I think this song is about being a women, in general - there is a lot of "aboriginal" imagery, but I think that is being tied to birth and others and daughters - the idea that women occupy, or rather are forced to occupy a kind of primal space.
It opens with the breaking of water - birth - it talks about asking that daughters be recorded, rather than forgotten, and the power of a grandmother's "vines" through the generation - but it is also a hope that the future generation of girls will be able to fend for themselves, do better, even though it falls back on the same imagery, and inevitably ties them, as well, to beds and fertility.
I think it is about the struggle between the power of women as the fertile givers of life, and the cultural relegation of women to positions of vulnerability and irrelevance.
I think this song is about being a women, in general - there is a lot of "aboriginal" imagery, but I think that is being tied to birth and others and daughters - the idea that women occupy, or rather are forced to occupy a kind of primal space.
It opens with the breaking of water - birth - it talks about asking that daughters be recorded, rather than forgotten, and the power of a grandmother's "vines" through the generation - but it is also a hope that the future generation of girls will be able to fend for themselves, do better, even though it falls back on the same imagery, and inevitably ties them, as well, to beds and fertility.
I think it is about the struggle between the power of women as the fertile givers of life, and the cultural relegation of women to positions of vulnerability and irrelevance.