Mary

This is a song I go back to again and again. I listen to it when I feel diminished. When it seems all the people around me are trying to grab pieces of me until I'm left feeling empty and alone. This is what this song means to me. That moment when you realize you've given everything you had away and you are left with nothing.

I feel like this song is written from the point of view of recognition. Recognizing that others have taken all of your good intentions, and recognition from those that took and left Mary "bleeding" seeing what they have done and trying to offer attention and help to someone they've left torn and spent. "Even the wind cries your name" acknowledges in a comforting way the beauty of being needed, but it is bittersweet as there is no end and the donations of oneself can be limitless.

Although it seems like the lines: Rivers of milk are running dry, /Can't you hear the dolphins crying?What'll we do when our babies scream? / Fill their mouths with some acid rain?'

appear to be environmental, I have a different impression. It seems that in the beginning there was an abundance of energy and emotion i.e. "milk" but through the greedy intentions the emotional river is now "dry". Now there's nothing left for the "babies" basic needs, only acid rain left to give for nourishment, which will surely cause harm in the end.

To me this this song is represents all the emotional vampires. The fair weather friends. The emotional one uppers. The ones who take all that you have to give and leave you in pieces. "When I think of what we've done to you" for what we've done is truly horrible. When all is said and done, all we want in the end is to be the butterfly, set free from our trappings. Allowed to live whole and loved.