Crash Test Dummies: Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Meaning
Song Released: 1993
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm Lyrics
Got into an accident and couldn't come to school
But when he finally came back
His hair had turned from black into bright white
He said that it was from when
The cars had smashed him so hard
Mmmm Mmmm Mmmm...
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Dunno if this has been said before, cause there are so many answers.
But i think the third kid and his parents simply went into the black people's church. Where they sing and dance and seem to have a lot of fun. The first and the second kid were quite ok with their problems, and their parents in the music video just seemed so proud of them. But the third kid's parents were ashamed and embarrassed cause they had the image going on of good, strickt christians who had their boy come home directly after school and them going to church every day. But when their story was told, everyone would find out that they actually went to church to dance and have fun. "They always just had gone there."
Thats my point of view, and sorry for the bad english. -
with the first one i don't know if the boy was in a car accident or not but what ever it was it terrified him.
the girl in the second one i have no reason to believe that the marks on her body aren't birthmarks. people have embarrassing birthmarks all the time.
the third boy. his parents seem to be very controlling, which never ends well, but i don't understand some of the other interpretations talking about the holy ghost. i am a christian and i've never heard of anyone chanting and shaking from having the holy spirit. in fact the only time i've heard of someone having a spasm like that in a church is either they all had sesures at the same time, or they were possessed by demons. what that says about the parents i don't know, that's just how i took that particular line. -
This song is quite obviously about child abuse, its messages are riddled among the lyrics. For proof look at the crash test dummies 2nd dvd where the famous question of "what is mmmm mmmm mmmm really about?", is asked.
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This song is definitely not about abuse. The first verse about the boy who was in an accident, it specifies that he was in a car accident.The lyric "he said it was from when the cars had smashed so hard" - That to me would be a response that a child would give to explain to others why his hair colour had changed - Obviously no physical injury could cause your hair colour to change but being traumatized or frightened can cause a persons hair colour to change to gray or white and a child would attribute the change of his hair colour to the accident and wouldn't know how to articulate or explain that he had been so scared his hair colour had changed ..
I don't interpret the verses about the girl with birthmarks to mean that she actually had bruises, the lyrics even say "they'd always just been there" if it were bruises, they would not have always been there ...
The girl obviously had a lot of birthmarks which she was embarassed to allow the other girls to see ...
People probably don't think that it's possible to be covered in birth marks so they interpret it as being bruises ... But my own child is absolutely covered in birth marks all over her body.
The song basically seems to be about people who have physical abnormalities/problems whether caused by an accident, or birth .. But that although it presents issues for them by being embarassed about their physical problems - other people have it worse than them ... For instance the boy whose parents are forcing him into religion and not allowing him to have his own life. I also interpret the last part of the song to meaning that his parents were involved in the religion that I've heard of referred to as "shakers" or something similar, or possibly something cult like, or extremely bizzare. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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To me the boy was in a horrible accident (not tough interpretation). And the girl was beaten while younger but not anymore (the birth marks = scars) and it took place when she was so young that it just seems like the scars have always been there. And they are both glad because they are done with their traumatic incidents but the next boy has to live inside a prison created by his parents every day.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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Like it says on wikipedia:
Each verse describes the isolation and suffering of a child, each of which have wild-sounding stories: a boy whose hair has prematurely whitened from shock, a girl covered in birthmarks, and a boy whose family belongs to a peculiar religious sect.
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mmm_Mmm_Mmm_Mmm -
The first interpretation was probably the most accurate. The first kid and girl are both elusive and trying to hide their physical differences (there is a little bit of psychological issue there, as the differences would make them elusive if they'd been pestered about them.)
The birthmarks conundrum isn't as deep as everyone thinks. It's not abuse, or the lyrics wouldn't say "they'd always just been there". Song lyrics aren't usualy THAT vague, to leave it open to interpretation that "the dog ran away and the boy was sad" to "the dog was abused, and he barely got away, and the boy was sad because he was just about to bring his parents to the psycho ward." The girl is self concious. Not abused.
The third verse definately has nothing to do with epilepsy. It's the Pentocostal Church, when the holy spirit is said to overflow in the hearts of worshippers. I've personally seen the "shook and lurched all over the church floor" myself, at a youth convention. Basically the verse says that the boy's parents are so into their worshipping that they make it so the boy has no life. -
Personally, I think the first verse represents a new outlook on life. He got into an accident and came back to school with "bright white" hair. Given that white hair is typically associated with age, I see it as this boy being exposed to something that caused him to mature rapidly.
The other two verses I'm admittedly fuzzy on.
The second girl obviously has body issues, but I don't know whether the birthmarks are there to represent something greater or not. However, I have my doubts about the "birthmarks = bruises" theory, because it's rather difficult to confuse one for the other.
There's something about the third verse that bugs me as well. "He couldn't quite explain it/They'd always just gone there." I agree that it's possible that the Shaker theory is accurate, but the way the CTDs describe the parents actions ("they shook and lurched all over the church floor") doesn't seem very religious to me. I can't seem to shake the idea that the 'church' is not, in fact, a church, and that the parents experience something that puts them into some kind of seizure. However, this then brings to mind the question of why they keep going there. -
Hmm, I really like both the ideas about physical matter (verse 1&2) or psychological matter (verse 3) that become problems in teenage social life, and also the ideas about abusive parents.
maybe I'm just trying to mix them up an adding my own interpretation.
verse 1 : I don't think the boy have suffered a comma.
look at this :
"He said that it was from when
The cars had smashed him so hard "
i mean, you don't have to explain why your hair has gotten into white if you are truly an old man, "it was.." represents his hair that turned to white. If you explain WHY you ARE THERE in school when you HAVE ALREADY grown as an OLD MAN, you don't explain the hair... but your lateness education. but it was about hair that seems abnormal to us seeing a boy in his age having a white hair. aah, I hope you understand what I mean.
this boy has sunk into a very deep SHOCK because an 'accident', whether it is really physical accident, come unintended, or intended accident, psychologically. You know, like that marie antoinette in french revolution story whose hair turn into white because of deep stress before execution.
verse 2: yeah maybe she has an abusive parent. left her some 'birthmarks' there in her body. maybe these birthmarks are used in an AMELIORATIVE way. They might be scars, bruises or burn marks. anythings.
"She couldn't quite explain it
They'd always just been there"
if we viewed it as a birthmarks, we don't need to explain it. but maybe she can't explain it because she doesn't really understand what her faults or what her parents have done to her is just not a normal things parents done.
whether it is an ameliorative or a truly birthmarks, she just a girl. a teenage girl. your looks are everything. The marks make her feels her body is shameful.
verse 3:well, there it is. This child doesn't have his own life. He is the one that are truly have 'the abusive parent problem'. It's clear. His parents abuse him in a psychological manner. a way we sometime don't address or admit it as an abusive act.
my theory is, not, are :
-yeah maybe those two first kids are 'only' having a physic problems (even it was at first a psychological, it then turned into a physical matter for the boy. I assume that if he already there at school, he might have overcome his trauma although it's not completely cured). and they maybe ashamed of it but, it is far a lot better than not having your own life.
-but I rather go into this theory: this song is about kids that are suffered by abusive act from someone (parents, relative, anyone). all are written symbolic. but the verse 1 kid and verse 2 kid think that their kind of problem is far a lot better than having your mind trapped in jail created by your parents.(maybe they have managed to escape? because he finally came to school and the girl finally showed the marks? the third kid is having a problem we cannot really judged it is abusive or not by law)
i myself cannot decide the best explanation,
but this songs is aiming to address children/teenage problems that they themselves don't really understand why they have to suffer or are they really suffered by these problems. problems the don't really understand at their age. -
This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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I have a bunch of abstract theories and ideas about it but the story of the boy in the accident, well maybe the white hair is a symbol for a reawakening or a new pure look at life, appreciating it after the car crash...i also figured he might've died and had white hair of an angel? <(I know that one's stupid...) and at first I interpreted the girl's birthmarks as bruises from abuse but...birthmarks is pretty specific. What I don't quite understand though is how someone "can't quite explain" birthmarks and wonder how "they've always just been there". I'm pretty certain that birthmarks aren't something you quite avoid telling your kids. They're birthmarks. Of course they've "always been there." But either way on to the kid who's way more worse off...well I grossly misinterpreted it the first time...so my second guess was that the kid was suppressed by his parent's religious life (obviously...duh, me.) and his parents died as a result of it or the lurching shows an exaggerated (for emphasis) example of how crazy he thinks it is and how disconnected from it he is.
and my final and absolute thought is that it's a song about divine intervention. Unexplainable miracle after unexplainable miracle. "How is that possible? How could that happen?"
Couldn't quite explain it...
Sharp contrast in hair turning black to white (BRIGHT white)
and then his parents being what looks like torture or his parents having a seizure being done by some random and fantastical power.
god shuffled his feet is sort of support for that theory... -
I think that the first boy went into a coma. His hair was black and young and when he "came back" it was white. A loooong coma.
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I always imagined that the boy and girl of the two first verses, obviously miserable with their uncertain conditions, got married and then comes the third boy, their son, victim of his parents‘ sick minds, and so they constitute a miserable family themselves.
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