Roderigo

I've read One Hundred Years of Solitude, and I'm still not sure what this song means.

If you're curious: Near the end of the book, Amaranta Ursula gives birth to child with a tail (fathered by Aureliano, her nephew). "'He's a real cannibal,' she said. 'We'll name him Rodrigo.'"

Amaranta Ursula procedes to bleed to death due to an unnamed complication during the birth. Aureliano is overcome by grief and wanders off to the local watering hole to get sloshed on cane liquor. He finally returns the next day to find the dead infant being carried off by ants. (Yes, the whole book is like this...but it won a Nobel Prize)

Of possible relevance: Roderigo's (although the parents actually disagree on the infant's name) great-great-great grandfather became senile and ended up living the last years of his life tied to a tree outside of his house because his family didn't want him breaking things inside.

sounds like its about a mother who neglects her son ... trying to keep him down but ultimately he rises above

I have a few theories. My first one being the one I feel strongest about. My first theory focuses on a single mother who has struggled through life, bitter and beaten down. "Hes a real cannibal" she goes. That line sounds to me like she feels as of he has fed off of her soul, her happiness and since she have hims life and sustenance from her flesh as well. She feels as if all shes been through, all shes suffered from is because of him. She loves him unconditionally like a mother does by nature but also despises him and probably blames him for her miserable life and potentially the father not being around.

This line and I think I'll call him roderigo is a tip of the hat reference to One Hundred Years of Solitude. So in a sense she wishes she died bringing him into this world or he died as an infant. Yet, like I said she still loves him. It's a conflicted situation, almost like post partum mothers who snap and can even kill their child just to be remorseful after. Dress him up darker clothes, sell him away. Essentially a metaphor to the dark, depression he is raised in. Selling him away as in the value of his person being stripped, forcing him into some else almost like a slave.

She tied him down to her tree, stayed fit to name him what's hes gonna be. This one I feel refers to her forcing her eldest son who is the strongest to assume the mantle of man of the house. Forcing responsibility of fatherhood on him, pushing him down a certain path in life. The tree being a reference to their family tree as well as her being the mother as mothers are referred to as the person who holds a family up or together. Now doubling back to the standing under oath her gun, sit up straight or I'll hurt you.

Here I feel the song is referring to her trying to make him the perfect man. By being strict and trying to model him into what she wished his father would have been. Her strictness becoming abusive/borderline abusive. Now, tied him up with her rope. This indicates she has bound him to the life she wants. She has ensnared him into the role she needs him to fulfill. She does this out if a crazed desperation wishing to never be alone, however by doing so she stains her own neck, basically trying a noose around her own life. By forcing all this upon this child she is killing him but also herself, slowly destroying what sanity and motherly love she has.

However much like his father roderigo doesn't stay. His strength is what allowed him to not be held by her rope. Which may also be a nod to the father leaving due to the mother being mentally unstable or a nod to that being the reasons she isnt ok.

Now the rest of the song can be one of two things for me. Either she moves on to the next child trying to create a new Roderigo, in the sense of the lost father or the first son. She acknowledges that shes the real "animal". Which could be another nod to 100 Years of Solitude. The child being born with a tail yet here it's in reference to her initially thinking her first son drained life from her but now she fully understands the only one who stripped her of anything was herself. So now out of insanity and an unquenchable need to not be alone she continues on the same path.

That's my main theory any way. My other theories are much darker. I apologize for any grammar issues, run on sentences or redundancies.

lyrics are kinda wierd but i think its about someone trying to keep you who is i guess roderigo down? i dont really know

i think its about a mother abusing a child mentally,verbally,and phisically and as he tries to break away from her and the abuse she keeps trying to metaphorically "beat him down"idk

Read One Hundred Years of Solitude if you need help understanding the lyrics.

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Okay, I am a mom, and from the first moment I heard this song about 2 - 3 years back, it SO reminded me of my son. My interpretation, from that standpoint, may be skewed; I only know that it speaks so strongly to me and what it says, to ME. Here goes the meaning that I get from it.

It really is about a mother and son, and the difficulty we as moms, especially single moms, have in walking that tightrope between love and correction. We want the best for our kids (I only have the one); we want them to be our version of ‘perfect’, and so we have to weigh how lenient we are and try to temper our 'hardness'. The problem, as in my case, is with a headstrong child, which unbelievably makes you love them even more, but it makes raising them so much more difficult. The rope, the 'rules', if you will, are hers, and yet while they kind of detain him, you know they won't hold him for long. Again, he is after all, this strong son. He must make his pwn way, and she is pretty much left with her rope, her rules, staining her.

The next part may not sit well with many, but I do think there will be those that understand what I am saying and do not misconstrue my meaning. There is this Mother / Son relationship, and while in no way sexual, there is a measure of a love and a tie so deep, as to rival that of a man / woman relationship, so to me, the second part of the song is now that Rodrigo is gone (maybe at college, maybe just away) and this once single mom finds someone who she likes and begins a relationship, but, most of her life she has been 'leading, molding, correcting, directing this strong son of hers (“I’m the real animal she says”), and she begins to try to mold this guy into this picture of what she, again, thinks is the perfect man if you will. This guy though, he prefers to just slip away … like Rodrigo did.

And so there you go — my interpretation of it. :o)

I like the song, just because I like the way it sounds.

Other than that, it confuses the living hell out of me.

I was abused physically and mentally by a mother who is a Narcissist, which really sucks. The song very personal to me for ai had to get away from my sick mothers roots at 16 and slipped away without a sound. Tough because later in life she continued verbal abuse and I took it again ???? Eventually she blew up all my forgiveness anyway. Thanks for this song 7M3 ❤

Junkie/alcoholic mother who abuses her child and blames him for all the wrong in her life. Even though she brought him into this world. Selfish useless bitch