Bluexmaslights has a good point about the title. I would take it a step further though. The "you" I think the narrator is referring to is all of us. This is a vividly sad portrait of one of the many "exiles" that in one way or another, we as a society have let down. They're mostly invisible to us, just clinging to the fringes of acceptable. This song brings them front and centre. It ensures we can't possibly ignore the beautifully bleak reality of this girl.
And it refuses to let us let ourselves off the hook for our part in the scene. The narrator sees this girl, empathizes with her and then claims to "wish on everything" and "pray that she remains proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful". He acknowedges that she is "strange" and "hopeless" and though he doesn't want her to lose hope, he sympathizes from a safe distance.
The narrator (and all of us) participate in her exile by passively accepting the situation. He doesn't actually DO anything. We like to think of ourselves as charitable and kind but not at the expense of our own comfort.
"(Wishes and prayers are the way that we leave the lonely alone and push the wounded away)."
In the end, we are aware of her fragile existence, yet she still "spends the afternoon willing traffic-lights to change". Just as alone as ever.
@eww2006 This is the way I read it as well. It\'s all there in the parts about "no structured narrative." (we don\'t really know why or how these lives of exiles among us come to be) and "Wishes and prayers are the way..." (We are complicit in the marginalization of these lives).
@eww2006 This is the way I read it as well. It\'s all there in the parts about "no structured narrative." (we don\'t really know why or how these lives of exiles among us come to be) and "Wishes and prayers are the way..." (We are complicit in the marginalization of these lives).
Bluexmaslights has a good point about the title. I would take it a step further though. The "you" I think the narrator is referring to is all of us. This is a vividly sad portrait of one of the many "exiles" that in one way or another, we as a society have let down. They're mostly invisible to us, just clinging to the fringes of acceptable. This song brings them front and centre. It ensures we can't possibly ignore the beautifully bleak reality of this girl.
And it refuses to let us let ourselves off the hook for our part in the scene. The narrator sees this girl, empathizes with her and then claims to "wish on everything" and "pray that she remains proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful". He acknowedges that she is "strange" and "hopeless" and though he doesn't want her to lose hope, he sympathizes from a safe distance.
The narrator (and all of us) participate in her exile by passively accepting the situation. He doesn't actually DO anything. We like to think of ourselves as charitable and kind but not at the expense of our own comfort.
"(Wishes and prayers are the way that we leave the lonely alone and push the wounded away)."
In the end, we are aware of her fragile existence, yet she still "spends the afternoon willing traffic-lights to change". Just as alone as ever.
@eww2006 This is the way I read it as well. It\'s all there in the parts about "no structured narrative." (we don\'t really know why or how these lives of exiles among us come to be) and "Wishes and prayers are the way..." (We are complicit in the marginalization of these lives).
@eww2006 This is the way I read it as well. It\'s all there in the parts about "no structured narrative." (we don\'t really know why or how these lives of exiles among us come to be) and "Wishes and prayers are the way..." (We are complicit in the marginalization of these lives).