Natalie Merchant: Life is Sweet Meaning

1. anonymous

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   Jan 2nd 2012 !⃝

   The Lowlands of Holland (w/The Chieftains)
   
   On the night that I was married and upon my marriage bed
   
   
There came a bold sea captain and he stood at my bedhead

   
   Saying arise, arise young wedded man and come along with me
   
   
To the Lowlands of Holland, to fight the enemy
   
   From the moment she met her true love their souls were wedded. This means that no person nor war nor hell nor highwater would ever come between their love for each other. Their hearts were entwined >wrapped> deeply connected and one. She felt so close to him because they shared a very spiritual bond. She felt each breath she drew was taken from his lungs. She'd inhale his exhale. She was inspired by his spirit. She'd exhale and it would inspire him with joy or anger or many emotion. It was a give and take sometimes symbiotic and other times parasitic.... they drew inspiration from each other be it positive or negative. They had an effect on each other. They'd sit together in the chapel at christmas and both try to breathe and not be sad and he made her cds often and sometimes at christmas. she remembers the way he looked at her with his eyes opening her like she was his present. then they'd have to leave each other. She made him a cd with john prine about Christmas in prison and flogging molly if I leave this world alive and I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas and he gave her one with "I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas". Which she thought meant that they wanted the same thing for christmas. Then he decided to rip her heart out of her chest in front of 7 million viewers. This occurred when some old salty scurvy sailor came to their bed and "stole" her love. He told her lover to leave her pleasant dreamy opiate bed to goo forth to the Lowlands which means dark, underbelly, clandestine territories to fight the enemy. She didn't know why her love had to leave her when it was all so beautiful and new and fresh.
   
   
   
   Now Holland is a lovely land and upon it grows fine grain

   
   It is a place of residence for soldiers to remain

   
   Where the sugarcane grows plentiful, the tea grows on each tree

   
   I only had the one true love and now he's gone far away from me
   
   Things prosper in Holland. Things like tulips (beauty) and tea (weed/spacecakes) and sugar-cane (coke) and insurance companies. this land of fighting had its rewards cuz it was addicting and yummy and psychooodelicious and yes pain and sadness from the fighting/war machine but it wasn't all bad. He probably missed her but he was having an okay time and he was fighting for a cause which she wan't aware of. Off he went while she stayed in Ireland with her family. She misses her love while he is afar away fighting.
   
   
   
   Said the mother to her daughter, leave off your sore lament
   
   
Is there ne'r a man in Ireland that will be your heart's content

   
   There are men enough in Ireland but alas there is none for me
   
   
Since high winds and stormy seas have parted me love and me
   
   Her "mother" said oh stop whining and get over yer pain for yer lost love dear, isn't there some other man ye might love in this whole bleedin country? Ireland is a huuuge land of many strappin lads so snap out of it. the bruised lass said no there is no other men for me in this country or yonder since I knew my ain true love and now he is gone from me and I will never feel the same for anyone again nor will I be whole again nor even a fragment of my former self before I knew this one true love. I want no other man. I'd rather die.
   
   
   
   I'll wear no shoes all on my feet, no combs all in my hair

   
   I'll wear no handkerchief around my neck for to shade my beauty fair

   
   And never will I marry not until the day I die

   
   Since these high winds and these stormy seas came between my love and I
   
   When she wears no shoes she "bares here soul" which means she has been transparent about her love for him and she has no shame. She will wear "no combs all in my hair" means she will let her hair flow and this is like her freedom and power. She will not care to try to preserve her "fairness" as it was all meant for him and she will never belong to another not ever not until the day she dies which will be the day she meets her love in another land. The high winds and stormy seas represent the turmoil she has endured and the war, which took her love away from her, and she just wants him back now that he has fought so long and hard for her and for their love. And she has been a tough soldier too. SO she decides to kill herself in order to be with the man she loves. She blows her head off and then from heaven, she sits on a cloud and watches the Captains of INdsutry apologize to the American public. Good tune.

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