Cassiopeia

This song seems to relate a love story to the supernova found within the Cassiopeia constellation. I've tried for the last 24 hours and I just can't piece the two together yet, but looking at the lyrics, I think I've deduced it to be something to this effect:

Cassiopeia, the subject of the song, can't differentiate well between lust and love, and often mistakes the former for the latter. She encounters disappointment with the physical, "hit-and-run" encounter with a gentleman star, and has to cope with it until "the one" comes along.

Talking it over with my significant other, we eventually decided that the song may be about a failed relationship, and then one that works. More particularly, the chorus represents sex. Not just run-of-the-mill sex, but the super-passionate kind, the kind where you want to rip each other's clothes off the instant you're able to do so. Everything else represents the emotional aspect of the situation.

“Cassiopeia” is my favorite song on this album.

Sara the story-teller is clearer here than ever, and the delivery she has used is spot on. Her story of a girl named Cassiopeia begins, in the manner of Star Wars, “a long, long time ago.” And, not surprisingly, it is “in a galaxy far, far away”–only if the reader interjects with the knowledge of real-life constellation, Cassiopeia (which may also explain the light-years-ago age of the story). Cassiopeia, of a starlight with potential to create supernovas (whether in a literal or abstract sense is joyfully ambiguous), has noticed another bright star far, far away. She wishes heartfully that they would meet and start something (note: violence and destruction, the stuff of supernovas, are intriguingly rich with figures about progress). Her fantasies please her, so the accompanying desperation and tragedies of reality lead to inner turmoil. And then, she meets someone. Who, you ask? It’s not revealed, and this allows for several interpretations. Is it the heartbreaker or someone new? Is it real or part of her imagination? The truth is up in the air–or if you will, up in space.

My most perceived part of her story is the journey from audio to visual, which is given the apposite atmospheres (e.g. light stream to heavy cream). There is also the context to be identified, which I’d say is a series of tracks about self-discovery of “the blessed unrest” Sara speaks of. It seems to be what Sara fantasizes about, partly because of the attention of the end of the lines in the chorus to the ‘I’ syllable and partly because the idea is a happy ending for people aiming to break apart one day, like a supernova growing up (or blowing up) to be stardust. This falls in line with the greater reality of human biology.

It’s art.

I was given a book on the cosmos as a gift from a friend and it has the most beautiful pictures and imagerie of the universe and the planets and the stars and I was reading a passage on Cassiopeia the supernova. It was absolutely stunning and it was written in this emotional way and it started to making me think about what if I personified that star? And it's so really about, you know, the coming together like what it would feel like to be a star that is thousands and thousands miles and lightyears away from anything about it and what if that star fell in love with something. And it's about you having to give up something to coming together because the stars in order to meet up have to collide and explode but I think is that beauty in that collison as well. -Sara Bareilles

Come in close now, it's time to tell a story Long ago and so many years before we Ever were, ever dreamed we even could be There was her and her very first heartbeat

This was a long time ago?

All alone in the corner of the night sky Spiral bones of a supernova starlight Fell in love with another burning bright she Dreamed of a way to ignite she said,

I feel like the main focus of the story, I'm assuming It's Cassiopeia, feels alone in her world saw someone whom she took an interest in, but she feels that he's such a big deal and he's "burning bright" with a great personality/looks?

Tonight Come on, come on collide Break me to pieces, I I think you're just like heaven why

Cassiopeia wants this persons attention in any way, she doesn't care if they're rude or hurtful. She thinks so highly of them.

Come on, come on collide Let's see what a fire feels like I bet it's just like heaven

Just like heaven Just like heaven

This person is burning bright, so it can be presumed that they're on fire (and the first analogy was to stars, so we can assume that this other character is a burning star) and she wants to get their attention and feel their warmth.

The line "just like heaven" reminds me of the reason why I was turned onto this song so quickly. It was because, heaven being such an elevated and lofty concept, any comparison to it has to be that much divine--almost to the point of being self-sacrificial. It made me sympathetic to the speaker.

From an analytical standpoint: heaven might not make sense since the stars are, in a matter of speaking, "the heavens." But this song would go to show you that heaven is a term based on point-of-view. If you are indeed in what is considered heaven, how would perfection be able to be perfect when life, by definition, includes the possibility of failure (and hence, a sense of danger and "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" (Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act3Sc1Ln58)? Sara is instead asserting heaven's mentality, that it is a way of contrasting with imperfect life, wherever you stand.

After she makes this comparison, she questions it. Perhaps I'm sadistic, but her confusion made the song meaningful and important. It gave the attraction a depth, because the pleasure taken from the bright star was an object to be studied. Also, this need for justification is an appropriate antithesis (opponent) for her perfect heaven, like a guilt for the feeling. For me, it made the song, with its universal battle between dream and realization, just like heaven.

It's hard to read too much into this song. Aside from its references to the story of Cassiopeia, I think it's about a woman who feels trapped like Cassiopeia. She's feels like a prisoner and she's waiting for someone - some great love to come crash into her and release her. Love feels just like heaven and the actual Cassiopeia is a constellation - in heaven. Play on words maybe? Great song. Probably my favorite on her new album...although they are all great. She's a modern day poet.

Okay this is completely out of context maybe but... I have to interpret this song my own way (maybe some others like me will drop by and see it too lol) Our fandom name is Cassiopeia and we love... TVXQ. I think this song tells a story all of us felt like we were a part of.

Me, a poor lonely Cassiopeia, used to watch the stars at night, dreaming of a miracle that will entirely change my life. I think that miracle I was yearning for so intently was love. Things I tho

Sara starts off the song by telling the Ancient Greek myth of the woman Cassiopeia (who became the constellation due to an eternal punishment of her vanity). Then, she creates her own, sequel-like story to the mouth. It tells how, whilst in the form of a constellation, Cassiopeia fell in love with an adjacent shining star (or constellation). At first it talks about how Cassiopeia wants to shine bright to get the attention of this fellow star, as they are far away in the universe from her. She wants her rotation course to collide with him because then that will be her only peice of "heaven" in this eternal punishment. She is trying to make the bad in to good. As Cassiopeia was doomed to circle the earth, sometimes upside down, it talks about how she missed the star and is now lost in the "interstellar sea" as she rotates the earth once more. As she begins to weep that nothing good will come of her life ever again (I mean, she's trapped forever in the stars...alone..that's pretty sad!), the shooting star appears and the two collide. She proclaims "what a day" since she was only moments ago crying about her loneliness. As they are stars, when they collide they of course combust and create a supernova (this is could be a reference to sex). And as you know when a supernova occurs, it leaves behind stardust which comes down to earth and becomes matter, thus creating human life (which is an analogy to a child).

This is essentially a ballad (and no not the celine dion version, I mean ballad as in telling a linear story through song), but could also be an analogy for something else!