| Big Thief – Real Love Lyrics | 3 years ago |
| I think “Musically Mandated…” really nailed it. I just want to add that there’s an extra-painful level of irony that this “good memory” of theirs/hers of her mother putting on makeup—which many children do w/ mothers or older siblings they look up to, and which I believe is legitimately a good memory—probably was often, at least sometimes, being done to hide the bruises from the abuse. This is a gut-wrenching, powerful song (I likes it before I read the lyrics, and could only “hear” them partly before that, and what made me dig into the actual lyrics was the tone of the “speaker” not matching up w/ what “real love” indicates, and the music, itself, showing pain contrasted w/ love… Big Thief is so talented, in short). This must have been a difficult song to write and cathartic to perform… there’s so much more here than, “my mother was abused and I was powerless,” even, and that would be enough! There’s also this, so sadly true, observation/examination/explanation of how children learn what love is and is supposed to look like from their parents, and the fact we can infer that the speaker isn’t past that erroneous conception completely yet… even the example of “real love turns your lungs black,” how their mother must have clung to her cigarettes as a small pleasure of her own, the tiniest escape, and really loved smoking!! So many unhealthy things and people and ways for children to learn to love… this song, so layered, so powerful… wow | |
| Tori Amos – Bells For Her Lyrics | 3 years ago |
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@[Doom:41917] Shepherd Wow, I do believe you nailed it! For a time, I was thinking perhaps they were refugees—in a camp together or something (blanket friends, after all), and I can still imagine that being the case, BUT I find your interpretation more powerful/salient. As someone who was IN an abusive relationship (and I do believe I would have died if I didn’t get out when I did), I can verify this idea of “you have her face…but you are not her,” as I often try to explain to ppl that I was so far gone—the constant brainwashing plus the survival impulse to not make the abuser mad, to name a couple causes—that I was not the “me” I am now; it feels very much like I have had multiple personalities b/c of this! At any rate, I had a best friend trying to reach me—as long ago as all this was, if I played this for her with this interpretation, I’m sure she’d agree and probably cry! Finally, I’ve seen friends begin down similar roads, and the feeling of helplessness is just beyond. Abuse reduces ppl to nothing, to “dirt under his shoes,” (there were cardboard cutouts of the women who had been killed by their partners in our city that year, eight with their names tacked to their chest. They were made for an awareness event, but walking past them every day—I think that might be what saved me. I didn’t want to become a cardboard cutout, a statistic, dirt under his shoes. It snapped me out of it), and abuse *always* gets worse once a certain line is crossed. If for some reason someone is reading this who is in an abusive relationship, look up “safe homes rape crisis,” this organization will aid you and save your life if you need it! Well, didn’t intend on writing all that, but seemed called for. As always, Tori digs to the depths of the soul, finds where the love and pain are, and turns them into something beautiful. |
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