Dilate

What I don't get is why so many people responding to this song take it to be angry. To me, it speaks more to an introspection. The lyrics that, if read straight from a page without Ani's guitar or voice to color them, could seem resentful, are delivered, if anything, indifferently when she actually sings them: "You've left me with nothing, but I've worked with less", exempli gratia. All the times I've seen her perform live, all the recordings I've heard of this song, her tone doesn't convey anger or hatred when she sings this verse. If anything, she seems to be trivializing the fact that the person she's singing to has either literally or figuratively desolated her. This song speaks more to a sense of loneliness to me. It may have a bitter, ironic edge, but the core of the emotion itself seems a barrenness in my opinion.

Confer: "Not A Pretty Girl": "I am not an angry girl, but it seems like I've got everyone fooled, Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger, never to their own fear."

I don't think Ani would ever identify a single song of hers as coming solely from one, broad, ambiguous emotion. Her narrative voice is usually quite intimate and nuanced.

Also, I think this song has less to do with the "man" everyone likes to identify (Ani's bisexual: yes, much of the album Dilate was purportedly inspired by a relationship she had with a man, but you CANNOT whitewash or pigeon-hole an artist like Ani) and more to do with Ani's own internal turmoil: "And I just want to you to live up to the image of you I create, I see you and I'm so unsatisfied, I see you and I dilate." This line speaks more to Ani's awareness of the fact that she's created an ideal of what a romantic partner "should" be. She's recognizing a disconnect of her inner narrative and external reality.

I see this song more as her coming to terms with the fact that reality is never going to live up to her expectations; she concludes that she's "… better off alone." Not that she's better off with another "man", or with a woman, or with anyone else, or with someone who can fulfill her romantic ideal, or with the ideal itself: alone.

I always look at this song as Ani using her life on the road as a metaphor for her relationships. Life on the road is a completely evolving, always different at each turn and she sees her relationships as being the same while wishing for some kind of stability.

"every key works differently and i forget everytime"

btw/ i love playing this song on guitar (to bad i can't sing it). Her dropping the low E string down to an A to form an amazing resonating, strong bass note ... i love it.

This is a beautiful song.

I never understood this stanza until now- "i learn every room long enough to make it to the door and then i hear it click shut behind me and every key works differently and i forget every time and the forgetting defines me that's what defines me"

it's about thinking things will be different and ignoring past experiences to hope things will be different, but they aren't. forgetting is her way of making the same mistake over and over again.

i have had this cd for a while and it's gotten me through a few breakups, but by far- this breakup has helped me understand this stanza the most.

this song is so fucking beautiful.

This is such an amazing, empowering song. She's trying to get over a man she knows was bad for her - she knows she's stronger than being hung up on him. I especially love the lines:

"and you are so lame , you know you always disappoint me it's kinda like our running joke but it's really not funny i just want you to live up to the image of you i create i see you and i'm so unsatisfied i see you and i dilate"

I feel that, completely. It's so easy to be in love with someone, but you're not quite sure why, because they always let you down. They don't live up to the perfect image you have of them in your head.

I think the lyric "i see you and i'm so unsatisfied i see you and i dilate", might have meaning to the science of attraction. Because apparently when you like someone, and they might not know it, but your pupils will dilate in even lighting, so you can get a better focus on the object of your affection. And its actually true.

Though it could be taken as a drug term to, and maybe its like the person she likes is like a drug to her, and seeing them is like a high. Yet the more she see that person, the more she realises they aren't what she was looking for, so therefore her drug isn't satisfying her anymore...

I think its a combination of those two meanings really, but thats just me.

I would suggest that, as Ani sings it, Dilate refers to the lack of excitement that this person/lifestyle/character trait gives her. When put into an exciting/stressful situation, our heart rate rises and we get tunnel vision. When this subsides, our eyes "dilate", as MurryHam described. That is to say, as situations become less adverse, our eyes dilate.

i love this song. its one of my favorites by ani. the lyrcs are just amazing.

"so i'll walk the plank yeah, i'll jump with a smile if i'm gonna go down i'm gonna do it with style and you won't see me surrender you won't hear me confess 'cause you've left me with nothing but i've worked with less" that gets me everytime i lissin to it.

but don't look so offended, you know you should be flattered.

i always wanna sing this song to my ex.