Ending Songs in Mad Men

http://youtu.be/YwmIxAU-yB4


This link is the ending scene of Mad Men's first episode, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". Take a look at what's happening between 1:30 and 1:45. Can we just look at this scene for a second? It would look right at home with a fifties styled lettering slapped across it promoting god-knows-what that will "complete your life/family/marriage!" It even fades away into a bigger shot of their whole beautiful house! This picturesque image of "the perfect family" is filmed in such a way, as most of AMC's Mad Men is, so that this family almost looks as if it's being sold to housewives around the United States! What's actually funny about this (but definitely not coincidental) is that this idea really was being sold to housewives in the fifties. A family in the fifties has no problems: your one daughter and one son, in perfect health, walk home from school each day (if you don't pick them up in your husband's fancy car) to you, a loving mother in a well kept and modest to big sized house who has just finished cleaning the house (like you do every day after you do your hair, nails, and make up). Fast forward a few hours, and your husband comes home from work to a cold glass of brandy and a hot, home cooked dinner on the table, and then you leave him alone while he drinks and reads the paper (while you clean some more) until he comes to bed later that night, probably drunk, to show you "how much he loves you". Honestly, if I were in this situation, I would probably go crazy because of how boring and sedentary it was.

I have often walked down this street before
But the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before
All at once am I several stories high
Knowing I'm on the street where you live

Are there lilac trees in the heart of town?
Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?
Does enchantment pour out of every door?
No, it's just on the street where you live

And oh, the towering feeling just to know somehow you are near
The overpowering feeling that any second you may suddenly appear

People stop and stare, they don't bother me
For there's nowhere else on earth that I would rather be
Let the time go by, I won't care if I
Can be here on the street where you live


In the ending scene of Mad Men's first episode, we see one of the main characters, Don Draper, kissing his children goodnight. He has come home from a long day of work to what seems like "The perfect home"; his blond wife wakes up to greet him in the bedroom of a picturesque home, and his two children are fast asleep. The message we get is that he lives the "perfect life," which we all know doesn't actually exist. Earlier in the episode, however, Don is talking to a client, Rachel, about advertising for her store. He asks her why she has never been married, and she says she has never been in love. He retaliates by telling her that "The reason you haven't felt [love] is because it doesn't exist. What you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons." Don saying that to this woman is odd, because the very next scene is him going home to his loving family. You would think that Don feels true love for his wife, whom he has a wonderful, perfect home and children with. Well, you would be wrong. Little does Betty, Don's wife, know that Don is currently having an affair with a woman named Midge, who seems to be everything Betty is not: strong, out going, creative, loud. This is the only real glimpse we get into Don Draper's real problems in the whole episode.

The song during the outro of this scene and the ending credits, "On the Street Where You Live" by Vic Damone, starts off with the lyrics above. These lyrics seem to describe an air of love and happiness, which played a huge part in the era's simulation of "the perfect family". It is interesting that at the end of the first episode, we only see the surface of the characters deeper issues, such as Don Draper's issues at work, and the music portrays the idea that these issues don't even exist. It ties into the idea that the only problems men had in their lives was work, and the only thing troubling a woman's mind was what to make for supper; a huge simulation. Not so coincidentally, this song is originally from the musical "My Fair Lady", which is a take on the ancient Greek myth of Pygmalion. Pygmalion is the tale of a sculptor who creates a beautiful sculpture of a woman, and then falls in love with her. We could analyze this is a few ways but I'll focus on three. One being that families, or women in particular, in the fifties feel in love with an image of "the perfect family" which didn't actually exist. On a smaller scale, we could say that this song applies directly to the scene in which it comes on, which we could interpret to mean that Don, although earlier falling for his wife, now realizes that she isn't all she thought he would be. In the spirit of feminism, we could look at it from Betty's point of view and say that now that she finally has "the perfect life", which she has probably dreamed about since she was little, she sees that it is all a farce. Or, at least for now, she thinks she is doing things all wrong.

1-36 On The Street Where You Live - Vic Damone.mp3