To start -- I do not think this is the original/intended meaning of the song
This song can be a powerfully interpreted as a woman struggling with the decision to have an abortion.
It opens with a stanza that can be both a conversation with her unborn child and with her partner. "Borders and horizon lines / we're alone but side" by side can be interpreted as both the person beside her in the bed or the child she's carrying. Either way she's feeling alone as the morning comes and lines are being drawn in the sand. "We're yet to dream" and later the line "we're yet to bleed" are parallel lines. They both echo this idea that the child is real, but not real. It's hard to accept because "nothing here is as it seems".
The pre-chorus drives the point home: "there's an animal inside". This is real. This is too real. To use terms like person, child, or fetus might be too painful. Animal is both touching and distant at the same time. Touching -- "as all the things I'll never do" -- describes the life that might be with a child. "Will I ever follow through" describes both sides of the decision: will I keep this pregnancy or will I terminate. The next lines are repeated twice, once for each side of this coin. "In Silence" brings us back to the idea of that she's laying "alone, but side by side" because neither her partner nor the child answer her.
"Half awake and almost dead" is a harsh line to interpret in this light. She's referring to herself struggling, tossing and turning, unable to decide. She's also projecting onto an unborn child in a literal sense. This projection carries into the next verse: "can we try and reinvent / feed the head with common sense." Here she hits a hopeful note, but it also reverberates with reason. What's are the pros and cons of each side? What does common sense say?
This crumbles as the verse concludes. She walks outside. She can't hide her anxiety or her fear. She's climbing up the walls, together, but still alone. She leaves home, sneaks out "leaving this place behind, in silence." She's "yet to bleed" which, as before, is an indication of pregnancy, but also "all the time and energy" refers to both the bearing of a child and the arguments with the partner that may disagree with her decision. This decision and the child are both referred to as "the weight we find inside us"
The denouement is the rising tempo of the final stanza: "lead me to the edge of night / 'til the dawn / the end of time / 'til the fire blazing light / shines again within our eyes" is her making her decision. We do not know what decision she has made, but it doesn't matter. She's been lead to the proverbial 'dark night of the soul' and the dawn and the time has come. She move forward firmly resolute.
The final chorus is repeated twice, and can be interpreted two different ways. She may have decided to keep the child and she's bleary eyed and exhausted. She did not bleed -- so she kept the pregnancy -- but she recognizes that there is much time an energy to be spent raising her baby. She may have decided to terminate the pregnancy, knowing that she will have to struggle with herself and her partner.
"Hearts Like Ours" describes the three connections -- a woman, a fetus, a partner -- but also is a call for autonomy. "Ours" is all of the women that have had to struggle with this decision, with themselves, with their partners. In light of the catastrophe that is the legislation in Alabama, these kinds of stories need to be told. Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is never an easy decision, but it is, "at the edge of night", a decision that belongs solely with the woman who is "yet to bleed / all the time and energy".
To start -- I do not think this is the original/intended meaning of the song
This song can be a powerfully interpreted as a woman struggling with the decision to have an abortion.
It opens with a stanza that can be both a conversation with her unborn child and with her partner. "Borders and horizon lines / we're alone but side" by side can be interpreted as both the person beside her in the bed or the child she's carrying. Either way she's feeling alone as the morning comes and lines are being drawn in the sand. "We're yet to dream" and later the line "we're yet to bleed" are parallel lines. They both echo this idea that the child is real, but not real. It's hard to accept because "nothing here is as it seems".
The pre-chorus drives the point home: "there's an animal inside". This is real. This is too real. To use terms like person, child, or fetus might be too painful. Animal is both touching and distant at the same time. Touching -- "as all the things I'll never do" -- describes the life that might be with a child. "Will I ever follow through" describes both sides of the decision: will I keep this pregnancy or will I terminate. The next lines are repeated twice, once for each side of this coin. "In Silence" brings us back to the idea of that she's laying "alone, but side by side" because neither her partner nor the child answer her.
"Half awake and almost dead" is a harsh line to interpret in this light. She's referring to herself struggling, tossing and turning, unable to decide. She's also projecting onto an unborn child in a literal sense. This projection carries into the next verse: "can we try and reinvent / feed the head with common sense." Here she hits a hopeful note, but it also reverberates with reason. What's are the pros and cons of each side? What does common sense say?
This crumbles as the verse concludes. She walks outside. She can't hide her anxiety or her fear. She's climbing up the walls, together, but still alone. She leaves home, sneaks out "leaving this place behind, in silence." She's "yet to bleed" which, as before, is an indication of pregnancy, but also "all the time and energy" refers to both the bearing of a child and the arguments with the partner that may disagree with her decision. This decision and the child are both referred to as "the weight we find inside us"
The denouement is the rising tempo of the final stanza: "lead me to the edge of night / 'til the dawn / the end of time / 'til the fire blazing light / shines again within our eyes" is her making her decision. We do not know what decision she has made, but it doesn't matter. She's been lead to the proverbial 'dark night of the soul' and the dawn and the time has come. She move forward firmly resolute.
The final chorus is repeated twice, and can be interpreted two different ways. She may have decided to keep the child and she's bleary eyed and exhausted. She did not bleed -- so she kept the pregnancy -- but she recognizes that there is much time an energy to be spent raising her baby. She may have decided to terminate the pregnancy, knowing that she will have to struggle with herself and her partner.
"Hearts Like Ours" describes the three connections -- a woman, a fetus, a partner -- but also is a call for autonomy. "Ours" is all of the women that have had to struggle with this decision, with themselves, with their partners. In light of the catastrophe that is the legislation in Alabama, these kinds of stories need to be told. Choosing to terminate a pregnancy is never an easy decision, but it is, "at the edge of night", a decision that belongs solely with the woman who is "yet to bleed / all the time and energy".