So I knew the song “Me and Mia” by Ted Leo & The Pharmacists since it came out, and I pretty much near-discounted it as a well done catchy filler. The line “Me and mia, An and ana” caught my ear but I shrugged it off as a coincidence or some sort of
‘reference’ to various lifestyles. Somehow it never occured to me that that was what the song was about.
Today I payed attention to the lyrics for the first time. I couldn’t make out few of the verses so I came home and looked them up. Dear lord, that just flipped my perception of the song entirely upside down.
Now I like it. I really like it. Maybe not because I think it’s good, I really can’t even tell at this point. The shift of perception added so much significance that it’s overshadowing any perception of enjoyability or quality. This song is just not ordinary. For those still not sure what I’m talking about, see here . Now I’m hoping that most people understood the song much sooner than I have, because it does seem to have an awful a lot of fans out there and I hate to think they all love it just because it’s catchy.
Does anybody know what the story behind the song is? As in, to me, at least, it shows, and presumes, a greater understanding of the subject than your average American, so is there any publically known connection between Ted Leo and the subject?
(Here’s the music video, mods please feel free to remove this link if it’s inappropriate)
All I know is that after my psychology teacher told us about her research of pro-anorexia and bulimia websites, I got intrigued and did some Googling.
There is a large online community of pro-eating disordered people. They have websites, LiveJournal groups, etc. They trade tips on how to hide their disorder from family and friends, ways to make yourself throw up, and tricks to make it look like you’ve eaten.
On one such site, there was a list of “Ana and Mia” songs. Like the link you posted, they use ana/mia as terms often. This Ted Leo song was on the list.
If you read the lyrics (or if you can understand 100% of them when listening to the song - I am not capable of doing this with most songs) you can totally tell it’s a deep song. I have no idea if Ted Leo himself dealt with this, or someone he knows, or if it’s just a song about it in general. I just know I like his band.
Yeah, I didn’t realize what it was about until a year or so after I first heard it when I looked up the lyrics on songmeanings.com. I felt pretty dumb then. Hey, I am just really bad at understanding the words sung in songs. Who knew a song about an eating disorder could be so goddamn catchy?
When I first heard it, I had the anorexia/bullimia connection go through my mind, but didn’t have it verified until I read an interview which I absolutely cannot find now. The interviewer asked Ted Leo about it, and all he said was something like “no one’s ever gotten that before now” and then didn’t say any more. As far as I can tell, that’s all the verification we’ll ever get, but the song lyrics fit.
I don’t even think it’s a question of verification. There’s no ambiguity here, you either don’t pay attention to it or don’t hear the lyrics or you do and a) they make no sense b) you see the mia/ana connection. Is there some other way to make sense of the lyrics that I’m not seeing?
It now occurs to me that most likely whatever experience Ted Leo has with the subject it is probably a private matter and none of our business. Suddenly I’m not necessarily comfortable even discussing his role in this, it feels intrusive, even though I still want to talk about the song and the subject.
Wow, I love this song, but I apparently never got it until now. I thought the you were full of shit when I first read the post, then I looked at the lyrics again. Pretty cool.
The fact that he didn’t say anything beyond his one comment in everything I’ve read about him tells me that it’s something I wouldn’t want to press him too much about.
And as for trying to find meaning beyond the ‘obvious’ one, take a peek at songmeanings.net, at nearly any song, and see how many strange and often insane things people can see in songs.