This Is How It Goes

This song deserves a comment, it's so beautiful:

I think the song is about how the heartfelt artists (who maybe aren't so model-pretty) of our era don't get the airing they deserve ("No bright shiny surface to my face"), but the more pop-like music with less meaning does and in doing so doesn't send out the right messages ("it's all about drugs, it's all about shame"

I completely agree with ny156uk. it is about artists and how they are portrayed to the public, like if they get famous from their looks or their music.

so this song pretty much sums up all my relationships.. from beginning. i especially love the line after the chorus, it's great and so true.

she is so brilliant. i love this woman aimee mann

Going to have to disagree with this song being about musicians/the music industry. A lot of the lines seem realllllllllllly specific to a relationship. I'm going to have to say I think the song's meaning is more straight forward than the struggles of the music industry. "I'll try to hold on while you try to let go" "you won't tell me it's gone but baby I'll know" "I don't have a bribery in place", etc etc. I haven't spoken with Aimee to verify but it sure seems to be about a relationship... Even the drug part is likely as straight forward as it seems.... Could be wrong, but just can't see how so many of the lines in this song could have anything to do with what was previously posted... hmm.

First, Buffy brought me here, it's a delicious music. I do agree the Aimee's song may want to allude to the music market. She'd said on a talk show that she create the music and the market should only sell it. As in "Cause I don't have the bribery in place" and "So I won't go near the marketplace/With what I'm selling lately" it goes for the CD that the industry sell and the ugly things that happens under it. Anyway, cause Buffy I like to remember/fell as a love song, although it's not. Wish I could ask Aimee about it.

I think sometimes we look for secret meanings in lyrics where there isn\'t. \n\nSometimes a song is pretty straight forward. If you listen to the words and how heartbreaking the melody and chord progression is, you just know there is a complex mess of love and addiction within it. If I hadn\'t been in that relationship so many years ago myself, I might give in to the alternative suggestions that this is about the music industry, or having beauty to sell.\n\nYou can be deeply in love with someone, and they with you, but when there is a third party in the relationship, there are going to be problems. And in this case, that third party is drugs. \n\nNo matter how much someone who suffers from addiction loves you, if they have lost themselves and are out of control, the need for that drug will always take precedent. It will destroy every element of their lives, and it will destroy you as well if you stay with them. That is how powerful that addiction is. \n\nThe lyrics are quite clear about this. She is explaining the routine of his addiction, all the phases he passes through before finally giving into it. His anger at his urges, his attempts at denying his needs, and yet failing once again because that need is just too strong to withstand.\n\nWith every time he fails and falls into his addiction, after it passes he is swimming in shame. Each time he gives in to it, he knows he is not only failing you, but hurting you and ultimately killing the relationship. And his shame is so deep that it makes his need for his drug of choice even stronger, just to make it fade away for a while.\n\nAnd each time he falls down that hole, you will know because you\'ve gone through this with him for so long. And each time he promises you that he is going to kick it this time, you will know he won\'t. Yet you keep holding on, and keep trying to keep going with this relationship, you empathize with his pain because you know his shame at hurting you as well. You just can\'t face the reality of what might happen to him, if you finally do give up on him and leave.\n\nAs for the opening stanzas, she knows this routine well. She knows his disappointment in himself. She can hear the alarm growing louder as the bells of his need ring on and on, so loud that only his next hit will silence them.\n\nThe real sadness is that she seems to stay with this relationship, even though she has the routine of it down like the chords of a song. He can\'t hide his addiction from her, she knows him too well, and she knows the drugs effects well too. She washes, rinses, and repeats over and over, and with each time it happens she knows she is losing bits and pieces of herself along the way. Yet, she stays… for now.

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