pinned

she sits in the back booth drinking her coffee
thinking about you & the life she's led
she comes from a small town that's slowly dying
the farmland is barren & so is her heart
she gets drunk and goes home with boys who don't like her
but still she's a body they can own for the night

and when she wakes up she only wants coffee
but she's pinned by the weight of her dreams
til finally she slips out into the morning
and nothing she looks at is quite what it seems

she drinks alone often drowning her sorrows
but somehow the damn things have learned how to swim
she's taking speed now she wants to be thinner
she thinks that you'd love her if she were small
she tries on her new dress looks in the mirror
she hates her body and the boys tear it down

and when she wakes up she only has coffee
but still she's pinned by the weight of her dreams
finally she slips out into the morning
and nothing she looks at is quite what it seems

she drinks until morning sleeps until nightfall
and doesn't remember the hours that passed
she wrote you a letter trying to tell you
all of the things that she thinks you should know
she once had a baby he died in the bathroom
she's running from all of the things she can't face

and when she wakes up she only wants coffee
but she's pinned by the weight of her dreams
finally she slips out into the morning
and nothing she looks at is quite what it seems

Women love this song, and it's not hard to understand why--it touches on a lot of major themes that almost all women go through at one point or another. The more personal a song is for me, the more I distance myself from it--here, I use "she" instead of "I" because, otherwise, it would just be too painful to sing and to listen to.

I've never taken speed, nor had an abortion/miscarriage, but I personally know girls/women who have, so I pulled their experiences in to add depth to the song. Everything else is completely true and has happened to yours truly. An older couple once mocked this song by saying "You young people and your problems---" as if this song catalogued things that were over-the-top and melodramatic rather than realistic and pertinent.

I can't write songs about big, grand things, although I do think that my songs do explore larger themes in a smaller way. If we can't love and be loved by one other person, how can we ever be expected to have compassion for the whole of humanity? And the subtle political commentary of the girl's small town rural home being barren, and decimated by soulless, efficient factory farming...I always like when I can slip in little things like that.

That's the thing about songwriting, when you're mostly heard live--there's no time for the listener to catch, ponder and assimilate those subtleties. In one listen, all you're going to come away with from this song is the sort of whiny coffeehouse girl singer thing...but, as with most girls, there's more churning here beneath the surface than anyone realizes. Was the baby the result of a drunken date rape? A mutual sexual experience? The numbness and isolation in this song is staggering, but because it is felt by a girl who is also concerned with how she appears to boys, a lot of listeners feel no qualms about dismissing it.

And all she wants is a cup of coffee and perhaps someone to share it with. How decimated can one person be when that small pleasure will be consolation enough for all that she's endured? Unable to conceive of all her wrongs being redressed, she settles on one small, achievable goal to strive for, a focus point that will help her get through the drunken nights, the uncomfortable encounters with strangers, the hours spent caught in reverie about all that's she's had and lost...

Anyway. Um. Yeah. That's what this song is about. As I see it anyway.