Powa

I prefer a more hyperbolic reading of the song with Merrill presenting a really exaggerated, unrealistic example of female subordination, the kind that a lot of men expect from women after watching pornography: some slutty girl who will take any insult or humiliation with a smile. Especially considering the album's original title "Women Who Kill" (which shares its name with a classic book on Domestic Violence by Ann Jones), it's hard to believe the narrator truly craves abuse from her partner. I think it's more likely that she has been so brutalized by her lover's insults (which are smartly equated with bombs) that she discards her rebellious thoughts ("Rebel, rebel, no) and can no longer "find [her] way".

It's about sex, pure and simple.

It's about sex as a way to fight -- not in order to be a rebel like in many songs about sex -- but to fight loneliness and insecurity. ["I can never get to sleep I'm a rebel, rebel, no Hold me til I get to sleep"]

It's about taking abusive relationships/flings for the attention, and more than that, it's about feeling like she NEEDS the abuse to feel whole. ["Cause you bomb me with lies, humiliations everyday You bomb me so many times I never find my way Come on and bomb me"]

They have a violent relationship, but she feels empowered because of it because she's still a part of it, no matter the violence. It sounds like the result of stockholm syndrome. She identifies with his power over her.

["Your power In mine It gives me thrills I can't describe Your face in mine Oh baby, I just don't know why"]

It's quite the twisted-relationship type of song. It feels very intimate, really risque, and so very beautifully real. PLUS the music is fantastic! Gotta love it.

Sounds to me like the previous comments hear "'cuz you bomb me with life's humiliations every day" (and it is "life's humiliations", not "lies, humiliations," by the way--listen at 3:10 in the song) as being directed at the same person who is the object of the rest of the song--whoever the "honey, honey" is whose power "rocks [her] like a lullaby", etc.

However I think that line's directed more at the "Mirror, mirror on the wall" that directly precedes that particular lyric. In that case, and given the "'cuz" at the beginning of that phrase, the song appears to be more about how she's admitting she "doesn't mind" that "[her] man likes her from behind" literally because "the mirror" bombards her with life's humiliations daily--which means, to me:

"Life is messing with me right now, but fuck it, I'll make lemonade by refusing to restrain the sex drive that's keeping me from "get[ting] to sleep," that's "dancing in my head" like lightning, "burning steady as a motor," etc. I'll "rebel" by being sexual instead of ladylike, the way I'm 'supposed' to be."

Funny, I was hearing:

"Rolling steady as a boulder Not a pebble, pebble"

But does sound like she's saying "burning" not, so it's entirely possible that's not the actual line.

But it should be...

She almost definetely sings "VALIUM dances in my head" not "lightening dances in my head". Now Valium was a sleep pill. So it's not about sex only. "Mirror mirror on the wall (...) my man likes me from behind" these are references to how she looks or how she sees herself. It's a topic thats comes back regularly in her songs. Anyway I'm stunned by their work.

I was reading it as a celebration of sex (and power in sex). Life can get shitty (life's humiliations, feeling lost, can't sleep) and her lover's power takes all of life's stress away, rocks her to sleep like a lullaby, gives her thrills she can't deny. The music and tone of the song are primal and ecstatic. I LOVE this song.

I don't think it is referring only to sex, but to temptation in general. The chorus made me think of the story of Adam's first wife, Lilith (the origin of the word lullaby). But I did get a spirit of whoredom vibe, in an archetypal kinda way.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/apr/07/tune-yards-merrill-garbus-whokill

"I didn't need to write a song about sex being awesome," she says. "There are plenty of songs like that. And with Powa especially, I was dealing with violence. There's a real middle-class fear of conflict, of the lower classes rising up, of violence in the Middle East. But it's there, it exists; especially violence against women. It's this horrible reality that's always disturbed me, and I wanted to take hold of it in the songs."