Eh, whatever Eatcarpet. If that's all you get out of the song, then perhaps you should stick to interpretting Paris Hilton tracks. IMO its about a character (perhaps Nelly herself, perhaps not) who is losing the idealism of youth and settling into the cynicism / pragmatism of adulthood ("All I know
Is everything is not as it's sold / but the more I grow the less I know"). Its something that happens to most people as they leave their teens and early 20's and realize that they can't necessarily change the world as they had once thought, and that they have beomce a part of the very things they once railed against. But suddenly someone enters her life (I'm guessing a child ie. her daughter Nevis) and she discovers that there is a reason to to better. The line "Then I see you standing there / I'm all I'll ever be / But all I can do is try" suggests that she is picturing this child (as a baby, as a teenager, as an adult) looking at her and it makes her want to be a better person (ie. to "try"). And she is not so naive as to state that she "will" be a better person, but that she will try, and that is all she (and in fact any of us) can do. And there is a sense of acceptance of this fact, with the closing verse "All of the things we want each other to be / We never will be / And that's wonderful, and that's life". In other words, there are many things we may try at and fail at, and that is fine; "that's life". Just my take anyway.
Eh, whatever Eatcarpet. If that's all you get out of the song, then perhaps you should stick to interpretting Paris Hilton tracks. IMO its about a character (perhaps Nelly herself, perhaps not) who is losing the idealism of youth and settling into the cynicism / pragmatism of adulthood ("All I know Is everything is not as it's sold / but the more I grow the less I know"). Its something that happens to most people as they leave their teens and early 20's and realize that they can't necessarily change the world as they had once thought, and that they have beomce a part of the very things they once railed against. But suddenly someone enters her life (I'm guessing a child ie. her daughter Nevis) and she discovers that there is a reason to to better. The line "Then I see you standing there / I'm all I'll ever be / But all I can do is try" suggests that she is picturing this child (as a baby, as a teenager, as an adult) looking at her and it makes her want to be a better person (ie. to "try"). And she is not so naive as to state that she "will" be a better person, but that she will try, and that is all she (and in fact any of us) can do. And there is a sense of acceptance of this fact, with the closing verse "All of the things we want each other to be / We never will be / And that's wonderful, and that's life". In other words, there are many things we may try at and fail at, and that is fine; "that's life". Just my take anyway.