Lithium Flower Lyrics

Lyric discussion by ouipersevere 

Cover art for Lithium Flower lyrics by Yoko Kanno

The song is about how everyone views the major. to everyone, she's so calm and collected to the point where it isolates her from everyone else. i.e "so golden solo". "so number nine" probably, makes reference to being on cloud 9, meaning that she appears to be in a state of perfect happiness. "she's incredible math" is repeated showing something like a double meaning. the first time is said in the meaning of how its so difficult to be that perfect. the repetition shows that she isn't at all happy and perfect and is, instead, is more complicated.

the second grouping voices a growing uncertainty on how perfect she is actually perceived. the smelling of lithium also has a double meaning. the despair she is trying to hide, i.e. lithium as a treatment for such, and how everyone is smelling lithium, i.e. people are starting to realize she might have problems.

"when she doesn't surf" might mean when she isn't calm and collected. kinda like surfing to get by. "when she wakes up" references that she is alone when she wakes up, and is able to act more naturally and not have to hide her problems in front of everyone.

the next set of lines is more or less a repetition of the same idea as the beginning of the song. matadors have to keep their cool when fighting bulls. oil on fire says that she can go a long time being collected and calm. sonic wave gives the impression that its an overwhelming calm.

"never seeing the girl wipe out" means that the other people never see her loose her cool.

finally, the "i wanna go surfing with her" means that everyone wants to be able to hide their problems like the major.

as for the problem the major has...

Coming to terms with what it means to be an "android" and "alive". the overall tone of the first movie was that of finding her place in the world and how she grows to fit in both categories. i.e. the boat scene. when she's floating to the surface she says something along the lines of "whenever i float back to the surface i feel like i'm becoming someone else...it's probably the decompression." a metaphor for her becoming more alive, but her android side fighting it with reason. thus, she is constantly conflicted.

i don't remember a whole lot of this theme in the series, with the major, herself.

Although there are many opinions regarding what this song means, the bottom line is, The Major is hotter than Georgia asphalt and if she were a real person, I'd be her stalker, for sure....

@ouipersevere Not bad. However, the "surfing" and "I wonder what she does when she wakes up" obviously refers to internet surfing. "I wanna go surfing with her" probably means he wants to run the net with her. "How is she when she doesn't surf" means, what does she do when she isn't jacked in to the internet.