I've read somewhere that Mike has said in an interview this was inspired by the movie that was based on the book Mommie Dearest. If you don't know it, it's about an actrice who wanted to have children but had seven miscarriages. So she and her then partner adopt children, who she ends up abusing through her visions of discipline. When her contract with the film studio gets terminated, she in a fit of rage destroys her garden. She also writes the adopted children out of her will in the end.
The song seems to contain a lot of elements from this. The whole 'you keep quiet when you should be talking' verse for example shows this sense of misplaced discipline and the fear in the children of their new mother. As the child in this song gets older, any form of comfort it has gets dismantled and it essentially shows the betrayal of trust it had towards its mother. Hence the way the chorus in the outro gets shorter and shorter, just ending in a simple pleading 'Mama?'
I've read somewhere that Mike has said in an interview this was inspired by the movie that was based on the book Mommie Dearest. If you don't know it, it's about an actrice who wanted to have children but had seven miscarriages. So she and her then partner adopt children, who she ends up abusing through her visions of discipline. When her contract with the film studio gets terminated, she in a fit of rage destroys her garden. She also writes the adopted children out of her will in the end.
The song seems to contain a lot of elements from this. The whole 'you keep quiet when you should be talking' verse for example shows this sense of misplaced discipline and the fear in the children of their new mother. As the child in this song gets older, any form of comfort it has gets dismantled and it essentially shows the betrayal of trust it had towards its mother. Hence the way the chorus in the outro gets shorter and shorter, just ending in a simple pleading 'Mama?'
Heartbreaking.