Concrete Walls

While the personal interpretations here are interesting, I read some information from Karin herself about the entire album (and what this song is clearly touching upon)

“When I wrote the lyrics for the Fever Ray album… It was six months in my life when I had been at home with a screaming baby – it’s a lot about that time of course. In Sweden, you are very isolated when you become a mother, it’s like, now must stay at home. Then, after six or seven months I went to my studio, and when I look back on it, it’s about that paranoia you get from being at home all of a sudden – you’ve had all the people around you, your friends, just disappear. In Sweden it’s not such a social life, it’s cold most of the year, you don’t meet people outside, you’re outside just to run to your car or run into the supermarket or something, and the summer is so short, about two weeks, and the other fifty weeks are cold. I think people are very lonely.

“And the second kind of isolation, when you become a mother, you’re just thrown into some kind of biological mess all of a sudden. As a feminist, everything is about gender construction, and then you meet people from these mothers healthcare institutions, and they deeply believe that all female humans are born just to raise and breastfeed children! And that was a huge shock the first time, I had lived a very free life before then, I had been playing music, but you’re not expected to go back to work, and most women don’t. All these well-educated women all of a sudden lose half their identity, and that was really frightening for me. [Heavy, thoughtful pause, then laughs,] Yeah, so the album is about that time!”

loudandquiet.com/interview/last-interview-fever-ray/