There is no evidence in the lyrics to support the idea of sexual abuse between the father and daughter.
There is a key line a ways into the song: "But you say that you're all empowered here".
"Empowered". That's the single most important word in the entire song.
The daughter is perhaps a feminist, or into some sort of "women's empowerment", and is young enough that she undoubtedly has broadcast this idea at some point and time to her family at some point. She was likely high school or college age when this first became a "problem" between the father and daughter.
The father is an active or former soldier. He is undoubtedly old-school, and the whole "women's empowerment" thing grated on him at some point, and it caused a clash. "Did he poison your views with the water he was raised on" means the father was raised in a different time with very different social norms. However, it's likely both the father and daughter have clashed enough that both have said things they can't really ever take back and it has raised a level of uneasiness between the two. Both are simply too proud at this point to really make things right.
Also, her upbringing was hard/difficult in a military family, and to a certain extent she's never really forgiven him for that either, and perhaps blames him.
"It's the way he looks at you / That says to me / This isn't over"
This sums that up. Things were said, and now they've reached a point where they always simmer beneath the surface, even passively. They interact, but it's always kinda' cold and the rest of the family knows it.
The brother is the singer, and the end lines... "So over the hills he'd climb / Just to see her there in time".... are the brother trying to get the sister to understand that even though he's a product of a different time and society and not outwardly affectionate, deep down there isn't much he wouldn't do for her if he could, and she will never understand what he personally sacrificed for his family with his career path (thus the continued references to "SOLDIER'S daughter", not just "daughter").
But clashing political/social views, and now pride, are in the way for both, and it has festered for too long. It's fixable, but it's not going to be easy.
There is no evidence in the lyrics to support the idea of sexual abuse between the father and daughter.
There is a key line a ways into the song: "But you say that you're all empowered here".
"Empowered". That's the single most important word in the entire song.
The daughter is perhaps a feminist, or into some sort of "women's empowerment", and is young enough that she undoubtedly has broadcast this idea at some point and time to her family at some point. She was likely high school or college age when this first became a "problem" between the father and daughter.
The father is an active or former soldier. He is undoubtedly old-school, and the whole "women's empowerment" thing grated on him at some point, and it caused a clash. "Did he poison your views with the water he was raised on" means the father was raised in a different time with very different social norms. However, it's likely both the father and daughter have clashed enough that both have said things they can't really ever take back and it has raised a level of uneasiness between the two. Both are simply too proud at this point to really make things right.
Also, her upbringing was hard/difficult in a military family, and to a certain extent she's never really forgiven him for that either, and perhaps blames him.
"It's the way he looks at you / That says to me / This isn't over"
This sums that up. Things were said, and now they've reached a point where they always simmer beneath the surface, even passively. They interact, but it's always kinda' cold and the rest of the family knows it.
The brother is the singer, and the end lines... "So over the hills he'd climb / Just to see her there in time".... are the brother trying to get the sister to understand that even though he's a product of a different time and society and not outwardly affectionate, deep down there isn't much he wouldn't do for her if he could, and she will never understand what he personally sacrificed for his family with his career path (thus the continued references to "SOLDIER'S daughter", not just "daughter").
But clashing political/social views, and now pride, are in the way for both, and it has festered for too long. It's fixable, but it's not going to be easy.