I agree with what everyone else has said, but I also think there's another level to this song.
"She looks good but her boyfriend says she's a mess"
I think the girl in the song is brilliant but nobody is seeing it, she can't let it out in front of people and when she does she gets put down or goes unnoticed through no fault of her own. Even the people closest to her don't see that she's great and they also don't see that she's being really hurt by the fact she's constantly being underrated. So she's brilliant but deeply hurt, and I think dancing in the dark is a metaphor for both of these things. She's basically living her life unattended to and lonely, and nobody - including her, is seeing either her loneliness or brilliance, it's LIKE she's dancing in the dark. Doing something extraordinary where nobody can see it, because she's afraid to try and show herself because every time she does she's knocked down. But I think her lack of confidence is her dark. Her brilliance is cloaked in her own disbelief in herself, so she LOVES to dance in the dark as it's all she and anyone else thinks she can do.
Apart from Ramsey, the girls mentioned in the song (Marilyn ect.) are all women who's downfall was bought about by the way they danced in the dark. They were loved, but their real self was in the shadow of their popularity and image, or in Sylvia's case she had her demons which broke her and she knew she could be a famous poet, but unfortunately, when she died, her career was only just lifting off. Nobody ever got to see what any of these women would have really become, or who they truly were , because everything they did overshadowed them.
I agree with what everyone else has said, but I also think there's another level to this song. "She looks good but her boyfriend says she's a mess" I think the girl in the song is brilliant but nobody is seeing it, she can't let it out in front of people and when she does she gets put down or goes unnoticed through no fault of her own. Even the people closest to her don't see that she's great and they also don't see that she's being really hurt by the fact she's constantly being underrated. So she's brilliant but deeply hurt, and I think dancing in the dark is a metaphor for both of these things. She's basically living her life unattended to and lonely, and nobody - including her, is seeing either her loneliness or brilliance, it's LIKE she's dancing in the dark. Doing something extraordinary where nobody can see it, because she's afraid to try and show herself because every time she does she's knocked down. But I think her lack of confidence is her dark. Her brilliance is cloaked in her own disbelief in herself, so she LOVES to dance in the dark as it's all she and anyone else thinks she can do.
Apart from Ramsey, the girls mentioned in the song (Marilyn ect.) are all women who's downfall was bought about by the way they danced in the dark. They were loved, but their real self was in the shadow of their popularity and image, or in Sylvia's case she had her demons which broke her and she knew she could be a famous poet, but unfortunately, when she died, her career was only just lifting off. Nobody ever got to see what any of these women would have really become, or who they truly were , because everything they did overshadowed them.
Completely.
Completely.