If it wasn't for the second-last line "Who am I to say that it wasn't for the better, girl?", i would think Justin was satirizing authority figures by making up a hypothetical situation in which, instead of punishing somebody for drugs or alcohol or something else, the person in power took the time to admit that he/she does exactly the same thing but there's no one to call them on it, like President (Harding?) making it no secret that he drank alcohol in the White House during Prohibition when it was illegal for the rest of the country.
With that second-last line, however, I have no idea. Did a relationship with a girlfriend end because they were both abusing something and would've sounded hypocritical to stop each other's respective addictions, but there were a lot of fights when one/both were drunk/high? Or maybe one did try to stop the other person and they started fighting over perceived hypocrisy? OK, so I have an idea, never mind.
Oh, but who am I to say?
Maybe you had good intentions at heart
Maybe you took truer aim and it was me who missed my mark
But for every word of anger, left unexplained, for every time that I turned you away
Who am I to say that it wasn't for the better, girl?
Maybe Justin, the speaker of the addict (he could be narrating a fictional situation), is apologizing to his ex for chasing her away for trying to get him help, but he finally did get help after she left because he realized she was right and he was wrong (or out of shame of how he treated her?), and maybe they each found somebody else and are better off.
If it wasn't for the second-last line "Who am I to say that it wasn't for the better, girl?", i would think Justin was satirizing authority figures by making up a hypothetical situation in which, instead of punishing somebody for drugs or alcohol or something else, the person in power took the time to admit that he/she does exactly the same thing but there's no one to call them on it, like President (Harding?) making it no secret that he drank alcohol in the White House during Prohibition when it was illegal for the rest of the country.
With that second-last line, however, I have no idea. Did a relationship with a girlfriend end because they were both abusing something and would've sounded hypocritical to stop each other's respective addictions, but there were a lot of fights when one/both were drunk/high? Or maybe one did try to stop the other person and they started fighting over perceived hypocrisy? OK, so I have an idea, never mind.
Oh, but who am I to say? Maybe you had good intentions at heart Maybe you took truer aim and it was me who missed my mark But for every word of anger, left unexplained, for every time that I turned you away Who am I to say that it wasn't for the better, girl?
Maybe Justin, the speaker of the addict (he could be narrating a fictional situation), is apologizing to his ex for chasing her away for trying to get him help, but he finally did get help after she left because he realized she was right and he was wrong (or out of shame of how he treated her?), and maybe they each found somebody else and are better off.