| Garbage – Happy Home Lyrics | 18 years ago |
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I don't think this song has much to do with suicide at all. This song is about infidelity. "Happy home" seems to be an ironic term for her home life which seems to be anything but. It seems implied that they have been together for a long time, but the magic is gone and the dynamics of the relationship have changed. She can "barely breathe" there. Her "lover" is the one she is cheating on her husband (they'd don't have to be married, I am arbitrarily assigning this word because it makes discussion a little simpler). In the first verse it's just before morning and she's cheated on her husband by spending the night with her lover (she "was never headed to run out" [on her husband]). She's happy here unlike in her happy home. Second verse, she's still in her lover's bed but she's thinking about the consequences of what she's done. She is wanting god to smite her and punish her for her actions. She "never meant anybody harm" The third verse seems her imagining what the future would be like with her lover. There is happiness in her life ("there's no more crying [or] lies"), unlike the present where it's as if she'd completely forgotten that she could feel this way. It's not as if she was searching for someone to cheat on her husband with. She was not "waiting for desire." She had always imagined that she would always be faithful, and suddenly she has found herself with this second man with whom she's completely smitten. In the end she knows her life will be much happier if she leaves her husband for her lover, ("no more crying" "no more pain"), but she will have to live with the shame of what she's done to her husband who still loves her. I think in the last two lines, she decides to return to her husband and abandon a potentially happier life with the lover. A secret one-night stand. It's a beautiful song. I cried the first time I really listened to it. |
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