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Trouble Child Lyrics
Up in a sterilized room
Where they let you be lazy
Knowing your attitude's all wrong
And you got to change
And that's not easy
Dragon shining with all values known
Dazzling you-keeping you from your own
Where is the lion in you to defy him
When you're this weak
And this spacey...
So what are you going to do about it
You can't live life and you can't leave it
Advice and religion-you can't take it
You can't seem to believe it
The peacock is afraid to parade
You're under the thumb of the maid
You really can't give love in this condition
Still you know how you need it
They open and close you
Then they talk like they know you
They don't know you
They're friends and they're foes too
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu
So why does it come as such a shock
To know you really have no one
Only a river of changing faces
Looking for an ocean
They trickle through your leaky plans
Another dream over the dam
And you're lying in some room
Feeling like your right to be human
Is going over too
Well some are going to knock you
And some'll try to clock you
You know it's really hard
To talk sense to you
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu
Where they let you be lazy
Knowing your attitude's all wrong
And you got to change
And that's not easy
Dragon shining with all values known
Dazzling you-keeping you from your own
Where is the lion in you to defy him
When you're this weak
And this spacey...
You can't live life and you can't leave it
Advice and religion-you can't take it
You can't seem to believe it
The peacock is afraid to parade
You're under the thumb of the maid
You really can't give love in this condition
Still you know how you need it
Then they talk like they know you
They don't know you
They're friends and they're foes too
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu
To know you really have no one
Only a river of changing faces
Looking for an ocean
They trickle through your leaky plans
Another dream over the dam
And you're lying in some room
Feeling like your right to be human
Is going over too
Well some are going to knock you
And some'll try to clock you
You know it's really hard
To talk sense to you
Trouble child
Breaking like the waves at Malibu
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Perhaps my favorite song from my favorite album. I feel a connection to every song and easily relate to the feelings of insecurity, yearning and optimism.
For me, this song is absolutely about unhappy-childhood-situations... As a young boy, I had intense self-awareness sometimes, and these lyrics articulate it SO Well indeed...!. I would be amazed if -as the rumours say - this is not about childhood... 'Knowing your attitude's all wrong and you gotta change and that's not easy' = how it feels when you're in a mood, but the parental-world kind of are giving you this message 'Dragon shining with all values known', their powerful world, with the predictable symbols that we already know that ...keeps you from your OWN... -Where is the lion in mee to DEFY them when I was so spacie and kinda 'weak' Quite understandably therefore, sense cannot really be talked to me, The peacock is afraid to parade, the pride-ful-Self . Prowess, free confidence is just absent, afraid, through shame, the message from the adults that ho-I-am is not OK... I could not give joy or love like this... They open and closed me, they certainly didn't know me though they act like they do!
ANyway, this will always be an articulate poem on my experience... And 'Twisted' subsequently, is about the crazy, light whimsy of childhood!
But Trouble Child is my fave also on Court + Spark
I believe she’s referring to her mental health struggles and this seems to be about time spent in a mental health facility. It’s poignant and beautiful. Joni can speak your feelings for you.
@MagicoCowgirl You're right. That's what I have also read. And as I remember she's singing in it about the time when she suffered polio.
@MagicoCowgirl You're right. That's what I have also read. And as I remember she's singing in it about the time when she suffered polio.