Buy the Stars

I think the song is about the kind of relationship where one lover is possessive of the other. They maybe buy gifts for them or just spend a lot of money on them. It's like having your love bought. They're a controlling lover who wants to be in charge of the other's life. She's saying that she's a free spirit of sorts and that lover doesn't own her. She's as free as the stars, how could you own a star? it's impossible to hold on to.

I instantly thought of how now there are programs where you can "buy a star" in the actual sky and have it named after you.

For me, this song is about dealing with someone really sad or even depressed - who thinks it's other peoples responsibility to get this sad person happy again. Like the following lyric says: "You bought a star in the sky tonight And in your man-made dark The light inside you died" The sentence "You Bought A Star" means, that the sad person found someone, who may or may not could make him or her happy again. The star lighted up for a short period, but then it blew out. "In your manmade dark" refers to the fact, that it's a kind of sadness, that no one but the sad one itself can fix. The person, who this song may be about is sad - maybe from heartache or something. We all know how it feels to get your heart broked, and for a moment everyone thinks, that they'll just need someone new to come and make them fall in love again and in that way make them happy, and i think it's the same thing the sad person in this song is trying to, "buying stars". But in the end, no one but yourself can make you happy again, and that's what Marina is trying to tell this person: "And you could buy up all of the stars, But it wouldn’t change who you are. You’re still living life in the dark It’s just who you are" She's directly telling, that no matter how much you try to become happy and get the light into your manmade dark, no stars in the world could help you - you only have yourself to rely on, and to make you happy again.

For me this song is about attempting to fill a void, emptiness or unhappiness though someone else (romantically in this case).

He/She buys stars/falls in love (possibly through spending money wooing someone) and from this gains some light and happiness.

He/She puts the responsibility on the other person from providing that ("You bought a star......You named it after me").

He/She then stops providing their own happiness ("You bought a star in the sky tonight And in your man-made dark The light inside you died")

Love then becomes not about the person who is loved, but what that person makes him/her feel (it becomes about providing the light). ("You know only how to own me")

The major point I think being highlighted is that this strategy is misguided.

We are responsible for our unhappiness/emptiness and no one else (Oh we don’t own our heavens now We only own our hell) and we shouldn't make someone else responsibly for providing out "light".

The unhappiness or emptiness is something internal that needs to be addressed. (And you could buy up all of the stars, But it wouldn’t change who you are. You’re still living life in the dark It’s just who you are)

Light metaphorically symbolizes success via fame and the motivation for which, subsequently thereby inspiring happiness.

Dark metaphorically symbolizes anonymity potentially through laziness, and the state of unhappiness she imagines this would inflict for others since it does for her.

This song is about the artist's perception of someone she views as seeking, albeit successfully, to love famous women, including herself, and by her estimation she also views them as intending to live vicariously through the fame of said women. This song is about her grievances with him potentially having that intention.

The person she's singing about to her understanding has full means to successfully attract and date famous women via material means, to buy them, and she attributes his reason for doing this to his life being "dark": anonymous, unmotivated for fame, thereby unhappy.

She's telling him that people only really are capable of retaining their misery, and that she's a living example of this; that she's been miserable intermittently throughout her life in pursuit of the adulation of fame (read: worship, "being holy.")

She's telling him fame occurs on a case by case basis and that he isn't famous (synonymous in her mind to successful and happy) because he's killing his 'light' (motivation) with bad habits, aka his man-made dark (in this case, computer usage.) She thinks he has done this to such an extent and that the instinct for such actions come so naturally to him that it's a habit unlikely to change (just who he is.)

But not everyone has the same motivations and definition of happiness as she does. There's also the possibility that her lifelong experiences which drove her to fame to start with as a means of happiness and validation have counterbalance existing in her knack for recognizing and identifying with melancholy, the feelings of which being so intense in her life as to drive her to do what most people wouldn't, actively seek fame by any means necessary. That aptitude for feeling melancholy could very well be a filter distorting her worldview thus through the cognitive distortion of mind reading, inspired her to attempt to respond to, through the creation of this song, her perception of his intentions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_distortion

I'm sure his potential is and will be his retribution. It's just a snippet in time and time will tell, but most of all what the song really means is what it makes you feel and how it relates to your life. That's what counts.

first sorry if someone dont understand me, but english isnt my native language.

Okay first I thought this is about a romantic relationship with a boy she liked and who gives her material things but let her get emotionally wither. "You only know how to own me" I think this is it and not more.

But as I thought about my one life too... For me it could also be the mother or father or both. Yea, because I am a fatherless girl, grown up by a emotinal cold mother. I am anti-religious and not so long ago I evolved to an Antinatalist too - because of my bad life experiences. That is why this song means for me as well:

1. it doesnt matter how much your cold mom buy things for you, the hole inside you, your father made, is forever there and open. And of course the things she buys will not change how she is - emotional cold to you, and somehow possessive.

2. it doesnt matter what your father buys for you, the hole he made will stay forever open. (no birth-day presents wont help)

3. (antinatal version) the father/mother - both wanted to fill their own hole by reproducing, well, like normal people do and they dont see the new harm they create. First is meant by: "You bought a star in the sky tonight, Because your life is dark and it needs some light" The star/light is a new dying human. In the song they named the body Marina "You named it after me,-" but the real Marina, so the soul(?somehow religious..) belongs to the sky. Parents also dont have the right to possess their children only because they make them per accident "You bought..."- "but I’m not yours to keep" "(...)And no matter how hard you try, I’ll always belong in the sky." The "sky" can mean nothingness. She also sing "We come alone and then we die"

The "You’re buying stars to shut out the light (...)And you could buy up all of the stars," then mean no matter how many humans father or mother (they) breed "it wouldn’t change who you are" Of course inside dark (sadistic, lonely), and a dying human (/dying humans) too who only cause more harm. The harm mentioned would be the possessive behaviour from the parents, the feeling of loneliness from the child "All my life I’ve been so lonely" - and I can also see in "All in the name of being holy" a incrimination to our shitty religious society and the religious view of women. But I also see in stay lonely, in the name of being holy an ideal to keep somehow, but this is more philosophical and/or made by low self-esteem (I am ugly) paired with narcisstic thoughts (maybe I am ugly but it is holy to endure it lonely).

lol at least it makes sense for me.

For me, this song has slightly more personal interpretation. Although I agree with what everyone else has said, that this song maybe represents a possessive lover, or even one expressing hurt, or how you can't ''buy'' love. However, my name means star in English... so, when I first heard this song, I felt this song was for me in a way, and that I could sing it to someone.

''You can't buy me, because I am free and if you don't know that by now, then you don't know me that well...

and no matter how hard you try, I'll always belong in the sky''

Little words like that I can relate to, I think we all can... nobody owns us, we are all individual stars in the sky :)

I feel as if this song is about her dad, and "buying stars" means having kids. For example, she talks about how the stars are free and not for him to keep (I feel like she has a rocky relationship with her dad, in "Starring Role" she says something like "You're just like my dad"). Maybe her dad had high moral standards and that's why she was so lonely in the name of being holy?

I feel this song is to her father. She didn't have a very good relationship with her father, because he was a conservative, wealthy man and always was critical of Marina. I think when she grew older and her music became more successful, he started feeling guilty about the way he treated her attempted to regain her love and trust. Marina realized that her father was trying to buy her love and wrote this song.♥

It seems as though someone is or the person singing is talking of a person who is so dark-hearted, but they are trying to bring them back to the light, but theycouldn't be saved, because,

And in your man-made dark The light inside you died

The last sliver of goodness, that could have brought them into the light, then died, and when it did, all hope for them was lost. This person is connected deeply in some way to the person singing, because they were the last person they could hold on to, which made them lonely from there on out.As in the lyric:

All my life I've been so lonely All in the name of being holy

When they tried so hard to keep the dark-hearted other to hold on, and to be the person in the light, it failed. After this, the person singing starts to become dark-hearted herself, like the lyrics:

Oh we don't own our heavens now We only own our hell And if you don't know that by now Then you don't know me that well

When he/she says (we) she/he means themselves, and the one that sent the ground crashing down all around her, in an emotional state. In the song she goes down a lot on the word, (well). This sounds dark-hearted, and then from that moment on they are both lost to the darkness. And in that lyric it seems as though nobody knows them, because people around the person singing thinks that she is still in the light side, until she frustratedily snarls at them, saying "I don't belong in this light, after all, I only own my hell, and since you don't know that, even after all this time, then you must not know me that well!" The lyrics also refer to this when it says,

Still, you'd like to think you know me You keep buyin' stars

When she says You keep buyin' stars, she means that you go ahead and keep trying to bring me back to the light, even something of a miracle, won't bring me back from the dark in a million years.

And you could buy up all of the stars, But it wouldn't change who you are You're still living life in the dark It's just who you are It's just who you are

In this part, she now talks alone with her partner in the dark, the one that only owns his hell with her. She even though dark now, still tries, though half heartidly, because she knows she's doing it in vain. She tries to make him realize, as a trick almost, how dark he has become, and how he used to be. She says at last, almost like "Oh well, you know you could gather as much light as you want, and you will still be dark, after all, it's just what you are now."

You know only how to own me You know only how to own me

This shows again that he's the only one who understands her, and she tells him so. When she you know only how to own me, it's a sense of understanding, he's the only one who knows her so well that he can be the only who knows her weakness, that can truly defeat her. Next comes the part that I call in my eyes, the darkest part.

You're buying stars to shut out the light We come alone and then we die

This particular plot is interesting. This sparks an idea in her dark-hearted other. Something sinister. He tells her to come alone as in we come alone. To a place where his plan unfolds, she comes alone unarmed as asked. He then grits his teeth and says to her "You tried to shut out the light, and because you did this, you wanted to live miserablly with me, when you could have been fine,I can't stand another moment to see you like this." In this she stares back bewildered. He continues, "If you were really meant to live with me in the dark you would have chosen not to come alone. Because of your poor choice to come alone, you will die." And with this last word to her he uses her weakness to kill her. This is not nessesarily evil, he wanted to put her out her misery, because he knew she could never be truly happy alive with him now that he had done this.

And no matter how hard you try I'll always belong in the sky

And you could buy up all of the stars, But it wouldn't change who you are You're still living life in the dark

Then as she gazes down at him from the stars, she says as if she could speak to him again, "No matter how hard you try, I always did belong in the light." Then she says same thing she said to him that one night. Then she goes on to repeat, it's just who you are, over and over. This echoes through his mind. We will never know what will happen then.

In short I believe the person singing is female, the one who first fell to the dark was male, and they were indeed lovers. These lyrics to me is of a tragic, fallen love story, that leads to a tragic end, and an unanswered call echoing out.