Lyric discussion by dr_fraud 

Cover art for Stephanie Says lyrics by Velvet Underground, The

For me, this song is about a girl who feels like she's wasted her life, maybe she's had her heart broken a few times, or been close to people who let her down ('she wants to know/why she's wasted half her life on people she hates now'). The fact that she wants to know indicates an uncertainty - she genuinely doesn't know why life hasn't gone so well for her, maybe there are questions for her left unanswered.

I get the feeling she's kind of in limbo ('she wants to know/Why it is though she's the door she can't leave the room) - like, she's part of the world, but she isn't actually PART of it. it's the same feeling I get from the part about the telephone - she's connecting other people, in the same way that she is when she is 'the door'. But she's not talking on the phone herself. It makes her seem really lonely, and kind of destroyed, because now she is frozen and cold.

And to me it's kind of a plea for somebody to help her, because she's telling them how cold she's feeling, and talking about wanting to 'leave the world' but she keeps on politely asking questions to the people on the telephone (who to me seem likely to be the 'people she hates now') and.. it's just really sad.

I feel like she's stuck either in a particular place or in a particular mindspace, and she wants to get out of it but she can't. loneliness is the theme I get from it, mainly, and it's a bit heartbreaking.

@dr_fraud It’s been 19 years since this post and your interpretation and I just heard the first verse and hook of this song during the credits of an Irish show I was streaming called The Lovers. It’s as if it called my name (ironically, I am Stephanie). I had to google immediately, hit this site to read the lyrics and hear the entire song that I heard before and somehow never really ‘heard’ it 🙌🏼.

In reading all of the 43 interpretations here, I agree with yours. It calls to me on a different literal note in its...