| The Birthday Massacre – Calling Lyrics | 8 years ago |
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I love this song! Two interpretations I have are: the logistical and emotional processes during end-of-life, or the murderous conclusion to a long-term abusive relationship. For end-of-life, it's as if someone (a widower?) is moving out from a house he lives in alone (You're all by yourself / There is no-one else) into hospice, and he's thinking about his life and his regrets. Everything's been moved out of the house (Nothing's left behind / And it's all because of you), and he's left to think (Feeling the cold distance of the moon / In this empty room). Long-needed house repairs are all done as part of moving (What's broken is repaired), and a new family is ready to move in (Voices start to change / Faces rearrange). But he missed the life he was really wanted to have, and he's calling out to a now-deceased lost love he regrets not living out his life with with (Hands cover your eyes / Now that you realize / All the things you love / Were never here // What's lost will be found / buried underground). The family he had feels wrong (Eyes hiding in the hall / Hanging on the wall / Through this broken window), and he imagines how life could have been (another allusion in Voices start to change / Faces rearrange). And he's asking her forgiveness and hopes that her family and children (perhaps one is his?) will carry in the life he wished he'd had. The abusive relationship interpretation is far darker and fits the lyrics closely in thr sense of a chronological narrative. The abuser is the song's narrator. The abused ran away after an especially bad episode of abuse that left her with black eyes, but he has lured her back to his/their house under the ruse of reconciliation. He says he's changed and he's what she "really want"s. He shows her that he's "repaired" (erased evidence of) his abusive behavior in part by fixing damage she did when he'd locked her under the staircase as punishment. Her guard momentarily down, he drops the guise (Voices start to change / Faces rearrange), takes physical control of her even though she struggles, and locks her in a room, perhaps a basement or cellar. Terrified, she tries to escape, but at most breaks out a window and realizes the room is under video surveillance. She screams for help, and realizes no help is coming because no-one else can hear her. He taunts her (perhaps via a speaker in the room), saying her calls for help are calls for him to kill her for her disobedience ("finish" what *she* started). She breaks down, realizing what's about to happen. She pleads with him to stop, but is murdered as his shadow covers her body. |
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