Ooh I came up with a totally different interpretation than anyone here, albeit a very dark one...
What I thought about the song was that it was talking from the point of view of a father, to his daughter ("little girl"). I imagine this father as having a pretty rough past, and I think this song's a bit about physical abuse. Like, the father telling the daughter to please hold him down. He doesn't know how to control himself and feels guilty and thinks that he's going to hell but is trying so hard to redeem himself, because he loves his daughter so much. The reason for the violence is given later I think - where he says, I ain't gonna make the same mistakes that put my mama in her grave... I interpreted that as meaning that his dad was also abusive and his mum and him suffered too... and he doesn't want to do the same thing to his daughter. He would love to be the perfect father - one that carries his daughter home, and loves her, but he's struggling and begging her to help him, to hold him down.
Ooh I came up with a totally different interpretation than anyone here, albeit a very dark one...
What I thought about the song was that it was talking from the point of view of a father, to his daughter ("little girl"). I imagine this father as having a pretty rough past, and I think this song's a bit about physical abuse. Like, the father telling the daughter to please hold him down. He doesn't know how to control himself and feels guilty and thinks that he's going to hell but is trying so hard to redeem himself, because he loves his daughter so much. The reason for the violence is given later I think - where he says, I ain't gonna make the same mistakes that put my mama in her grave... I interpreted that as meaning that his dad was also abusive and his mum and him suffered too... and he doesn't want to do the same thing to his daughter. He would love to be the perfect father - one that carries his daughter home, and loves her, but he's struggling and begging her to help him, to hold him down.
Anyway, that's what I think.