Tag Archives: song meanings
“We Are Young” by Fun. (Does “It” Mean Sex, Rape or None of the Above?)
The Glee cast covered Fun.'s "We Are Young,"but not in the episode this pic is taken from.
I am no poet. Nor do I claim to have any insight into the minds and hearts of artists and their intentions. I’m just a girl, listening to a song, feeling slightly creeped out, parsing some pronouns and vainly searching for an explanation.
The other day I heard “We Are Young” by Fun. (intentional period), featuring Janelle Monae, and had a few questions. I submit to you the first verse and chorus:
Girl give me a second I,
I need to get my story straight
My friends are in the bathroom getting higher than the Empire State
My lover she’s waiting for me just across the bar
My seat’s been taken by some sunglasses asking bout a scar, and
I know I gave it to you months ago
I know you’re trying to forget
But between the drinks and subtle things
The holes in my apologies, you know
I’m trying hard to take it back
So if by the time the bar closes
And you feel like falling down
I’ll carry you home
Tonight
We are young
So let’s set the world on fire
We can burn brighter than the sun(x2)
If you don’t have any questions after reading/hearing that, then either you’re goddamn omnipotent or the ambiguousness of the lyrics doesn’t niggle at your frontal lobe they way it does mine. Let’s take it line by line.
Girl give me a second I,
I need to get my story straight
Firstly, what story does he need to get straight? And to whom is he telling it? The next line tells me his friends are getting high in the bathroom. So, maybe he needs to get it straight for his parents, the cops, some other authority figure who’d punish him if they found out about any illegal substances? OK, I’m with you so far.
My lover she’s waiting for me just across the bar
My seat’s been taken by some sunglasses asking ’bout a scar
Sunglasses is probably symbolic of some high-as-a-kite dude, tryna get his mack on. The scar? I hope to hell it’s a symbolic scar and not an actual one. Otherwise, this is possibly alluding to domestic violence….? Symbolic! I’m going with symbolic.
I know I gave it to you months ago
I know you’re trying to forget
But between the drinks and subtle things
The holes in my apologies, you know
I’m trying hard to take it back
There they are–those pesky ambiguous objective pronouns. Two of them! What is “it”? Is it referring to the literal or symbolic scar? Is it referring to sex? A bad lay? Or is it something more nonconsensual?
Why does he have to apologize? Why holes? Why is she trying to forget? Does it take months to forget a bad lay? (It takes me approximately 30 seconds. Unless, y’know, I was really into him and expected a lot more….in which case, a full minute?) Why is this song allowing my mind to venture into brutal territory?
I’ve made up my mind. “It” is definitely a symbolic scar. He scarred her by taking on a crap date, during which they ate bad oysters that later made them sick for a full day–during finals week, no less!–and watched the movie Taken (or Hostel), completely ruining her summer plans to backpack across Europe for fear of being tortured, killed or sold into sex trafficking. Right??
Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe I’m just trying to explain some lyrics that don’t make complete sense to me in a way that doesn’t border on creepy.
Oh, yeah. There’s also the music video. Of a girl. Sitting in a bed. Cutting an apple. Enjoying it a bit too much? And shaking her head from side to side (symbolic “No”?) three times.
Make of it what you will. (The head shaking starts at 2:28.)
Many commenters of the video have posited that the video/song is about losing your innocence/virginity. That may be closer to the truth than anything I’ve said above.
I just want to know whether it was consensual or not. Then maybe I can start having Fun.
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