The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
This girl has got a smile
That can make me cry
This girl just burns with love
She's burning burning deep outside
Night time night time
Sets my house on fire
I'll turn into the melting man
I'll lose my life
To feel I feel desire
Oh I should feel
Like a polar bear
Like a polar bear
It's impossible
She flies outside this cage
Singing girl-mad words
I keep her dark thoughts deep inside
As black as stone
As mad as birds
Wild wild wild
And never turn away
Sends me all her love
She sends me everything
She sends me everywhere
Oh I could be
A polar bear
Oh I could be
A polar bear
But it's impossible
I try to talk
The sky goes red
I forget
So fill my head
With some of this
Some of that
Some of every word she said
Oh I should be
A polar bear
But it's impossible
That can make me cry
This girl just burns with love
She's burning burning deep outside
Night time night time
Sets my house on fire
I'll turn into the melting man
I'll lose my life
To feel I feel desire
Oh I should feel
Like a polar bear
Like a polar bear
It's impossible
She flies outside this cage
Singing girl-mad words
I keep her dark thoughts deep inside
As black as stone
As mad as birds
Wild wild wild
And never turn away
Sends me all her love
She sends me everything
She sends me everywhere
Oh I could be
A polar bear
Oh I could be
A polar bear
But it's impossible
I try to talk
The sky goes red
I forget
So fill my head
With some of this
Some of that
Some of every word she said
Oh I should be
A polar bear
But it's impossible
Lyrics submitted by oofus, edited by Mellow_Harsher, 24beer$
Bird Mad Girl Lyrics as written by Robert James Smith Laurence Andrew Tolhurst
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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"the polar bear was a symbol (zoo-wise) for me of insensible savagery caged to be stared at. or something like that...? " R. Smith, December 1990
here's the dylan thomas poem thought to have inspired it:
"Love In The Asylum"
A stranger has come To share my room in the house not right in the head, A girl mad as birds
Bolting the night of the door with her arm her plume. Strait in the mazed bed She deludes the heaven-proof house with entering clouds
Yet she deludes with walking the nightmarish room, At large as the dead, Or rides the imagined oceans of the male wards.
She has come possessed Who admits the delusive light through the bouncing wall, Possessed by the skies
She sleeps in the narrow trough yet she walks the dust Yet raves at her will On the madhouse boards worn thin by my walking tears.
And taken by light in her arms at long and dear last I may without fail Suffer the first vision that set fire to the stars.
as for what it means to me, well...
"I'll turn into the melting man I'll lose my life To feel I feel desire"
i've always felt this is saying that his feelings for her make him melt away[implying he's frozen inside] and disappear[leave], because he doesn't feel comfortable with the desire he feels for her
"Oh I should feel Like a polar bear... It's impossible"
and this says he wishes he were a polar bear[something that lives in places FULL of ice, but they don't melt away], so he could feel desire for her without "melting"(or leaving). yet, it's impossible...probably due to the kind of girl she is and he feels inadequate.
so this song, for me, is loving someone i can't really handle, someone i wish i could be close to, but my desire scares me and i don't think i'm capable of dealing with the idea of pursuing the person, so i melt away...though i wish things were different. i wish i were a polar bear.
this is one of my favorites.