Siren

[Julie]

Siren

And you know you're gonna lie
To you
In your own way

Know, know too well
Know the chill
Know she breaks
My siren

Never was one for a prissy girl
Coquette
Call in for an ambulance
Reach high
Doesn't mean she's holy
Just means she's got a cellular handy
Almost brave
Almost pregnant
Almost in love
"Vanilla"

And you know you're gonna lie
To you
In your own way

And you don't need the light
To guide you through this

Here's Tori's description of it:
"The whole thing about Siren was I was asked to um, do this music to this film, Great Expectations. And um, when I saw the rough cut of the movie it was a bit of a different thing than it ended up to be. But point is, the scene that they asked me to do, um, when I first saw it, I was on the water and my concept of his character um, who was Ethan Hawke playing the part of -- they call it Finn in the movie. But it's Pip, right? That's the correct Great Expectations person. Anyway, I felt like those guys were on a boat fishing. And uh, they had had this grunge music there -- being a manly kind of thing and I'm like, screw that, that's ridiculous. If you're gonna do a manly thing on the water, go Polynesian, 800 years ago. Go into the sirens and do it correctly. I mean the Miller time and all the baited worms all this stuff from the great tackle shop -- blow that. Go and find the sirens, make your sacrifice, cut off a toe, do what you're supposed to. Be good guys. So I decided that it would make his character a bit more enriching if um, there was this mythological element of the sea creatures."
-- Tori; KFOG 104.5FM - Berkeley, CA, 10/8/99

[Koalapupu]

I love this song.

The dynamic galloping of it is just insanely good. And I especially like the lyrics of the chorus. "Almost brave, almost pregnant". Sounds to me like an apt description of any confused teenager. Heck, any teenager.

Just replace "almost pregnant" with "almost a father" for the boys

What do you think the part "She breaks my siren" means?
I always thought the Sirens of this song were the mythological temptresses -- I saw the lyrics as 'she breaking through the narrator's mask and fake sweetness'. But the word siren could also mean something along the lines of an ambulance siren, too, I guess...

[orangerind]

koalapupu said:

I love this song.

The dynamic galloping of it is just insanely good. And I especially like the lyrics of the chorus. "Almost brave, almost pregnant". Sounds to me like an apt description of any confused teenager. Heck, any teenager.

Just replace "almost pregnant" with "almost a father" for the boys

What do you think the part "She breaks my siren" means?
I always thought the Sirens of this song were the mythological temptresses -- I saw the lyrics as 'she breaking through the narrator's mask and fake sweetness'. But the word siren could also mean something along the lines of an ambulance siren, too, I guess...

I think this is a rapists' song.
So I think the line is: "She brakes, my siren"

She will finally brake, now that he found a way to get to her. She was always such a prissy bitch to him and he only wanted her vanilla skin... I think Siren is one of Tori songs that are made by her darkest demons.

[Koalapupu]

Wow, that's pretty interesting, Orangerind! I never ever thought of the song that way. For me it's more of an enpowering song for someone who is on the brink of starting her own life and getting in control of it.

But now that I read your comment and read the lyrics again, I can see where your interpretation comes from. If you read it from a rapist's point of view, yeah, I can see now. I always read it from the girl's point of view, so when there's the line "Never was one for a prissy girl" I somehow thought of it as referring to herself, how she never liked being prissy and wanted to take more chances. I never even thought about reading it from some other person's point of view! So thanks for that view, too.

Another great example of how Tori's songs touch us all in different ways

[orangerind]

True.

I wonder how the movie fits to the song or are they totally separated...

[talulad]

The only line I really have a thought on in this song is "Coquette calling for an ambulance, reach high doesn't mean she's holy - just means she's got a cellular handy."

That line reminds me of The Waitress[/b], in a sense - it seems like Tori's saying "Look, this girl isn't so great as everyone else seems to think. Why am I the only one who sees it?" Only, in Siren, it seems to be that this girl had a cell phone and called an ambulance and everyone's calling her a hero when really she just happened to have her cell phone on-hand.

[Koalapupu]

Jason--normally I always say that every interpretation is valid and there are no right and wrong ways of seeing songs. But after reading your comment, all I could think of was:

how could I have been so blind?

I've always seen that line from, like I said, the first person's point of view, talking about herself. But it makes now totally sense that it's all about some Waitress-type. Especially the "holy"-bit.

Thanks for blowing my mind, Jason. Orangerind as well!

This is why I like this forum... I can see and hear things from whole other point of views!

[Julie]

Yes, I agree. This thread has been very interesting. "Siren" was one of the songs that I couldn't really put my finger on its meaning, but I just loved it. Now, I feel I have a little more insight.

I would love to read your interpretations of the other songs here if you would want to do that.

[Koalapupu]

Yeah, I think that a lot of Tori's songs are like that: you get rather a feeling than a "fact". Ack, I can't explain it...

But I'll definitely jot down some more thoughts when they come to me about other songs!

[spacedog83]

This is strange, I was just talking about this movie to my girlfriend just last-night. I said, "please like anyone my age has even heard or cares about Great Expectation. Except the people who were in my 10th grade English glass "
As soon as I heard Siren I knew it was Tori, and I believe I went that same day to buy the sound track.
The song reminds me of how cruel teen-agers can be
"Call in for an ambulance reach high, doesn't means she's holy, just means she's got a cellular handy."
This line made me feel like the person didn't care about the situation, just the fact that "yeah I have a cell phone."

[spacedog83]

Sorry Julie. I just read your post after posting mine. I feel bad seeing they are similar, but I guess Tori minds do sometimes think a like.