| Richard Thompson – Beeswing Lyrics | 2 years ago |
| @[PHR:46426] Have you heard "Maggie" by Collin Hay? I don't think I'll ever be able to get through that without a breakdown. | |
| Richard Thompson – Beeswing Lyrics | 2 years ago |
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As someone who is this sort of woman and has known this sort of woman in all stages of life, I think this song is from the perspective of an unreliable narrator who doesn't understand the woman he loves. To me, he clearly only ever saw her from his own biases and never took the time to understand her. This isn't necessarily what the author meant, but I'm going full scorched earth, death of the author; the meaning of art is what is meaningful to the person appreciating it, and my own interpretation of this song makes me fully obsessed. He talks about her like she's delicate and fragile, "fine as a bee's wing, so fine a breath of wind might blow her away" or "so fine that I might crush her where she lay" is what he sings in one chorus in the live performance on youtube. BUT when he gives her voice, she sounds to me very strong and resilient. Tough as nails, a hard drinker, and could pick a mean fight ("we were drinking more in those days and tempers reached a pitch"). He says, "she was a lost child" implying she didn't know what she wanted, but to me, it's very clear what she wants. To travel, meet people, be free, and not be shackled to a family she clearly doesn't want. "...you foolish man, that surely sounds like hell..." "...you'll not own me..." He is clearly misunderstanding the core values of the woman he loves, looking at her through rose-tinted glasses, and ignoring the things that make them incompatible long-term, though they're not inherently bad features in a person overall. The drinking might be self-destructive, but it's not like he was sober. Even at the end, he describes the life she's living, making assumptions and speaking with negative connotations, as a biased, unreliable narrator would. He speaks about it like it's a horrible price to pay, but we saw over and over this woman who refused to be in one place, with one person, for the rest of her life. And why would she trade in the open sky and fresh air, wind in the trees, if that's where she's happiest? The thing that peaks his misunderstanding for me is the line, "They say her flower is faded now... But maybe that's just the price you pay for the chains you refuse". I interpret her "flower" "fading" as her having gone through menopause and can no longer have children. It could be simply that she's no longer young and beautiful, but that's boring and has very little meaning in it. If her flower is her fertility, then his calling the loss of it the "price you pay" is completely ignoring all the times she fled from the concept of having a family. Having children is not the right thing for everyone; this woman avoided it like the plague, yet succeeding in that evasion is framed as a horrible consequence of the life she chose. (oH nO I cAn'T hAvE tHe ThInG i NeVeR wAnTeD aNd AlWaSe HaTeD? WhAt Am I tO dO??) From my perspective, she's living the life she's always wanted, now a hardened, wise older woman. It's implied that they were always living rough, so why would it be any different in her old age when that's what she wanted from the beginning? Yes, she may have been free-spirited, but she's not like the manic pixie dreamgirl the narrator makes her out to be, who buckles under pressure and could be blown away by a gust of wind. No, this woman is tough as nails, who builds the fire and makes the shelter. She may be beautiful, but a laundress needs strong arms, and I have no doubt she can chop all her own wood and carry her own weight. The narrator sees her as this delicate thing because she's beautiful and fun, but doesn't see her power over herself which she has no intention of giving up. Overall, the narrator misunderstands the woman he loves and can't grasp the concept that not everyone wants the same thing in life. Some of us want a warm bed, a "fire burning in the hearth and babies on the rug," but some of us want careers, and some of us want the open sky with a fire burning and our dog at our side. Just because we see someone's life as sad because we wouldn't want to live it, doesn't mean it's not exactly what they want. |
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