Down By The Water

I think a lot of you are on the right track with picking up on the imagery the song uses, but you're taking it very literally. Rarely does a songwriter of Polly's caliber tell a story for the sake of explaining a series of events. It's almost always a conduit for something else.

I agree for the most part with idoubtthat. To take that another step further and discard as much literal translation as possible, I think it's reasonable to see the song with dualistic meanings. It could very well be about the tensions and conflicts of sexual maturation. From my standpoint, though, it's always partly been an anthem for difficult childhoods. I think that separate avenue of meaning might be where a lot of the connotations of rape and molestation people are picking up on come from.

Growing up with a difficult, inflexible mother in specific, whose love and reliability are contingent on other things and who sees any assertion of independence as an affront and a betrayal, you learn that you have to lie and disguise yourself from a very early age. When it comes to maternal ineptitude and loading responsibilities on a child, you mature very quickly in order to cope, at the cost of your innocence. You become the mother to your mother. These dysfunctional dynamics in the mother-daughter relationship are very difficult to change once they've been established. It fucks you up and it follows you into your adult life. Most people who've been forced to revoke their childhood and act as adults when they're children end up later on being prone to immaturity and longing to make up for their childhoods as adults.

There will always be some level of personal interpretation that differs from person to person, but I think we all seem to agree on the general framework that there's ambiguity and uncomfortable tension between the mother-daughter roles, this is a story about lost innocence in some form, and the loss is being lamented. From there, it's a Rorschach connect-the-dots blank canvas for ourselves, as most songs are. And who really wants to take that kind of purging self-projection away, anyhow?

I disagree with the people who are saying that maybe PJ had miscarried in the past. "Daughter" is symbolic as idoubtthat says. I think the daughter she is referring to is infact her younger self who was so innocent and perhaps upon losing her virginity she regrets it and yearns to return to her younger innocence ("That blue eyed girl became blue eyed whore")

The mother/daughter theroy also fits.

"Some critics have taken my writing so literally to the point that they'll listen to 'Down by the Water' and believe I have actually given birth to a child and drowned her."

I interpret it as being about the loss of innocence... particularly when losing her virginity (whether by force or consensual). The daughter (blue-eyed girl) is symbolic of the innocent version of herself; the Mother is symbolic of herself after she looses her innocence... The "Mother" then longs for her innocence/innocent-self back.

It's really a brilliant song, and there can be many ways to interpret it, as with a lot of PJ's songs. She's a great songwriter.

I didn't quite interpret this the same way. I think that this song isn't necessarily an allusion to her daughter loosing her virginity and the mother wanting her little girl back, but something more direct. I think that the disturbed narrator killed her daughter; the music itself and the strain in her voice supports this idea. Also, I think that the singer is moving in and out of reality; one minute she knows that she's killed her daughter, the next, she doesn't.

"That blue-eyed girl/ Became blue-eyed whore"= This is what pushes the mother over the edge: she catches her daughter with a man.

"Just like my daughter/ See her again"= The girl that she killed is no longer the same girl as her daughter; she's disassociated the two people in her mind (living, innocent daughter vs dead, non-virginal girl). She's disturbed enough to think that the dead body merely resembles her daughter, and she's wondering when she'll get to see her daughter again (she thinks that her daughter is gone, not dead).

"I took her home"= A reference to the previous Jesus statement, she sent her daughter to heaven, away from her being a whore.

"Little fish, big fish swimming in the water/ Come back here man gimme my daughter"= Since she killed her near the river, she's returned to it, or another river. I think that as she's saying this part, she is more detached from reality. She thinks that the fish is the one who stole her daughter and she's asking him for her back.

When I hear this song, I picture PJ sitting dirty on a river bank in the dark, rocking and staring blankly into the water, muttering at the fish to return her daughter.

I don't think it's from a mother to her daughter i think it's from a boy to his lover. It doesn't say in the song that the girl is the daughter of the narrator it says "just like my daughter" so this is what it's about; there's this guy dating this girl and they love each other a lot but somehow the girl cheats on him and that's what "becoming a blue eyed whore"refers to.. And he has to leave her as a punishment although he loves her.. That's what i had to lose her to do her harm means.. But now he believes that she has suffered enough and just like a father always forgives her daughter he will forgive the girl.

i think this is about a crazy woman who finds something out about her daughter and is angry at her. she gets so mad she kills her down by the water. she heard her daughter screaming and she was telling her to stop but she didn't. she takes the body home, then realises what she's done. she killed her in the water so she is askin for the fish to bring her daughter back

Yes,like she thinks her daughter is not pure anymore...something like Carrie's mother...it has a symbolic quality nonethless...like a fairytale. And she blames it on the "fish"=sex.

This song is about how a woman who finds her daughter under a bridge. She had just lost her virginity and she's no longer the little girl her mother had known. She takes her home as an adult and the fish represent how she wishes she could have her little girl back.

I do not think this song has to do with any sexual abuse in it's literal context.

'Daughter' is symbolic. What is a daughter but a young girl that a woman has created, held within her, birthed, nurtured, and will protect at all costs? When we are little, our main role in our world is the role of daughter, and when we become older, we become sexual beings, girlfreinds, wives, employees, etc, and rarely stop to think of ourselves as our parents daughters... When a girl is a small girl, she has never been a mother, an aunt, a teacher, or anything esle. She is a daughter, an innocent, curious, naive, daughter.

Women often unintentionally try to keep thier daughters innocent and to themselves, forever, and in a subconsience attempt to do this, women often sheild thier daughters from the joys of life as they can present a threat to the daughters well being or mothers fear that they may; like sexual pleasure, men(women), and outside influences. Rarely done for any reason other than love, but very oppressive to the daughter just the same.

I think every woman had an inner innocence that is now like an inner child. The inner child is so hard to find and relate with.

I guess if you see the daughter as a symbolic part of her and not actual offspring, you find a different meaning altogher and that is how I see it.

I do not think miscarriage has anything to do with it, and although I first thought it was about an abortion, I have concluded that I was still taking 'daughter' and 'loose her' and all that, way too literally. Abortion, I have concluded, is not relative to this song.

I just thought I would throw you all some food for thought. I will summerize what I think quickly:

The singer is looking back at the discovery of her sexuality, whether it was through masturbation or her first gratifying sexual experiance. While she loved what she "found" and could not deny herself the pleasure, she had an inner shame about it, so she tried to essentially hide her sensual maturing side from her innocent simpler side. But she could not do it forever, and eventually she lost the innocence. Most people dont think of it too deeply, or they just have sexual liberation/sexual shame conflicts within and the conflict is not something they analyze... They deal or they don't deal, and don't realize it either way...But I think some do, but every girl/woman will all do it differently.

When we totally loose our innocence, we may feel liberated, but still, the complicated days of innocence are somthing we still desire at times. In the transition life can be downright painful.

When she says: 'Little fish, big fish' , she is creating a metaphor, the fish are her innocence and inner child(little fish), and the big fish, who in most cases will swallow the little fish, is the new, sexual, more empowered, her... The big fish may have swallowed the little fish, either way the big fish has taken the little fish, and sometimes she misses the little fish. At some time during her transition into a sexual creature, she may try to find it, but cannot.

"Come back here man give me my daughter": A plea to go back to her simpler times, before conflict and shame. She to be almost literally asking the man who took it(which I have no reason to believe she did not willingly participate, though we do go through a time when we blame the men who we have our first sexual encounters with, so that may tie in in that way)'it', for good; to give 'it' back as a desperate attempt to get back what she could not give back to herself...

'just like my daughter to see her again' : I think that is her way of showing her innocence was succumbing to her new, sensually aware self, and she tried to keep the innocence inside alive, with all the ignorant bliss it can bring, but her innocent side was not a permanent thing, and was bound to be lost in the new her...

"I lost my heart under the bridge to that little girl, so much to me" I do not think 'that little girl is her daughter, or innocence, but rather the other side of her conscience... Like the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other, the little girl is the temptress, the devil on the shoulder... She lost her heart to that little girl, and though she tries to keep her daughter from seeing her, and hide what she has discovered "she'll never know just what I found"... But little girl(her tempted side, her sexual side)obviously will not leave the daugher alone, and the daughter (her innocence)continues to see her( the little girl, the temptress and maturity)again...

The transition from being your fathers daughter to your boy(or girl) freinds lover, the transition from girl to woman, the transition from innocent to not innocent.... it is an emotionally tyring time so intense many girls are depressed, angry, scared, rebellious, and conflicted... Sleep overs with friends or sleeping WITH friends... Playing dolls or getting dolled up... Being a good girl or being a young, curious woman... The pain and excitement are very stormy, especially if the seeds of religion have been planted in your psyche, you may find yourself pleading "Oh help me jesus, come through the storm." If adolescence is not a storm and not a time we are conflicted about our spiritual side as well as our sexual side, then what is it exactly, other than in it;s literal sense?

"I had to loose her to do her harm"... Well, the only way to harm the other side, to would be to loose it, vice versa... You cannot continue to grow as a woman, emotionally or sexually, if you hold on to your childhood and innocence. You may try to, and think you can just adjust that side... But that just makes yo naive. Naivity is ignorant and unhealthy, even if it is blissful for a while. So you would try to subdue that side, and realize you can't, it doesnt work that way, and that you cant ever return to being that innocent child, the 'pure daughter', now that you have seen, or "found" your "mother"(mother as in the woman you have become, a sexual and creative being of maturity), and since you can not subdue the little girl, or change her, you would have to loose her... And hence a woman is born... Though many a woman will still look back and wish they could be that little, innocent daughter again... And in dreams they often are. I think we look at our selves as women(big fish) and try to find the peace we once had as a small fish(innocent daughter)and try to find her even if it is just for a moment, so that we can remember the things we knew, that we didnt even know we knew, before so many other things in life(sex, relationships, etc)overcame us...

The blue eyed whore was the way she was viewing herself. She was a blued girl, now she is a blue eyed girl.

Holler and moan are likely the sound of her innocent daughter dying. Or, they are the sound of the little girl, taunting her with the sexual pleasures... I think it depends if you are looking at the first part of the song, or the latter reference.