Dreams For Plans

I think this song is in regards to her experience growing up under the public eye with her boyfriend/fiance of 10+ years.

She's such a mature artist. She's looking back at times when her life was less hectic and less demanding. She's very nostalgic. These were times when she could relax a bit more. This was a time before she knew English very well. She has only acquired the language in the last 10 years. She spent the first 20 or so years of her life speaking and singing in Spanish.

She really has "lived too much too fast" by most standards. Not many people will ever get the experience of being a worldwide musical phenomenon. She's toured the world. In Spanish-speaking countries, she is regarded as a living legend. And yet you hear in her voice, in the music, and in the lyrics, a sad realization that she found something special about the earlier part of her life, as if there was more focus on love, or as if love flourished better under her previous circumstances.

It suggests that sometimes she questions her career as a musician and singer. She acknowledges how the demands of a career, and maybe even adulthood in general, have taken a toll on her relationship. She suggests that more is not always better.

The simplicity of lying on the floor and staring at the ceiling are things she recalls and longs for. What a beautiful woman.

Beautiful song. Beautiful artist.

I love this song I think it is perhaps one of my favorite songs she has ever written, it is very deep and meaningful, it describes a state in a lot of people realationships fall into, in which people begin a relationship with hopes and dreams and as time goes on the magic fades away.

Shakira is a genius, she begins the song with the lines, "Once upon a time" which always refers to fairytales in which people live happily ever after. She does this to describes the state of mind young couples are in, in which everythign is perfect. She then goes on to describe the couple as green and easy, fresh as limes and happy as the sunday sky. All this meaining the couple is young, filled with happiness. Shakira remembers when the couple had no worries and would do thing like stare at the ceiling while lying together, how the word stress would sound odd to them because they had no worries and how they spoke very little english to imply that they have gone very far from that time.

Throughout the song shakira questions her lover and what has happened to those days. Shakira presents her relationship as one in which the things they have gone through have made them rough and jadded. Love although it exists seems to lack the magic it had before and things are no longer about dreaming but they are now grown people where they have to turn those dreams into plans so they can't live in the carefree world where they can just worry about it the next day, the world in which their hopes are now fears they will not succeed and so on and so forth.

Shakira then confesses to her lover that if this situation hurts her and perhaps their current state is in someway her fault. She does this by instead of using "we" in the chorus she uses "I"

This is truly one of Shakira's best songs, I know people that are in the same position described in the song will closely relate to it and love it.

jac_2500 i like your interpretation.. but i always wondered..is this song from her own experience, since she writes "i spoke so little english" so it has to do with a relationship she had with an american?

This is possibly one of my favorite reminiscing songs.. The music is so pretty, it relaxes me and lets me just melt into the song and listen to the lyrics... I usually shed a tear or two... can't help it... This song is how I feel about my life... It's hard to be in love with someone and then look at your life and realize that, even though you still love the person, things have changed...

Shakira is truly a talent. Her uniqeness really draws me to her. And she doesn't overdo it, she always seems to captivate me but doesn't have her lyrical or music style to impress the media, she does it for her love and appreciation for music.

I digress, this song is one of the many amazingly lyric-ed songs she has written. I think Jac_2500 definitely hits the nail on the head with the interpratation of it; so I just want to add how impressive it is when Shakira can not only write her own music and words but when she sings it, it comes from her soul. Her songs literally are her canvas and each lyric has its own way of being expressed alll the way from her stomach. She is truly an icon. It's hard to just wrap it up in a paragaph but when I listen to her music, it relaxes me and makes me want to sing out with her. :)

jac 2500's reply seems to be the best interpretation of this song I've read so far.This song always brings me close to tears.Shakira's amazing.English is her second language and yet all her lyrics are so deep and meaningful and they make sense.She should be a hit,she leaves me in awe