Different themes seem to collide in this song, so the meaning is not entirely clear, but there is reference to how even the war could not turn him into a man, which of course is what the military always says it is trying to turn boys into, boys who go to war like the Vietnam War of Joni's time, yet return even more wounded and shrunk emotionally than before. Despite his immaturity, she still finds him attractive, giving him as she says seductive power over her; you don't have to be a mature man after all to have that power, this is one area in which he can succeed, namely to give her pleasure and companionship. She dotes on him all the same, buying him things even though he is incapable of making his own money. In the 1960s there was even a cult of innocence, but the extremely intelligent Joni, a poet, likely found friendship and company there even while recalling and putting into poetic form the magnetism that drew her to men like him, even while acknowledging he was a half-formed creature, bullied in school, sent to war as a young man, who was never given the chance by the world around him to be more; indeed, he even balks at her suggestion to start believing in himself and reach out for more, just as she did with her musical art, reaching to the heavens and getting there; but he resists such motivation, so in love is he with his counter-cultural defense.
Different themes seem to collide in this song, so the meaning is not entirely clear, but there is reference to how even the war could not turn him into a man, which of course is what the military always says it is trying to turn boys into, boys who go to war like the Vietnam War of Joni's time, yet return even more wounded and shrunk emotionally than before. Despite his immaturity, she still finds him attractive, giving him as she says seductive power over her; you don't have to be a mature man after all to have that power, this is one area in which he can succeed, namely to give her pleasure and companionship. She dotes on him all the same, buying him things even though he is incapable of making his own money. In the 1960s there was even a cult of innocence, but the extremely intelligent Joni, a poet, likely found friendship and company there even while recalling and putting into poetic form the magnetism that drew her to men like him, even while acknowledging he was a half-formed creature, bullied in school, sent to war as a young man, who was never given the chance by the world around him to be more; indeed, he even balks at her suggestion to start believing in himself and reach out for more, just as she did with her musical art, reaching to the heavens and getting there; but he resists such motivation, so in love is he with his counter-cultural defense.