Flower Lyrics

Lyric discussion by Furthest1 

Cover art for Flower lyrics by Soundgarden

its about a beautiful but shallow girl who needs to be a slut to validate her existence.

"treated like a queen she was on borrowed self-esteem": everybodys spoiled her all her life because shes beautiful, she gets all her confidence and self-esteem from too many people drooling over her

"she would do her dance a painful masquerade, spin you into her web along her vain parade" she flirts with guys and spins them into her web to fuck them. its a painful masquerade because shes going through all the motions for the sake of it, and all she wants is sex. her vain parade is just the line of guys she goes through to make herself feel beautiful and special.

"time crept up on her shes early gray" shes now past her prime, aging and deteriorating possibly due to an std or drug abuse from a partying lifestyle. the lyrics are almost mocking her, since she took it for granted that she was hot and would always have men obsessing over her.

"her reflection looks concerned and flowers hit her grave" it jumps forward, first to her looking in the mirror and realizing how fucked up she is now, and then to when shes dead. rather than flowers being placed on her grave, theyre hitting it, as if someones throwing them down angrily. nobody ever really loved her because all she had was physical attractiveness, and now that thats gone nobody cares anymore. this also ties up the flower theme of the song. the "flower" is also a metaphor for the girl herself for being beautiful but fragile and short-lived. as a side note flowers look like vaginas, so maybe thats where the title came from