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Done Wrong Lyrics
the wind is ruthless
the trees shake angry fingers at the sky
the people hunch their shoulders
hold their collars over their ears and run by
it's a cold rain
it's a hard rain
like the kind you find in songs
i guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache
here to sing to you about how i been done wrong
i am sitting, watching
out the window of the coffee show
and i'm waiting, waiting
waiting for it to let up
i am rocking like a cradle
warming my hands with the cup in between
i am leaning over the table
holding my face over the steam
and before it gets so cold
that the rain turns to snow
there's just a couple things
i'd like to know
like how could you do nothing
and say, i'm doing my best
how could you take almost everything
and then come back for the rest
how could you beg me to stay
reach out your hands and plead
and then pack up your eyes and run away
as soon as i agreed
it just all slips
away so slowly
you don't even notice till you've lost a lot
i've been like one of those zombies
in vegas
pouring quarters into a slot
and now i'm tired
and i am broke
and i feel stupid and i feel used
and i'm at the end of my little rope
and i am swinging back and forth
about you
and before it gets so cold
that the rain turns to snow
there's just a couple things
i'd like to know
like how could you do nothing
and say, i'm doing my best
how could you take almost everything
and then come back for the rest
how could you beg me to stay
reach out your hands and plead
and then pack up your eyes and run away
as soon as i agreed
I know it's not intended to be about this, but this song sounds like a coping cycle of abuse. I don't know. It goes from people observations, and then to feelings of herself, and then about the perpatrator.
Once again, I know there are many expamles to disprove this point, but this website is called songmeanings, and I thought I'd share what this song means to me.
I completely agree. for me, it mirrors the cycle of emotional abuse in a relationship with a heroin/opiate addict.
I completely agree. for me, it mirrors the cycle of emotional abuse in a relationship with a heroin/opiate addict.
"i guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache"
"i guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache"
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"how could you do nothing And say, I'm doing my best"
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"how could you do nothing And say, I'm doing my best"
not only can he not really contribute emotionally, but to be a bit overly literal, it...
not only can he not really contribute emotionally, but to be a bit overly literal, it also sounds like the constant loss of/search for a job that never quite pans out.
"How could you take almost everything And then come back for the rest"
describes being used by someone else. financially, emotionally, however.. There's not an end to how much he'll take in the name of self preservation.
"How could you beg me to stay Reach out your hands and plead And then pack up your eyes and run away As soon as I agreed"
this is the one that really screamed addict to me and made me think about the song in this way. having been in an emotionally abusive and draining on again off again merry go round for over a year.. dramatic breakups, passionate reconciliations.. more than once, he's called me crying, begging, pleading, apologizing after we've blown up and called it quits.. "he knows he's been horrible and he really wants to change. please help him, don't abandon him, etc." Like an idiot, i've taken him back over and over again, only to arrive right back to the break up point in a week or a month... the passionate pleas are gone and its like a switch is flipped.. when he's using, he's truly dead in his eyes and seems gone. at that point, there's no affection, nothing at all. he wants me to either enable him or get the F out of his way.
"I've been like one of those zombies In Vegas Pouring quarters into a slot And now I'm tired And I am broke
And I feel stupid and I feel used And I'm at the end of my little rope And I am swinging back and forth About you"
doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result (insanity, right?). In my case, pretty literally, since you don't live with or love an addict without it draining you financially to some point... you see it happening, recognize manipulation, but find yourself falling for it anyway in the name of supposed love.. swinging back and forth is the cycle of breaking up and coming back together.. or the process of seeing the reality and knowing you should end it v hanging on to the fantasy of what you want it to be, what it could be, or what is has been in fleeting glimpses.
ending with the questions repeated feels like the cycle starting all over again. this song is beautiful and very sad to me.
One of the songs I always discuss when teaching poetry. The fact its name and style makes reference to country music without actually being a country song is fantastic, but the language and imagery is beautiful. The opening, a perfect example of personification. But my favourite part is the imagery she creates by combining two very different cliches: I'm at the end of my rope means simply you've had enough; swinging back and forth about you, means she's in two minds about her relationship with him. But put them together and you have a suicidal desire image that wasn't there in either one of them. Beautiful in its simplicity.
"like how could you do nothing and say, i'm doing my best how could you take almost everything and then come back for the rest how could you beg me to stay reach out your hands and plead and then pack up your eyes and run away as soon as i agreed" ~good part
I have been on either end of the bitter end of a relationshhip she describes.. Neither side is any fun.. I wish I'd learn my lesson and quit trying romance..
I still don't get your country observation. Just because a song has slide guitar doesn't necessarily make its style or sound country.
You're right about slide guitar doesn't necessarily mean country, but listen to the song again after thinking about what we stereotypically associate with country music. Ani doesn't usually use slide guitar or that little twang in her voice, so in this when she uses it, it sticks out like dog's balls. I don't presume to to say definitely that's what she intended, but the links (if you look for them) are there.
I think the slide just gives the song that desolate and aching tone.
Now I sound like a pretentious arse.
i guess this about the breakdown of a relationship... there were obviously problems that needed sorting out, and she feels her lover was pretending to try and work at it but not didn't: "like how could you do nothing, and say, 'i'm doing my best'". and then he begged her to stay & upped and left: "how could you beg me to stay, reach out your hands and plead, and then pack up your eyes and run away, as soon as i agreed ". i love when she sings "i guess that makes me the jerk with the heartache"...it is, indeed, heartbreaking. it's a heartbreaking song, sung with such passion. aching, yes...
I can't find anything "country" in this song, although she makes a reference to Bob Dylan's A hard rain's a gonna fall... I love this song and all Ani´s music, she is a wonder-
These lyrics have some stunning imagery, and they do well at showing the confusion in a relationship that has rocked back and forth between breaking up before ending on a go to hell note