much comes to shove, this rotten blister could drop down dead and the total effect on Kaci Battaglia would = nil, the conclusion very much being that this chap can go hang for all she cares, i.e. relationship terminated, thank you very much. The last thing Kaci Battaglia needs is a man, apart from perhaps the two chaps who wrote the song. James McCollum and Jason Levine have done their bit, but as far as the coarser sex goes, that’s it, with the possible exception of Joel Diamond, who produced it, and Walter Turbitt, who did additional mixing. But now that she has the song in which she sings of her independence, it’s very much Kaci in the driving seat – a seat in a car that may have been made, yes, by men, but that’s not the point. Like Donna, she is ‘flying full speed ahead’ (on the ground – ground that has been tarmacked by men most probably, but why bring that up? It’s irrelevant).