SNL’s ‘On the Couch’ Song Is Brutal and Hilariously Relatable
We may not relate to all of it. And yet...
Saturday Night Live‘s music videos have gone viral for their hilarious rhymes, weird premises, shocking content, and celebrity cameos, but I can’t remember the last one that resonated because it got one of the undeniable facets of married life so perfectly, painfully right.
Enter “On the Couch.”
In the smooth R&B jam featuring SNL’s Keenan Thompson and Chris Red, plus this past weekend’s musical guest, er, The Weeknd, three married dudes lament their lot in life after various seemingly minor offenses—staying out late with friends, working late—land them a night on the couch while their wives are “in bed all tucked in tight.”
The guys go on to express particular confusion when gestures of affection—making their wives dinner, surprising them with roses, gifting them expensive handbags, saying hello—have the same result. (“Don’t seem too fair this time…” notes The Weeknd.) It’s this verse that probably had the male half of the audience nodding their heads.
“I did wrong but I meant to do right,” is the song’s sentiment, and the guys’ confusion at what they’ve done to earn their spouses’ ire is, as they say, Deeply Relatable. I may think it’s a stereotype that men are less emotionally sensitive and communicative than women, but even as a sensitive feminist dude, I’ve spent more than a few long nights tossing and turning and wondering what I did to earn the cold shoulder when it came time for sleepy spooning.
Never mind the end of the clip, which reveals the women’s utterly legit reasons for shunning these particular dudes (constant cheating, credit card fraud, they actually broke up five years earlier); their clueless resignation to a night of sleep atop lumpy cushions and three remotes and under a too-small throw is spot on.
