I don't think this song is about prostitution at all. The haunting vibe and sexy swing surrounding it, I think, is because she's trying to create a sort of sonic opening act that should remind all listeners of horror film music. When I hear Give, I get this instant visual of Tori as a vampire in a graveyard, knowing that the sun is about to rise, and knowing she doesn't have much time. She's back from the dead after leaving her old label, so she knows she was given another chance. But then she realizes, that she is not really a vampire like the rest. She gives love, creativity, and inspiration.
She has said over and over in interviews about this album "I wanted to really investigate how we're controlled by the threat of despair. I wanted to look at power – how we think and how you can reclaim the right to think for yourself, to uncover what you believe in as a spiritual, sexual creature...What I am exploring with this record is power, and giving it away with your thinking. How do we become controlled?"
Being a vampire means stealing or taking blood (power) from another being to live on yourself. Tori has always said there is something sexy about vampires.
The general idea of this song, is that this entity singing realizes that although she likes the idea of vampirism, she knows she does not need to suck the power out of another entity in order to live a healthy life. She is reclaiming that power in her own being saying, "Wait a min, I know that I don't need to take to be powerful. I can gain power all by myself by giving this love and creativity out"
I was on a walk the other day as I listened to this, and it made me realize how everything in this world must GIVE in order to somehow continue living on. Trees give us oxygen, bees polinate, there is a huge circle of life where each being has to give positive peices of themselves away so that they can live on in some way. Sure, they all die eventually. But if they Give to this planet
If you carefully re-read the lyrics to this song, she mentions “crossing the line” to get away from Pain and Shame as a human being. Pain and Shame are how humans can be controlled and manipulated. At the beginning, she's saying she crossed over the line. (this also implies crossing the line between death and life after leaving her label...but) Near the middle of the song, she's asking who made up this “line” she had to cross - Pain or Shame? She is consicously crossing the line of Pain and Shame as a human and leaving. Does she have regrets? Well, not yet.
The answer is people create this deep line of Pain and Shame in the world that other people in society need to understand and hopefully find strength to overcome in order to become a whole, healthy, happy human being. While it has undertones of her coming back from the dead after leaving her major label, she’s relating it to crossing the line between life and death, almost how a vampire is still alive yet dead. But most vampires expect people to give them blood, or they will steal their power and blood from them so that vampire can survive and procreate. She realizes she is the opposite of what a vampire is, while she does possess some of those same traits. Instead of needing to suck life from others to survive, she has to give love in order for her to live happily. She is not the type of person who is giving just to get something back — she is giving because it makes her feel more alive to love and to give creation rather than to hate and take.
I don't think this song is about prostitution at all. The haunting vibe and sexy swing surrounding it, I think, is because she's trying to create a sort of sonic opening act that should remind all listeners of horror film music. When I hear Give, I get this instant visual of Tori as a vampire in a graveyard, knowing that the sun is about to rise, and knowing she doesn't have much time. She's back from the dead after leaving her old label, so she knows she was given another chance. But then she realizes, that she is not really a vampire like the rest. She gives love, creativity, and inspiration.
She has said over and over in interviews about this album "I wanted to really investigate how we're controlled by the threat of despair. I wanted to look at power – how we think and how you can reclaim the right to think for yourself, to uncover what you believe in as a spiritual, sexual creature...What I am exploring with this record is power, and giving it away with your thinking. How do we become controlled?"
Being a vampire means stealing or taking blood (power) from another being to live on yourself. Tori has always said there is something sexy about vampires.
The general idea of this song, is that this entity singing realizes that although she likes the idea of vampirism, she knows she does not need to suck the power out of another entity in order to live a healthy life. She is reclaiming that power in her own being saying, "Wait a min, I know that I don't need to take to be powerful. I can gain power all by myself by giving this love and creativity out"
I was on a walk the other day as I listened to this, and it made me realize how everything in this world must GIVE in order to somehow continue living on. Trees give us oxygen, bees polinate, there is a huge circle of life where each being has to give positive peices of themselves away so that they can live on in some way. Sure, they all die eventually. But if they Give to this planet
If you carefully re-read the lyrics to this song, she mentions “crossing the line” to get away from Pain and Shame as a human being. Pain and Shame are how humans can be controlled and manipulated. At the beginning, she's saying she crossed over the line. (this also implies crossing the line between death and life after leaving her label...but) Near the middle of the song, she's asking who made up this “line” she had to cross - Pain or Shame? She is consicously crossing the line of Pain and Shame as a human and leaving. Does she have regrets? Well, not yet.
The answer is people create this deep line of Pain and Shame in the world that other people in society need to understand and hopefully find strength to overcome in order to become a whole, healthy, happy human being. While it has undertones of her coming back from the dead after leaving her major label, she’s relating it to crossing the line between life and death, almost how a vampire is still alive yet dead. But most vampires expect people to give them blood, or they will steal their power and blood from them so that vampire can survive and procreate. She realizes she is the opposite of what a vampire is, while she does possess some of those same traits. Instead of needing to suck life from others to survive, she has to give love in order for her to live happily. She is not the type of person who is giving just to get something back — she is giving because it makes her feel more alive to love and to give creation rather than to hate and take.