Mostly Waving

this is an awesome song about how chicks act stupid to get attention from guys... so basically all the girls in the spotlight at the moment. (is this chicken or tuna?.... i dont eat buffalo)

she wrote this song while dealing with the death of her dad. saw it on her site.

This song to me speaks about two things: The first obviously being her father's death, and the second is directed to the lines that seems to throw everyone off: Get, get the line down Get the line down Get the line down Don't elaborate like that You frighten off the frat boys, Use your baby talk. Frighten off, frighten on

Emily is having trouble writing about such a difficult subject (her father's death) "get the line down." One of my favorite poets said it took her 20 years before she could write something "good" about her mother's death. The second part of the verse- the frat boy part- I think is a stab at the fans who don't "understand" her lyrics. She feels like she has to make it easier to understand so she doesn't scare off others. Young, thought as I was- this could be about losing a father so early. Certainly she didn't expect it, and perhaps she felt that she was too young for one of her parents to die. Then when the death did happen, it aged her. "Done, thought as I was"- this could also be about how she thought she was over the grief- but she wasn't. My favorite part of the song "The blues are brown" I take to be about death- a vibrant color like blue suddenly turns to brown- waking her to the fact that he father is gone and she had been "missing and mostly waving".

I think this song is about having difficulty saying good-bye to someone you loved that has died.

But that's just what I think. :-)

i didnt know that this song was about her father's death but it makes sense... i recently read an essay by Alice Walker entitled "Am I Blue?" the horses name is Blue and he falls in love with another horse who the speaker refers to as "brown" anyways brown is taken away from blue and the speaker notices that there is a feeling sadness in blue's eyes and she finds out that brown was taken away from blue. so maybe emily is "blue" and her father like "brown" was taken away and there is this natural sense of loss emily feels? i dont know maybe its a bit of stretch? but its possible...

anyway its a beautiful song and i like how emilys songs are so much more than obvious.

dr.blind, nice elaboration, it is much of a stretch but good thinking :)

"Don't elaborate like that You frighten off the frat boys, Use your baby talk."

--isn't that basically telling herself not to act depressed, to dwell on it? To try and move on and pretend everything's okay after the death of her father? That's what I think the song mainly seems to be about.

Alright, I agree with everything except the blue brown theories and the parts about the frat boys. I think the blues being brown means that feeling blue doesn't feel pretty like blue, it feels ugly like brown, so she thinks it shouldn't be called blue at all. I don't understand what she's talking about with the horse. And in my mind elaborating to the frat boys is like, being at a party when you're sad and no one else is, you kind of freak them out with your heavy grief and sadness so she's like, no no no, use your baby talk. They like that.

Jesus, she's an amazing poet. Emily Haines, you are my Muse.