"Sugarcane" as written by and Missy Higgins....
Baby ballerina's hiding
Somewhere in the corner
Where the shadow wraps around her
And our torches cannot find her
She will stay there till the morning
Crawl behind us as we are yawning
And she will leave our games
To never be the same
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
You see my peep show booth is handy
There's a one way only mirror
So I can dance here with my hair down
But I don't see if you get bitter
And there's a button right beside me
If I happen to want a wall to hide me
If only the ballerina had one too
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
And she said, "Always be afraid"
Yes, she said, "Always be afraid"
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
Yeah, you'd better run, run fast, sugarcane
Yeah, you'd better run, run fast sugarcane
Somewhere in the corner
Where the shadow wraps around her
And our torches cannot find her
She will stay there till the morning
Crawl behind us as we are yawning
And she will leave our games
To never be the same
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
You see my peep show booth is handy
There's a one way only mirror
So I can dance here with my hair down
But I don't see if you get bitter
And there's a button right beside me
If I happen to want a wall to hide me
If only the ballerina had one too
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
And she said, "Always be afraid"
Yes, she said, "Always be afraid"
So grow tall, sugarcane
Eat that soil, drink the rain
But know they'll chase you
If you play their little games
So run, run fast, sugarcane
Yeah, you'd better run, run fast, sugarcane
Yeah, you'd better run, run fast sugarcane
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However I didn't really appreciate being called an idiot or a moron, drcynic, especially considering the hypocrisy behind most of your comments, and the incoherency of most of your explanation.
The idea of the site is to get everyone's opinions on what a song means, though, even if people are a little rude in getting them across.
Spell check eh, drcynic? I think it might be broken. I would like to point out that it's "morbid," not "morbed." Hypocrite much?
Secondly,
I read something on another site that said at a concert before singing this song, Missy talked about the government's treatment of the aborigines, and how they needed to do more to take care of the natives.
"I looked up at the wall and there was this photo of a Ballerina, it was a still from a very old black and white movie, I studied the photo the ballerina had a very somber look on her face, she was kind of looking down and there was something up in the corner of the photo, a kind of ghostly figure and it seemed to me as though it was haunting her and it immediately took me to somebody that I knew in my personal life. The sadness in that ballerina was portraying this woman that I know who is in the entertainment industry and was suffering at the time from being… she had gotten quite successful and then been completely cut down as seems to be the common way that the public like to cut people down to size when they get a little too arrogant or start believing the hype too much. I was looking at this and I was kind of afraid watching her. I was like,” I don’t want to be successful. If I’m successful then everyone will hate me and it was very confusing.” I also felt very sorry for her. I felt that she was a victim of some cruel aspects of today’s society. It’s funny how one little thing can grow into something much bigger and it turned out to be the inspiration for this song" - Missy Higgins
Thank you asullivan12 for finding this
"grow tall, sugarcane.."
ms higgins is amazing :)
The chorus is the older self telling the ballerina (younger self) to look after herself no matter what, to 'eat the soil and drink the rain" to grow above the abuse and pain so you can run.
A song all about personal hindsight.
Maybe the little girl is abused and made fun of because of her screwing up in a recital? And so she's being told to be strong. And then the second verse talks about a stripper, and she's being empathetic, saying how the poor ballerina could be okay if she only had a "wall to hide" her. The always be afraid part, perhaps about how people can be so cruel?
Both are the "sugarcane" - they can grow tall as long as they run from the world's cruelty, but the world will be chasing them all the while.
The line 'baby ballerina' refers to this girl when she was young, she was abused or not taken care of at home and in the world, but she had no where to hide...then she gets older and she is working as the girl at the peep show, she's saying how she's got this wall to hide behind, she's got this mirror so she doesn't have to see the people, and a way to stop them from seeing her, but the line 'if only the ballerina had one too' refers to her when she was younger, that maybe if she had had a way to hide back then she wouldn't be where she is now, she's saying 'run fast sugarcane' as a sort of message, as in get away from that world she grew up in as fast as you can so that you don't end up in the same position as her....