Ophelia your secret is safe
Ophelia you must break the chain
some girls will get their way
some fathers will control from the grave
Ophelia you must remember
Veronica's America is not like--
is not like Charlotte's, one to savor
cosmic flavor
then Alison whispers, "remember
Change waltzes in with her sister Pain
waiting for you to send her away
wish her well break the chain
break the chain"
I feel you
Ophelia
"The Eve of St. Agnes,"
a poem he can't reach you in
Ophelia you know how to lose
but when will you learn to choose
those men who choose to stay
those mothers who won't look the other way
Ophelia you must remember
Veronica's America is not like ---
is not like Charlotte's, one to savor
cosmic flavor
then Alison whispers, "remember
Change waltzes in with her sister Pain
waiting for you to send her away
wish her well break the chain
break the chain"
I feel you
Ophelia
Tori Quotes
"Ophelia" is a group of young women that are tangible, that actually exist. I do think that there are moments when you think that you're out of that stage. But you can fall back into that self-destructive place. It's almost a chain of being drawn to rejection. Have you ever wondered why some women, some people, are drawn to that regressive, invalidating sort of a relationship? There's a lot of it and maybe Ophelia, along with the idea of breaking this chain, where for people to feel powerful, they have to have power over somebody else. Sometimes that isn't a lover, sometimes it's a boss, or you may have a parent like that or some other family member. You just have to find ways, once you're not under their roof anymore, to decide, "Am I drawn to this for some reason, is there a pattern in your life where you're drawn to people which you had never realized?" It's this chain or pattern that you have to break.
And sometimes you don't even know it. I think in "Ophelia," she's not even aware of that because the traits are never exactly the same. Sometimes it's pretty well disguised at first, because it's not necessarily overt. It's more covert, that idea of power. Something really simple, like the withholding of compliments, that her work doesn't get encouraged, nothing she does gets supported. There's that little seed of doubt that gets put in the "coffee" everyday. Just a little, a li-little bit so that you don't even notice. Sometimes I think that we take examples, as songwriters, we always take the most obvious examples instead of the examples that a lot of people experience. It's never these harrowing stories and tales. It's the details in life that as an observer, as a songwriter, you watch. You watch people in a coffee shop or at dinner you watch how they relate to each other. Usually it's the subtlest thing... It is complicated. It's never like "Bang!" "Punch!" It's complicated. [American Songwriter - May 15, 2009]
As I was doing the research for this, I found that women would be attracted to a guy who didn't respect them and would want to have power over them by withholding praise or support, and yet the women would keep going back to them time and time again... People that need to have power over other people are just abusing their authority. They are not powerful people, truly powerful people are people who don't need to take something from another person because they can generate it themselves within themselves.
This is not about money, this is about something that can't be taken from you. You can't lose it in the bank or on the stock market. It's taken me years to really value and redefine what is a powerful person and be attracted to those women and men, instead of being drawn to people who can have power over you if you let them. Also, because they are negative you try to please them, turn them around and the reason they have power over you is that you can never totally please them. [7 Nights - August 30, 2009]
Live Versions
"Ophelia"
August 5, 2009 - Minneapolis, Minnesota 89.3 The Current
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