One baby to another says, "I'm lucky to have met you"
I don't care what you think unless it is about me
It is now my duty to completely drain you
I travel through a tube and end up in your infection

Chew your meat for you
Pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours
I like you

With eyes so dilated, I've become your pupil
You taught me everything without a poison apple
The water is so yellow, I'm a healthy student
Indebted and so grateful, vacuum out the fluids

Chew your meat for you
Pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours
I like you

You, you, you
You, you

One baby to another says, "I'm lucky to have met you"
I don't care what you think unless it is about me
It is now my duty to completely drain you
I travel through a tube and end up in your infection

Chew your meat for you
Pass it back and forth
In a passionate kiss
From my mouth to yours
Sloppy lips to lips
You're my vitamins
I like you


Lyrics submitted by spitfirek7, edited by esmjlm080507, Dlonix13

Drain You Lyrics as written by Kurt Cobain

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management

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Drain You song meanings
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  • +4
    My Interpretation

    As a foreword, Kurt said that the most important line to the interpretation of the song was the first line.

    Starting there (where else?)... I think the "babies" he's referring to are not babies at all, they're, in fact, two immature people. They're mentally "babies" in their maturity and thought process, narcissistic.

    "One baby to another says, I'm lucky to have met you" The start of a relationship, seems good and in this case it seems like it's a positive thing.

    "I don't care what you think unless it is about me" Each person is narcissistic and selfish. They don't care about the other person's opinions or thoughts, they just want them to be the center of attention and focus in their mind. And in the metaphor as a baby, a baby is unconcerned with greater thought and is naive and unaware of any other needs besides its survival-- the need to be fed, nurtured, loved, etc.

    "It is now my duty to completely drain you" Such a person will take, take, take from others until they have nothing left to give. And they don't care as long as they were the recipient. They'll leave you drained because they're so selfish or self-concerned. Like a nursing baby, literally draining the mother, haha; such will an adult baby if you nurture and allow that behavior.

    "Chew your meat for you, pass it back and forth in a passionate kiss, from my mouth to yours, I like you" Like a baby bird, unable (or a person that is unwilling) to do things for their own, in human context, a co-dependent person needs the other one or so they feel and they need to feel nurtured and taken care of... it's co-dependency in the intended context (as I see it). Two people so co-dependent on each other that down to something as basic as chewing their own food they need that level of "babying" from their partner. The rest kind of is self-explanatory, passing it back and forth in a passionate kiss, I like you-- just indicative of this back and forth feeding of two people in a co-dependent relationship clinging to each other desperately. Passionate kiss and I like you shows it's a romantic relationship, I think is pretty clear.

    "With eyes so dilated I've become your pupil" As others have said, to debunk a heroin reference-- opiates cause pupil constriction, NOT dilation-- BUT it could mean the opposite, a person in withdrawal-- but in this case, not heroin, but a different drug-- a co-dependent relationship. When you separate two such people, they go into "withdrawal" and crave being back with that person, even if it's not good for them at all. May be metaphorical for that kind of withdrawal in parallel to heroin withdrawal... or it could also reference the fact that when we think about or look at someone we're enamored with, our pupils dilate. Dilated pupils could be indicative of love and infatuation, alternatively.

    "You taught me everything without a poison apple" Always see this line misquoted as "about a poison apple". Poison apple referring to the Garden of Eden and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (though, technically it wasn't "poison", it was just forbidden to taste of)... I'm not quite sure to make of the pupil/knowledge/teaching part, to be honest.

    "The water is so yellow, I'm a healthy student" To me, what comes to mind is when you're taking vitamins, it turns your piss yellow. And if the water is so yellow, it means you've been taking your vitamins, and therefore you're assumably "healthy". This also ties in with the next to last line about "you're my vitamins". You can finish that correlation for yourself.

    "I travel through a tube and end up in your infection" This is the one line that leads me to possible other interpretations, such as the one suggested about a baby traveling through a fallopian tube and ending up "your infection", metaphorical for being born into/as "the virus of life" (as Slipknot would put it). But if I'm to try and fit that into all of the above which I've said (which to me, makes a lot of sense) I kind of imagine traveling through a tube as one getting that sort of tunnel vision of love where you are blind to any bad things about the person or situation because you're so infatuated with them, only later to have your eyes opened to who they really are and the reality of things (the infection)... to end up in a relationship that you're both so completely overcome by and engulfed in, yet you're addicted and dependent on a person and relationship that is totally infectious.

    And that's my take. If not the later lines, I think my interpretation of the overall meaning or portrayal that this song was meant to paint seems pretty accurate... but as always, who knows. Interpretation is interpretation and there's my 2 cents...which, at this point, combined with the others would make this thread worth $3.84-- not that great, haha.

    getdamnedon December 15, 2013   Link

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