What's It All About?

My wife is away visiting our daughter and so I'm left with a conundrum:  What to watch.  I can't watch episodes of series that we're watching together--which is most of what I care about.  So, I end-up watching random movies that have a low probability of being good--if they look too promising, I would want to bookmark it and watch together when she's back.

I landed on I Am Woman.  I remember Helen Reddy from when I was a kid in the 70s.  She had a lot of hits on the radio and had a TV variety show, etc.  I know that biopics tend to play fast and loose with accuracy, but still, why not find out more about her, maybe hear some songs I've heard before but don't remember now, etc.

I had already known that her, I Am Woman had been a feminist anthem and a decent song, on purely musical merits.  I'm not sure if I had known that she was Australian, or what, if any, songs she had written, or really any personal information on her life.

In the movie, the song that got my mind a-thinking, was I Don't Know How To Love Him.

The line that nailed me is at the end of this verse:

Should I bring him down?
Should I scream and shout?
Should I speak of love?
Let my feelings out?
I never thought I'd come to this
What's it all about?

The first 4 lines are sung forcefully and at a rapid tempo, the fifth slows down and the 6th conveys a kind of, I'm tired of this shit, vibe.

So, I wondered, was "What's it all about" kind of a 1970's catchphrase and asked Chat GPT about it and it reminded me of two very germane facts:

The original song was from Jesus Christ Superstar and the same phrase is the opening line from the song "Alfie".

In the original song, I Don't Know How to Love Him, the singer is Mary Madeline and the object of her affection is Jesus of Nazareth.  He's the ultimate unobtainable man!  He is God!  He is about to die! and he most certainly didn't lead her on.  In this setting, What's it all about? is heartbreaking and tragic. When Reddy sang it, it conveyed the confusion of maybe falling in love with the wrong man, who may have kind-of-wanted her to fall in love with her. It conveys sadness and frustration, but also a kind of resigned strength and an awareness of the comic absurdity of it all.  

In Alfie, which came a few years prior, being the opening line, it tells us to prepare for some quiet introspection. I don't think it's used as powerfully or emotionally in that setting, but it was first.

*She may not have known this and it's kind of doubly tragic since he appeared to her first, after being resurrected, but then immediately dashed her hopes by indicating he would soon be ascending into heaven. 

"Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"