How do you interpret this song? Specifically, what is the first thing the song made you think of, the first time you heard it?
My original interpretation, before I ever saw the official video, was that the song was addressed to an overprotective parent.
The video “story” doesn’t match up with my personal interpretation at all. I interpreted the lyrics in light of my own personal, childhood experience, of a mother who was so scared that something bad would happen to me that she wouldn’t let me do anything. (Misfortune of being firstborn - I got to experience my mom’s inexperience. My younger sisters didn’t have the same problem.)
I think of it as the singer is growing up from an childhood with an abusive parent. Or perhaps a parent that let her down and was absent for bad reasons.
Without seeing the video, I assumed it was a grown-up child telling her Mom that it was Mom’s fault the child was afraid of so many things. I thought that Mom had a broken relationship or something, and the child was forced to emotionally support her, and that one of the ways she did this was by being as perfect as she could so as not to worry her mom.
Nah, your interpretation is very close to mine. My parents were not abusive, either to us kids or toward each other, and they didn’t split up until I was 30.
Rather, Dad left raising us kids to Mom, and Mom was all about protecting us from all the horrors of the world. I picked up on this, and subconsciously tried to please my mom. Which meant never doing anything “risky”, always “playing it safe”. I was “the good child”. And while my mom was fussing over me, my younger sister took the opportunity to go out and cause trouble and sow her wild oats, and get it out of her system while she was a teenager. So here we are, all these years later, and my younger sister is more successful than I am, because she’s willing to take risks, and I’m still playing it safe.
And yes, I’m old enough that, by this point, it’s on me. But it’s hard to shake that childhood conditioning.
The lyrics talk about her being a child with an emotionally struggling parent (mom?), forcing her into being the adult and emotional support. And thus she learned to be safe, not take chances, not open up her heart.
You summed up my interpretation and reaction to the song prior to watching the video. In particular I hated the song’s sidewalk metaphor, which is a poor one for describing an abusive adult relationship. I listed the song in the thread Song Lyrics that just annoy you.
But I’ll admit, I changed my tune (pun intended) after watching the video. Maybe it’s because I derided it so often that when the video clarified it’s about a parent/child relationship, the pendulum swung back so hard it actually moved me to tears (as I mentioned in the Entertainments that are guaranteed to make you cry thread.)
It was victim-y when I thought as an adult she hooked up with a loser (her choice). But a child has no choice of her parents. The video hit a nerve with me. Yes, adults need to get over their troublesome childhoods (I like to think I have). I am nonetheless moved by a piece of art that lets me reflect on how such a childhood feels and how much it sucks.
Having been in an abusive relationship I cried when I listened to it. Don’t believe I’ve ever heard it before. I stand 6’2", and she never weighed 100 lbs, but felt that gave her License to hit me with anything she could pick up. Spent 3 years with her and that was 14+ years ago now, but still react to those memories. Last day of 1999 I was driving her car down the street of Tampa. She’d said to turn left. I looked and a bus was coming, then her purse hit me in the face as she screamed “I said left lane!” I jerked the wheel and slammed into the side of the bus. I moved out that night and only saw her once more in divorce court.
I just watched it. Definitely about her realizing how her childhood affected her current relationship and the video ended with her trying not to repeat the mistakes her own mom did, by not fighting in front of her child. I thought it was more than just blaming her mom, but realizing why she’s had it hard. Coming to some understanding and taking steps to break the cycle.
I always assumed it was from an abused child, as an adult, speaking to a parent. I never listened to anything but the chorus really.
I hate that song. It’s so whiny. No, if you’re a grown-ass woman and you still haven’t learned to take risks in life, that’s on you, not your parents. I’m not saying it’s easy or you can snap your fingers and make it so, but fixating on an external cause to your own dysfunctional pattern of behavior is not, in my experience, very helpful.
