For me this song depicts a psychological process. At the beginning of a song, the singer holds a grudge towards her father because of his violent upbringing style. She looks at it from the simplistic point of view of a child, believing that violence comes from the absence of love. She severes ties with him and so states that he cannot hurt her anymore.
But as the song progresses she grows old and begins to understand why people behave the way they do, and so comes to realize that people traumatized by violence enact violently on others.
She ends up saying the same: her father cannot hurt her anymore, but not because he is absent, but because she has forgiven him
For me this song depicts a psychological process. At the beginning of a song, the singer holds a grudge towards her father because of his violent upbringing style. She looks at it from the simplistic point of view of a child, believing that violence comes from the absence of love. She severes ties with him and so states that he cannot hurt her anymore. But as the song progresses she grows old and begins to understand why people behave the way they do, and so comes to realize that people traumatized by violence enact violently on others. She ends up saying the same: her father cannot hurt her anymore, but not because he is absent, but because she has forgiven him