What does Anna Molly mean?

Incubus: Anna Molly Meaning

Tagged:   No tags, suggest one.
Album cover for Anna Molly album cover
Get "Anna Molly" on MP3: Get MP3 from iTunes

Anna Molly Lyrics

A cloud hangs over,
This city by the sea,
I watch the ships pass and wonder if she might be,
Out there and sober as well for loneliness,
Please do persist girl its time we met and made a mess


I picture your face in the back of my...

  1. 1TOP RATED

    #1 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 27th 2007 !⃝

    Ok about the whole anomaly and Anna Molly thing ...here it is:
    anomaly means something or in this case someone not easily classified which is what this song is all about
    He longs to be with this girl but yet he doesn't know who she is, all he knows is that they belong together
    He compares her to his ex's when he talks about "ships sailing" and how they won't compare to the girl he's searching for . He describes the girl as "being as broken as he is" so they desperately need to find each other because they're meant to be
    whether she exist or not, she's all he wants in his life

  2. 2TOP RATED

    #2 top rated interpretation:
    Baxmeyer123
    click a star to vote
    Mar 18th 2009 !⃝

    Brandon Boyd has talked about the meaning of this song. Look up "Making of Anna Molly" on youtube and you will find out soon enough. What he says is that the song is about being in love with a girl that does not exist and you would basically give anything for her to be a real person, and it is an anomaly to be in love with someone that is not real. Her name is Anna Molly, and she is an anomaly.

  3. 3TOP RATED

    #3 top rated interpretation:
    anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 19th 2007 !⃝

    The "city by the sea" reminds me of "kingdom by the sea" from Edgar Alan Poe's Annabel Lee. Annabel Lee is about distress at the death of a lover, and I get a similar feeling from this song.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 4th 2022 !⃝

    I accept all interpretations given thus far. I cannot seem yet to express what is in my mind. But they are all somehow right or close or on the verge of the message that is being conveyed. They are all intwined within the other in many ways.and maybe obscure purposefully as we ourselves see many different things in many different ways therefore its obscurity has the ability to reach out to a greater number of persons. And depending on their position in life and their mind set it tells a story to each of us that resonates in each of our souls what each of us finds ourselves and from conversing with others and their different perspectives. Discount none as we are all connected in some fashion.Find the truth that is within yourself and your life. What have each of us missed, put off, lost, need, want or know we should have done, be doing or improving upon? The time to act is now. And by each of us ourselves, not waiting for others to do what we know we can or should do now. Who knows how long we have. Or if we have already let many an opportunity go by without action on our part. How much in this way have we lost from our own individual standstill. And how long we each of us continue to let it go on. Living with our heads already in the clouds while we are for the moment here now.is it yet time to begin or have we waited so long to start we have already doomed ourselves?
    Everyone somehow seems to agree that there is some feeling of love, loss and possibly a warning.....what is in you mind heart and soul? And will you listen to it?

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Oct 17th 2014 !⃝

    It seems obvious or clear to me this song is written about kundalini/open third eye or open pineal gland. When you open it through meditation or deep life sorrow or possibly dmt stimulation, your life is sent in tailspin clearing all karma (you must forgive and open your heart and change your life for good) otherwise its a bad trip!!!!, when you close your eyes at night it takes 10 to 25 minutes you see pulsating colors behind your eyelids that look like purplish electric blue flames they shrink down to what looks like a helix nebula with dark sky and stars an (Anomaly) a kaleidoscope of cloudy colors you might say your passage into worlds that collide. hence 3-D to 4-D TRY IT!!! if you dont see obvious colors research how to clean the pineal gland and open. Spiritually clear your Bio-Candy Coating....?
    BlueBirdSoul:)

  6. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jan 30th 2011 !⃝

    i think they are alluding to molly, aka, MDMA, and me adds anna in front because it makes the song catchy and it goes with the rythym.but also keeps their song from being about drugs

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 4th 2010 !⃝

    The Author is happy and can love and be in love in his life time. Why want to confirm a on going dream that may mean the supernatural presence in his life is true. I think Anna Molly is true to all of us because we are all one big soul in the end. Tell me if all of you think or found out who your soul mates were maybe it would be convenient for some of you, but what if your soul mate was dead or married to another. Wouldn’t that be more painful for you to bare. Maybe that’s why Anna Molly can't COME. I don’t mean to be a downer I think everyone should look on the bright side but also realize that if you found your truth in life would it benefit you or destroy you.


    I'll take the pain from you forever..

    Anna-ymous



  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 7th 2010 !⃝

    I always thought that Anna Molly was a play on anomaly but I had always been disputed. Great song all around.

  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Feb 24th 2010 !⃝

    this song is easy to interperate for me. when he says "i watch the ships pass and wonder if she might be" he means the ships are like the people or girls in his life. they come and go like ships in a harbor. and he feels so alone and is just searching for the right girl to just barge into his life. but when he is writing the song she is just a vision in his head and she doesnt exist yet. but he wants to find her. i can once again relate to this song in many ways. i was like brandon boyd at one point before i found courtney. i felt like i was the one who was sitting in the harbor and watching the ships pass. they used to just come and go. this is such a great song and i hope the rest of you see what i mean by my thoughts :)

  10. champagne
    click a star to vote
    Oct 29th 2009 !⃝

    Anna Molly is a real person. She may or may not be Brandon's romantic soul mate but she is his spiritual soul mate.In fact she seems to be the female version of Brandon.

    Brandon is very handsome and attractive but his heart is cold and he plays games with women.
    Anna Molly and Brandon have shared glances and met once. I believe he knows who she is. The true story of Anna Molly is a story of redemption and resurrection. She arose from the dead and Brandon saw "it." His Third Eye glimpsed the truth. He perceived spiritual truth.

    So all this talk about love and Anna Molly is misguided. Brandon already has a blonde, model-type girlfriend and Anna Molly is not his "Hollywood" type.
    This is probably one of the most popular Incubus songs and was a big hit for the band. The real Anna Molly is happy to have helped this wonderful band gain such great popularity.

    The real Anna Molly is the female resurrection.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 17th 2009 !⃝

    this song reminds me of edgar allen poes poem annabel lee
    when he says a thousand ships couldint sail me back from distress he means that there is no other girl for him any more after she dies. when he means a cloud hangs over hes talking about tubercleosis when he says a cloud hangs over and mutes my happiness thats most likely when the girl dies and when shes in the coroners office thats like the sepulcher in annabel lee where she is put when she dies

  12. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 20th 2009 !⃝

    Ok. I realize I'm a little late posting this and am not sure who still looks at this but I've got this different interpretation that I thought I would bring up. Although I've seen the "Making of Anna Molly" video where the band explains their interpretations of the song I've noticed a lot of stuff that seems to support my theory... I think it's too much to be a coincidence.

    The first thing that caught my eye was "A thousand ships couldn't sail me back from distress". The thousand ships reminded me of the story of Troy (I think it's in the Illiad) of how Paris seduced Helen to leave King whatshisface and return with him to Troy which began the Trojan war and Greace launched a thousand ships.

    This got me thinking and I think that Troy would be the city by the see. I then started to look up words in the song and found out "Attic" can mean "of, pertaining to, or characteristic of Greece or of Athens"(dictionary.com) and "Satellite" can mean "a country under the domination or influence of another" (dictionary.com).

    This would mean that "A fire in the attic, a proof of the prize" could be that the city of Troy on fire is proof of the king's victory or something. Attic is also used later saying "Illuminated attic fate" which could mean the fate of the city or the nation.

    I know this is a loose idea but I think you can see some validity in the comparison to The Illiad in my opinion (although I am neither confident in my knowledge of epic poems nor poetry). I really suck at poetry but in this interpretation as I read over the song I can't decide weather the speaker is the city, the prince (Paris), or the Greek king or someone else.

    Anyway it's a great song and I just though it was more than a coincidence how references from the Trojan war seemed to show up.

  13. angiebby
    click a star to vote
    Jul 10th 2009 !⃝

    theres some kind of drug, i don't remember what the name is,
    but when you take it it slows your heart rate down to the
    point where if someone were to check your pulse they couldn't
    feel it. i think the girl took that drug because in the music
    video she's just laying there. you see her twitch her fingers
    but nobody notices. people believe she's dead because of the
    effect of the drug.

  14. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 9th 2009 !⃝

    Chrissiem you are very clever, you have a very good imagination! What if Anna Molly had listened to this song, her song, what would she think? Would she get hurt, knowing that it would be difficult to reach to her soulmate? What would she be felling now? Do you all care about her? What would she be typping here if she is the one, Anna Molly? And if she have seen everything Incubus have done before doing it, I mean if she had visions since she was 5, even with out knowing who they were. If she could predict many things, would she try killing herself when she was 16 because she also knew that he does exist, but only in visions? But because of many circumstances they can´t get together and she´s listening to songs and she listens to his voice and she´s still alive thanking God that she didn´t die on her 16. And she dind´t die on her 17 while she was on her finalist trip while she was abused by a guy, like something that could happen to many girls in somewhere, some place?
    What if both of them do have visions? They do see each other in visions and sometimes talk about what they are doing on that moment, for instance, "Did you brush your teeth?"? What would they talk about? It could be many things, but now I´m just worried about her feelings, maybe she's a bit lonlely out there, so does he, but listening to his song, drawing, painting, singing, listening to the nature, watching movies, writing songs and stories cheers her up and maybe she will be good doing it! Maybe she's a normal artist like him. What if every thing is indeed real on her world? She would enjoy her and his art so, Anna Molly just wait, keep on hopping, if you´re reading it, one day you´ll see him!

  15. chrissiem
    click a star to vote
    May 26th 2009 !⃝

    Yes it is true that Anna Molly is an anomaly, but she is a real person. If you watch the video, you will see what happened to her. She was left for dead in a park after being raped and strangled when she was only 16 years old.

    What saved her was her guardian angel appearing like a man-scaring the rapist but allowing Anna Molly to save herself. When she saw the angel, it spoke directly into her eys-without words being exchanged.

    Anna Molly does not know why she was saved, but she was always intently devout-wanting to be a nun. Somehow-discovering guys put an end to that, but Anna Molly will never forget what happened in that park and will always be thankful that God saved her and allowed her to live a full life.

    Whether she belongs with Brandon is a good question? I think Anna molly does seem to be the female version of him-they like the same things, are into art & writing, and look alike. Anna Molly has had her share of hardships and could probably use a good boyfriend, and maybe Brandon could use a good girlfriend?

  16. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Sep 15th 2007 !⃝

    This song is about an anomaly.

    Anomaly--One that is peculiar, irregular, abnormal, or difficult to classify: "I'll call out your name
    Up into the air
    Not one of the others
    could ever compare"--incubus, anna molly

    this song is about this girl who can't be compared or classified with the rest. She stands out at him and draws his attention with her appeal. " I picture your face in the back of my eyes
    A fire in the attic a proof of the prize,", " I'll call to your name,
    Up into the air,
    Not one of the others,
    could ever compare,"

    and her loses his mind with out her, "A cloud hangs over,
    And mutes my happiness,
    A thousand ships couldn't sail me back from distress,
    Wish you were here,
    I'm a wounded satellite,
    I need you now put me back together make me right "

  17. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 21st 2007 !⃝

    This song is about the narrator's one and only who isn't with him anymore. Anomaly means abnormal, the only girl that stands out in his mind. "Defragmenting the attic"?
    Erasing the memory of all the others. That's my opinion.

  18. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Mar 14th 2007 !⃝

    Think about it--Anna Molly === anomaly ---I am STILL trying to figure this one out, somewhere in this song something is different or messed up, maybe the situation this person is in.... "don't let the world bring you down... not everyone here is that f---ed up and could" I mean, something is wrong that isn't normal--at least that is what I am perceiving as of right now... peace, out

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
‹ prev 12



More Incubus songs »


 


Latest Articles

 


Submit Your Interpretation

[ want a different song? ]




Just Posted

Steve's Going to London anonymous
Yes I'm A Mess anonymous
Droppin' Plates anonymous
Rat anonymous
Cry for the Moon anonymous
And the Snakes Start to Sing anonymous
Gingerbread Man anonymous
Not Like the Movies anonymous
This Masquerade anonymous
Birthday Suit anonymous
Dollhouse anonymous
Death anonymous
Copy Cat anonymous
I Hate Jimmy Page anonymous
I Hate Jimmy Page anonymous

(We won't give out your email)