This line marks the beginning of the parts of the song where the narrator gets into looking back on his life. What he has become seems to be someone who has gone through loss, hurt, and painful change in his life. The lines:
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
Remind me of the saying "people come and go." I think that this part of the song is talking about the hurt from a loss of people in his life, perhaps his sweetest friend. Everyone he knows may be going away in the end do to his actions, or due to him not giving something up that is hurting other people. The next lines I feel are about drug addiction.
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I think that the empire of dirt is a reference to drugs, the "dirt" particularly cocaine. I feel the narrator is talking about how his empire of dirt was a reason that everyone he knew went away. He needed to fix the problem by letting them "have it all," meaning giving the habit up by using the help of the people who cared about him, but instead at that point in his life he let them down and made them hurt show in the lines:
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
3 comments:
Why would you assume that "dirt" is cocaine? Not only is "dirt" not a common reference to cocaine, it does not fit any of the other references in the song. Are you interjecting information from an interview with the writer that is not actually presented in the song?
I would say that the writer has lost someone, namely his "sweetest friend", but from the start of the stanza, it seems that he has done something to cause this loss. Specifically, the start "what have I become?" indicates he has become something he does not like through his own action or inaction. I would postulate that this stanza has more to do with him making bad choices in general which have pushed people away than specifically drug use, especially since you argued AGAINST drug use as a major theme in another posting. Even though he is (most likely) wealthy, he feels it is an "empire of dirt" because he does not have the important things, namely his "sweetest friend" or "everyone [he] know[s]". To have an "empire of dirt" where the dirt reflects cocaine would mean he would have to be a very powerful drug dealer of cocaine to build an empire of it, whereas if the "empire of dirt" refers to his unhappy life, it would make more sense within the overall context of the song.
I think kelly poses some good questions to think about, and some holes in this argument that need to be filled.
Is an "empire of dirt" not an "empire of nothing?" An "empire of dirt" could also be a reference to ownership of a large amount of property (land = dirt), however I don't know how that could be related to the rest of the lyrics.
I don't buy dirt = cocaine. If this is going to be a serious argument, there needs to be more evidence to back it up.
i agree with your post except for the dirt thing. Its like hes saying hey you can have my empire of dirt and it wont even matter because its useless because you can find it everywhere and if you have a lot of it it means absolutely nothing. Unless you live on some beach and you wanted to grow corn or something. Then your dirt would be valuable...yeah-
Post a Comment