Trespassing Album Track #11. Chokehold

The Warp: Adam Lambert CD Review: 'Trespassing' Shows Us the True, Naked Adam

Well, the upcoming movie adaptation of “Fifty Shades of Grey” has its theme song, if it wants one. “Chokehold,” a provocative track from Adam Lambert’s second album, sounds tailor-made for the S&M occasion: “Sheets are in a knot … I kinda like the pain … I keep running away from you, but I can’t stop breaking the chains.”

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I'm purposefully leaving out the link for the review, because it's stupid.



I fell in love with this song upon the first hearing, when I didn't know what chokehold means and wasn't even able to make out the lyrics. I love the melody and Adam's voice on it.

When I looked for some reviews of the song, most of them went like this: " A-ha! Knotted sheets, chokehold, breaking the chains - it's S&M!" Give me a break, y'all, will you...

If Adam wanted to sing about that, he most definitely wouldn't be that direct, blatant and obvious... He went there, i.e. he touched D/s, in By The Rules.

Back to Chokehold. Unfortunately, I am well aware of what he is singing about. Been there, done that. When you are clinging desperately to a relationship that makes you both miserable because you think you love him/her, when you think that things are going to change, that they will get better and you and your Prince Charming, who, btw, treats you like shit, will ride towards the sunset and live happily ever after... When you keep focusing on all the good stuff you have, which are usually few and far between, and try to find excuses or explanations for the bad stuff , when you think that maybe you're too demanding instead of respecting yourself...

So those 'chains' are metaphorical, they stand for your own psychological confusion which keeps you in an unhealthy relationship. They stand for the inability to have a normal perspective, when you lie to yourself that by staying you're fighting for love, but in reality, love is gone and what is actually there is co-dependence, fear of being alone, fear of facing the consequences, and most importantly, fear of accepting the fact that the relationship is a failure because most people equal it with personal failure...

The song tells a story about such strong desire to be with that someone, that even in their absence, all you feel is their touch, all you can smell is them... you are willing to alter your mindframe, to change your ethical and moral codes just to be with that someone. So it is suffocating, it is extremely unhealthy, because in a way you are sacrificing yourself for that someone...

But of course, they don't love you back. In such relationships, they never do, or at least not nearly enough. Love has to make you feel good, feel loved, to make you love yourself more when seen through the eyes of your lover...

The final awakening, the understanding of the situation, is sometimes not enough to make you pick up your thingses and get the hell out of there. It's extremely difficult to break those chains. For some people it takes years. Some never do it, forever lost in their partner's shadow... thinking that's how love works. Well, it doesn't.

It's a sad song, about growing up, about a stage in one's personal development. Adam overcame that stage and found someone who loves him back, who makes him happy, who is his best friend, who inspires him, makes him feel good... lucky him.