This song is about Tom's (ahem...Laura's) gender dysphoria. Dying by AIDS (as previously mentioned) is irrelevant. The "lethal disease" is just a device used for the true feelings of the singer to manifest themselves. The subject of the song is faced with his own mortality, and as such realizes that no one he loves or cares about has ever met the real "him" (which in this case is a "her"). Instead of embracing this knowledge and sharing it with his loved ones, he clams up and remains distant. Via a journal, he reveals controlled bursts of information as memoirs that carefully construct an image he wants people to remember him as (so as not to disappoint his loved ones, since he himself has not yet come to terms with who "he" is.) This is further outlined in the lines where he expresses anxiety over losing his mental faculties. He needs to be alert and focused to keep up the charade life he has chosen. Until he dies.
It's interesting, because Laura only recently made her gender dysphoria public, so when this song was written, it is absolutely fascinating to see how cleverly she disguised her true feelings. She was very confused when she wrote this and obviously hadn't come to terms with herself yet or her feelings, but they were there all along!!! I figured you out, lead singer of Against Me!
This song is about Tom's (ahem...Laura's) gender dysphoria. Dying by AIDS (as previously mentioned) is irrelevant. The "lethal disease" is just a device used for the true feelings of the singer to manifest themselves. The subject of the song is faced with his own mortality, and as such realizes that no one he loves or cares about has ever met the real "him" (which in this case is a "her"). Instead of embracing this knowledge and sharing it with his loved ones, he clams up and remains distant. Via a journal, he reveals controlled bursts of information as memoirs that carefully construct an image he wants people to remember him as (so as not to disappoint his loved ones, since he himself has not yet come to terms with who "he" is.) This is further outlined in the lines where he expresses anxiety over losing his mental faculties. He needs to be alert and focused to keep up the charade life he has chosen. Until he dies.
It's interesting, because Laura only recently made her gender dysphoria public, so when this song was written, it is absolutely fascinating to see how cleverly she disguised her true feelings. She was very confused when she wrote this and obviously hadn't come to terms with herself yet or her feelings, but they were there all along!!! I figured you out, lead singer of Against Me!