What does She Talks To Angels mean?

Black Crowes: She Talks To Angels Meaning

Album cover for She Talks To Angels album cover

Song Released: 1991


She Talks To Angels Lyrics

She never mentions the word addiction
In certain company
Yes, she’ll tell you she’s an orphan
After you meet her family

She paints her eyes as black as night, now
She pulls those shades down tight
Yeah, she gives a smile when the pain...

  1. anonymous
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    Feb 2nd 2016 !⃝

    The hell of living after your child has died.

  2. anonymous
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    Jan 29th 2016 !⃝

    it's about a chick in a bar they played in...nothing more.

  3. anonymous
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    Jan 24th 2016 !⃝

    I think everybody here has hit on parts of the overall meaning of this song. Whether the cause is prostitution, drug use or a combination of the two, the central theme is loss, pain, addiction and a foreboding sense of hopelessness. This song is so effective at connecting the feelings to the listening that I almost feel like I've been there... When in truth I've been very fortunate to not experience anything remotely close to it...yet, 10 seconds into this song and I cannot almost feel like I've been there, done that. I guess that is why it is an award-winning song, huh?

  4. anonymous
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    Aug 15th 2015 !⃝

    This song could also be interpreted as someone who has lost a loved one from addiction.

    Most people who haven't experienced that sort of loss aren't very understanding and can't relate, and those who have are immediately saddened. The topic is very uncomfortable.

    She paints her eyes as black as night, in a sort of mourning. The lock of hair in her pocket is from said loved one. The cross is to think of them in a better place. After a certain time she goes numb, and the only thing that makes it better is pain. Being an orphan could mean just being left behind by means of death. And then the talking to angels, well that's just self explanatory.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  5. robert.murphy.75873708
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    Feb 7th 2015 !⃝

    It clearly says word addiction not word addicted she has a word addiction she's addicted to words

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  6. anonymous
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    Aug 30th 2014 !⃝

    Coukdnt agree more with the top rated post. As I read that person's interpretation of these lyrics, a tear formed in the corner of my eye along with a lump in my throat, because I've been there too, and I could plainly tell that this person had as well; from the insight he/she expressed above. The lies and deception that are essential for existence to an opiate addict eventually become impossible to keep straight, and the mind becomes so completely focused on acquisition of the drug that there is a very limited capacity to even try remembering what was told to who. In my opinion, the lock of hair from a little boy is very likely to be from her own son who she has lost custody of and contact with through the intervention of child protective services. Most mothers save a lock from their child's first haircut. Opiate addicts will sell even the things of the highest sentimental value to access money for the drug, but she still has this lock of hair because it has no monetary value to anyone else. The cross is her attempt to maintain spirituality and hope, but ultimately it is just another lie - one she tells to herself. We are the lucky ones who escaped the trap, my friend...there are so very few of us, because it's so much easier to die than it is to find help and get better.

    While I can't identify with finding pleasure in the pain of an IV needle (as there are other routes of delivery), I developed a similar affinity to vomiting immediately after a dose...it becomes associated with the intense feel-good neurotransmitters that flood the brain immediately after the stomach purges from a good fix.

    I didn't personally talk to angels but I often felt as if I were literally flying through the heavens when I closed my eyes, and I saw the glimmer of stars as I whirred past. Perhaps the angels only speak to or summon those who are very close to death.

  7. DorieB
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    Apr 17th 2014 !⃝

    This song is about a woman caught in the hellish nightmare of active addiction, the lock of hair is from her little boy who I would say has passed away...thats how I see itbecause this song could have been written about me. I never used drugs until my 6 year old son was hit by a car and died. I put that needle in my arm two weeks later, as a means to an end. I (mistakenly) thought if i didnt know what I was doing, I would overdose and be with my baby. That didnt happen. Thank God...

  8. lb12
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    Sep 28th 2013 !⃝

    Am I the only one who thinks the pain could come from cutting? I have known so many cutters, this just jumps out at me.

  9. anonymous
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    May 10th 2013 !⃝

    I got to hear this song live today,its always been my favorite cause it hits home even with the goose bumps.Today tho it got me stumped. What I think it means is about a girl with an addiction who seems to be very spiritual.and is wanting a child then while in labor she dies or maybe the baby does.

  10. anonymous
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    Oct 14th 2012 !⃝

    I'd like to think that this song is not about addiction but that she is in a mental institution. Think about it, doctors and nurses wear white and they call her by her name. "She tells you she's an orphan after you meet her family" Doesn't that sound like someone who is menatally unstable. "There's a smile when the pain comes, cause its gonna make everything alright". Thats the doctors drugging her.

  11. anonymous
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    Jul 16th 2012 !⃝

    This song is about a young Christian mother who worked at the TLA in Philadelphia which was a venue for shows and concerts. She is a single parent who had her son when she was 17, and pretty much raised him on her own, working several jobs to support him. One night she met the Black Crowes while working the TLA and spoke with him briefly, and yet she left such an impression on them they wrote this song about her.

    She's very modest about the song, but to this day if you ask her, she'll blush and admit to it, and soon change the topic.

    She still wears her cross, keeps a lock of her (now adult) son's hair from his first haircut, and yes, talks to angels every night.

  12. anonymous
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    Apr 26th 2012 !⃝

    This song really means a lot to me! If you have ever had to take care of someone who had borderline personality disorder and who was an addict, this song will move you to tears.

    It's about a woman who uses people just as a drug for her own benefit by playing the victim, "she'll tell you she's an orphan, after you meet her family." The lock of hair belongs to her child that she proudly displays, yet it is only a lock of hair and is meaningless. The cross implies that she expects redemption though nothing in her life has changed....she makes no gesture to love; genuinely and truly, and only uses it as leverage. To her, love "ain't nothin'" but isn't that what life is even about? Still, she believes angels call her by her
    name; a person who lacks remorse and does not understand (or at least doesn't seem to) the implications of cause and effect. Like a child, she learns to dodge consequences by manipulation, playing the eternal victim, and by blaming others for her own mistakes. Every human is human and has done this to some extent and at some point in their lives, but for these people it is a conscious lifestyle.

  13. anonymous
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    Apr 26th 2012 !⃝

    I feel that the line "she knows no lover, none i've ever seen", is actually about a drug addicted prostitute. A woman who does sexual favors for drugs but has no attachment to her johns whatsoever. She just goes through the motions
    Just like any other junkie trying to get their fix.

  14. anonymous
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    Mar 14th 2012 !⃝

    Seeing Things by The Black Crowes
    AKA He Talks To Babies

    I find it hard to shed a tear
    You brought it all on yourself my dear
    Wrong, yes I may be
    Don't leave a light on for me
    'Cause I ain't comin' home
    It hurts me baby to be alone
    Yes, it hurts me baby

    A hundred years will never ease
    Hearing things I won't believe
    I saw it with my own two eyes
    All the pain that I can't hide

    And this pain starts in my heart
    And this love tears us apart
    You won't find me bent down on my knees
    Ain't bendin' over backwards baby
    Not to please

    'Cause I'm seeing things for the first time
    I'm seeing things for the first time, oh yeah
    I'm seeing things for the first time
    In my life, in my life

    I used to dream
    Of better days that never came
    Sorry ain't nothin' to me
    I'm gone and that's the way it must be
    So please I've done my time
    Lovin' you is such a crime
    You won't fine me down on, on my knees
    Won't fine me over backwards baby
    Just to please

    'Cause I'm seeing things for the first time
    I"m seeing things for the first time
    Seeing things for the first time
    Oh I'm seeing things for the first time
    Yeah, seeing things for the first time
    I'm seeing things for the first time
    Yeah, I'm seeing things for the first time
    In my life, in my life

    I think it's a like to the one labeled "could i have been so blind" or how by the black crowes as well. they are eye themed songs. he is feeling as if he can see clearly now every single thing his pr^ck of a girlfriend did wrong to him on his behalf. it's so hard for him to blink tears of lubrication from his eyes because he is quite shy. he is widely embarrassed by his bashfulness because no one over the age of 15 should ever be that adjective. he is working at trying to be an extrovert. so he is telling her that he wants no lights on in their home. it is a private reference to decorative porn and it is over your head. he is so tired of being called demure. it really hurts him. the name calling by her and then all of the alone time he has is hard. it injures him and his baby who is her i think to be by himself so much. but another one thing he HAS started doing it seems is pretending that he has given birth to a very angry baby. he can't conscienciously neglect the raging baby. if he is sad he knows to pick up his baby and rock it and sing to it and cuddle it and be real simpatico to his irate infant. this is something he saw happen in the treamtnet center he was sent to for rural demented people with problems. "chapiquia" whom is NOT her name and he is protecting her identity by using this one > :- she had to carry around a huge bag of shoes every single day in the centre and it repersented her "shame". it was a shoe shame satchel. he had not SEEN this before. people carried around fake furious babies for anger and big bags of shoes for shame and stuffed hedgehogs for trying to become less of a bearded abrasion. that is terrible. it was in the institution where he saw this for the first time. it was like a carnival of silliness. he is seeing things for the first time in his life. to this is what he is referring. he is taking care of myself by scaring up an order of buffalo wings with that nasty orange coating. he has no idea what he is talking about anymore but he can SEE things. he is trying to feed the baby the buffalo wings because he wants to see the baby's lips burn. This is a blatant reference to indecency. this is a song about vision and the lasik people should use it for their myopic advertisments. i've always been a huge loner and i too hate backbends so i know his dillema well

  15. anonymous
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    Nov 2nd 2011 !⃝

    i agree with you all to but that makes no sense about the little boy because it says "she knows no lover, none ive ever seen" so it couldnt be hers maybe it was a brother that died or a loved one maybe a boyfriend when she was a child that never left her thoughts




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