It is very sad that we can let ourselves be so weak for someone who has proven to not be worth it. (If someone has a weakening effect on us, and not a strengthening, uplifting effect, they aren't worth it.) I can relate to this song, because i, too, had a lover that i kept accepting back into my life, after repeated break-ups and fights. It's stupid that we do this to ourselves. It's not love, it's dysfunction. If only we would get that through our heads.
I don't believe that this song necessarily condones weakness or gives us permission to be weak in the way the storyteller is weak. I love how she is calling out to others to help her be strong. Mother, Annie, and Sally are asked to help her, because she knows what she may do, and fears that she'll do it yet again. She needs reminders of how this guy mistreated her, wasn't right for her, to help her keep her focus.
She ends up letting down her guard yet again for this guy.. and feels sorry for her friends who don't understand her devotion for him. She begins the song with sentiments of "Friends, please help me. He's not good for me." She then transitions to sentiments of "Friends, you don't understand. I love / need him. He is good for me."
A very well done song. But we can't let songs like this give us an excuse for settling for dysfunctional relationships that just are not sustainable.. We need to learn lessons from it and grow and mature in our understanding of what love is and what it isn't. A song like this is good, but only if it is balanced by songs of strength or empowerment. This song is too much about feeling sorry for yourself and then finding a false strength and false empowerment.
This is a song about codependency and enabling -- not about true and undying love. GREAT song, and i have always loved it!
It is very sad that we can let ourselves be so weak for someone who has proven to not be worth it. (If someone has a weakening effect on us, and not a strengthening, uplifting effect, they aren't worth it.) I can relate to this song, because i, too, had a lover that i kept accepting back into my life, after repeated break-ups and fights. It's stupid that we do this to ourselves. It's not love, it's dysfunction. If only we would get that through our heads.
I don't believe that this song necessarily condones weakness or gives us permission to be weak in the way the storyteller is weak. I love how she is calling out to others to help her be strong. Mother, Annie, and Sally are asked to help her, because she knows what she may do, and fears that she'll do it yet again. She needs reminders of how this guy mistreated her, wasn't right for her, to help her keep her focus.
She ends up letting down her guard yet again for this guy.. and feels sorry for her friends who don't understand her devotion for him. She begins the song with sentiments of "Friends, please help me. He's not good for me." She then transitions to sentiments of "Friends, you don't understand. I love / need him. He is good for me."
A very well done song. But we can't let songs like this give us an excuse for settling for dysfunctional relationships that just are not sustainable.. We need to learn lessons from it and grow and mature in our understanding of what love is and what it isn't. A song like this is good, but only if it is balanced by songs of strength or empowerment. This song is too much about feeling sorry for yourself and then finding a false strength and false empowerment.
This is a song about codependency and enabling -- not about true and undying love. GREAT song, and i have always loved it!