Man-Size

to me....this is a commentary on the male pre-occupation with the penis....i think "skinned alive" refers to circumcision....the male examining the penis....sizing it up.....always measuring it....comparing it to others....the parts about the girl friend are typical male bragadoccia....this is all about the male ego....when he gets snubbed by a girl he wants to get her out of his head..."head"....out of both his thoughts...and out of his sexual desire....he does not like to fail in his sexual endeavors and attempts to impress women with his manliness....i think she is making fun of the typical male

Like many songs of hers, they can be interpreted in many ways, but this is just how I personally interpreted the song:

The song is told not necessarily from PJ's perspective, but from the persona of a typical "macho" man. He believes his masculinity holds him superior to others. Because of this superiority he doesn't feel "a need to shout" because he believes people inferior to him (particularly women) should give him the attention he deserves; because he is a man, he believes this is his inherent "birthright", if you will.

It also describes how he perceives women and femininity. Women to him are at most his accessory; the line "I'm pretty sure good enough to eat" could refer to women as a piece of "meat", if you ,will whether having a sexual tone or not.

Finally, I believe the last few lines are him trying to rid himself of the weakness inside of him, which he perceives to be femininity ("silence my lady head"; "get girl out of my head", etc.), in order to keep his power, authority and masculinity, to keep him "man-sized".

to me it seems that her albums all have specific feels or themes."Rid of Me" was very sexual in nature. Taboo themes. Intimate lyrics, squealing guitar. This song... transexuality maybe? calculate my birthrite... sounds like shes physically describing a tranformation from female to male, but.. not taken literally... its not as if she is really skinning herself alive and burning her hair off... this speaker in the song may just despise being a woman. to be heard, must become man-sized

Well, it could be about transsexuality, or just a woman wishing she was male so that her voice would be heard in sexist society. "Calculate my birthrite" could either be working hard to prove you're as good as a man, or going into math/science related fields which are normally associated with men (while academic women tend to be associated with languages and social sciences) to "prove" the masculine nature of your brain. The "Good lord I'm big" and "leather boots" sound like fantasies of either domination or masculinity (they are seen as connected so it's unclear), while the bit about "casting iron knickers down" refers to finally beng comfortable having sexual relations in that role. Also "skinned alive" does remind of serial killer Ed Gein, who would create "woman suits" out of his victims and dress up in them (it's unclear whether or not he was transgendered). It could be Polly subverting that idea and turing it arond into a biologically female person doing it to a dude. It would make sense given the fact that other songs on ROM like Legs and Rid of Me are about women carrying out violent, possessive crimes which are associated with men and have parallels in the stories of real life male stalkers/serial killers. I think that's the point of a lot of the songs on ROM, whether they're violent or not, Polly uses a sexual role reversal on many tracks (50ft Queenie being another example).

The thing about changing her gender to be heard in the society does make sense! Though, when I first heard the lyrics, I thought about something more on the line of anorexia - getting rid of all the womanly curves, so that she'd gain a figure of a boy in a kinda obsessive and masochistic process.

i think she means this song to be from a man's point of view.

to me it seems that her albums all have specific feels or themes."Rid of Me" was very sexual in nature. Taboo themes. Intimate lyrics, squealing guitar. This song... transexuality maybe? calculate my birthrite... sounds like shes physically describing a tranformation from female to male, but.. not taken literally... its not as if she is really skinning herself alive and burning her hair off... this speaker in the song may just despise being a woman. to be heard, must become man-sized

The "good lord, I'm big" part is the best line. I kind of think she is mocking the typically male, but who really knows?

The "good lord, I'm big" part is the best line. I kind of think she is mocking the typically male, but who really knows?

She is criticizing machismo and making fun of typical macho men stereotypes.