What does Heart Shaped Box mean?

Nirvana: Heart Shaped Box Meaning

Album cover for Heart Shaped Box album cover

Song Released: 1998


Heart Shaped Box Lyrics

She eyes me like a pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your Heart Shaped box for a weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Hey!
Wait!
I've got a new...

  1. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 20th 2006 !⃝

    I can understand the meanings of every nirvana song!!!..and albums as concept albums!

    This song is about...the media, MTV, television, and the work world. Truely. The nevermind album is about persuing sex, losing innosence, and finding frustration in really never being happy. Like, Lithium he does, but then gets fed up toward the end. And then wants to trap and manipulate him/her in the song Polly (which was inspired by a newspaper article...but captures the appropriate feeling. It cycles over and over..in and out...just like teen depression, sex, and relationships in general. Guns are dicks...everybody...in reference to his likenings.
    On the cover of Nevermind it shows a baby chasing a dollar bill...like "Okay, now you're alive, follow the dollar and die.

    And THATS WHAT HEART SHAPED BOX IS ABOUT. It moves from the teen depression to adult depression. It's more in reference to Kurt being under the microscope of the media. So is Rape Me. They may have been inspired by acual events, but no ARTIST JUST REPORTS THE NEWS. THEY TELL THE TRUTH. THE TRUTH. THE TRUTH!!!! In this case, the heart shaped box is our television. It is also a settled marriage. "I wish I could eat your cancer" like "I would die for and with you." And you really do kill your self in a marriage...sad and touching, which is the contrast of it ...CONTRAST IS ART...Courtney and Kurt were both really smart, and she understood the challenges of marriage and defeating the self and succuming to selfishness.

    The "She" in the song is the media. Looking at him when he's weak and focusing on his errors. Posing as an Orchid and hurting him. Reprters that come from a good child hood and make Kurt look black and bad. (Dave Chapelle's "Black Sheep" joke alludes to this also.) Him wishing that he could be there to exloit their struggles and faults (cancer) when they are bad. The Heart Shaped Box is the Meida's Eye. Our Television. Heart Shaped Box is our Television.

    THE VIDEO- The beginning room where they wait is a quaint model of America's representation...or lack there of..of truth. A dead man being sustained by the economic stability of rasing and creating new children...making people get jobs where the rich are richer..also forcing people to go to church, not literally force, but it is usual for a parent to go when they have a new child and want to raise them in a perfect world. Anyways, There's a curtain with a little light being let in. The light represents... Truth...or Truth. (The concept, or the Grand Hidden Truth of society. Which krist opens at the end, and floods the room with light. Kurt told Krist to do this, probably because he was the most innocent out of them. and to show that nirvana was really telling the truth about things, which like I said, is the role of the artist. One can't preech it,as jehovah's whitness, but as Emily Dickinson says "Speack truth in slant". Kurt says "What do I think I think? Hate your enemies. Save Your Friends. Find Your Place. Speak the Truth." SPEAK THE TRUTH!!!)

    Jesus in the video walking around is Kurt. Notice he's picking Poppies...heroine reference. And he is crucified by society. Who paid attention so much to his bads and not his goods. (Tupac makes the same allusion on his Makeveli album...where he says the crusifixion on the album cover is a reference to him being cucified by the media. Which is just what our world does to someone who speaks the truth. As Jesus, or the beatles, or John Lenon, or Tupac, or Nirvana...or even JFK, but later it serves to show how society should check itself and change.)

    The KKK kid represents children who inherit the hates of their parents. You know, people who write great music are those who don't have a very good child hood to reflect on..only one of pain. Like Kurt, or Beethoven.

    Notice when the kid is on the grass (off the path)and the angel notices her and stands upset...and the child gets scared. This is accurately showing what happens to people who are confused about upbringing and contemplate things a lot instead of being productive. ("The lunatic is on the grass...Remembering games, and daisy chains and laughs. GOT TO KEEP THE LUNIES ON THE PATH"-Roger waters, Pink Floyd...Kurt's showing the same idea, essentially.) Also, too much thinking makes one go insane and question reality...insanity is sometimes brilliance though, especially in Art. The angel is this economy with the name of God we set up. Fat as ever. Operating in a false reality. A set, if you will. Which it very much does look like a phony, small, repetitious set. And we are all suppose to be actors and hide ourselves in script. The angel reaches to embrace the birth of children...to keep Jesus alive.

    The Kid also represents Kurt. I think Kurt was just really sensitive and wished he was never born. And let's be honest, most great artists are a bit girly and sensitive. That's how they write great songs. The child reaches to the cross to get help. (Kurt did accept Jesus at one time) Reaches to the children tree for power and innosence.(Probably why he had Francis...and Kurt wished he could just be Kid again or not be born.)
    As her outfit becomes black ("I'm left black.") the room is shown again with no light and just her in black. CONTRAST!! And then Kurt takes her place to show they are the same.
    When her heart begins bleeding, she is being looked up at...almost glorified...and inside that heart is nirvana. And the heart is a box that keeps them trapped. And they are constantly contrasting their postitions with each other. Emotions and representations of them. And differing ones from scene to scene in the box...deifferent stances and emotions of each person...down and up...shot to shot ART! All in a box. And He is staring right at us!!!!!!!!!!!! Go to Youtube.com and watch the video. Pause and just think. Let it play all the way through. And notice that when you are watching his percing look at the camera.. and he yells!!, he's yelling at you through the TV. He's in the TV yelling! In the Heart Shaped Box yelling. Like "Hey DO YOU FUCKING GET IT YET IDIOTS!!! MTV obviously doesn't!"

    Notice how the whole video is on a soundstage set. This is commenting on the phony society we have set up. Believe me, it's the meaning! And How it is distracting and dilluding by hiding behind dead Jesus. A dead Jesus in everyone's face... and Truth, though available through the slight light in the curtains...is really covered up and nullified by dead Jesus and curtains...the set of reality.

    We all can pull the curtains...just give it a chance. "Imagine"...by John Lennon...is basically the same Idea as heart Shaped Box.

    And also, the songs melody is similar to "Paint it Black" by the rolling stones. Slower, more surreal, romanitc, and better recorded...but along the same lines as the stones song.

    Please, I hope someone reads this and thinks about it. I know the other statements are right. The box and everything is true. And I think kourtney actually helped him right the song...lyrics and melody...vocal melody.

    P.S. The Dollar on the hook on the cover of never mind is the umbilical noose. And look at the cover of In Utero. He's crawled back in the Unterus. (Of the woman, of the world, of the job, of society?) and then he killed himself. He hated his parents fighting so much that he made himself unborn. And killed popular music with him!

    God DAMN IT!

    -Danny

    GildedGatsby@aol.com

  2. Kurt_will_return
    click a star to vote
    Dec 11th 2006 !⃝

    This song was origanilly called 'Heart-Shaped Coffin' but dude who up there that says Courtney has nothing to do with it your wrong. The whole damn album is called In Utero which was one of Courtney's poems. Heart-Shaped Box/Coffin was written for her

  3. Kurt_will_return
    click a star to vote
    Dec 9th 2006 !⃝

    A song Kurt wrote for Courtney. About the Heart-Shaped Box she sent him with a doll in it. She also sent him a poem that ended up being Doll Parts by Hole.


    Doll Parts and Heart-Shaped Box go hand in hand.

  4. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 30th 2006 !⃝

    i heard it was about living in the uterus.

  5. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Nov 17th 2006 !⃝

    I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

    This refers to cancer patients on chemo therapy whose skin turns a blackish color during treatment.

  6. abbas
    click a star to vote
    Aug 31st 2006 !⃝

    In the video it shows santa claus on a cross with ravens on it. It also shows a woman walking up to a tree. I think that in zoroastrianism the dead are hung to a tree so the birds can peck away at them for some spiritual reason.

    Abbas

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  7. Cobainfan420
    click a star to vote
    Aug 29th 2006 !⃝

    This song, in my oppinion is about courtny, heroin, and his love for them both. "magnet tar pit trap" reffers to heroin. For those of you who know how heroin is made, it is first a tar substance, and magnet tar pit trap means his attraction to something that he knows, will enevitably kill or destroy him/his life.

  8. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Jul 1st 2006 !⃝

    The song is all about sex the part with the pisces is Kurt was a pisces and the eat your cancer part Courtney was a cancer zodiac sighn the magnet tar pit trap is a reference to the vagina along with the man eating orchids which play to freudian castration fears because the orchid is supposedly a flower with little teeth inside of it. The broken hymen is how Kurt slept with her and she is no longer a virgin

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  9. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    May 11th 2006 !⃝

    The truth is NO ONE realy knows what any Nirvana songs mean except Kurt himself. My interpretations are what I belive. I have no idea if it is anything like what Kurt thought but I is my way of seeing them. So we can all have our own Interpretation and we can't dismiss anyone elses.

    P.S NIRVANA RULE

  10. nirvanalover
    click a star to vote
    Apr 17th 2006 !⃝

    The opening part of the song is plain and simple: Kurt was a Pisces. The song title Heart Shaped Box refers to how Courtney gave him a box she had scented with her perfume. Kurt loved to smell it. The magnet tar pit trap probably referred to how Kurt felt, so helplessly in love with Courtney. The line cut myself on angel hair and babys breath refers to the pain of marriage the regret and love that goes with it.

  11. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Apr 6th 2006 !⃝

    I've looked at every song Kurt wrote over and over again...this one is hard to interpet...I know pisces and cancer are astrological symbols though

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  12. mike
    click a star to vote
    Apr 5th 2006 !⃝

    Your interpretations are really smart, but this is what I think.

    BY HEART SHAPE BOX HE'S TALKING ABOUT A COFFIN YOU DUMB FUCKS
    IT HAS NOTHING NOTHING TO DO WITH COURTNEY LOVE.
    THINK OF HOW A COFFIN IS SHAPED?? JUST LIKE A HEART. (wow) IVE BEEN LOCKED INSIDE YOUR HEART SHAPED BOX, HE TALKING ABOUT BEING LOCKED IN A FUCKING COFFIN. I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap, (Christianity) I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn back. Hes talking about your reincarnation because your dumb ass was a christian. Hence for ever in debt to your pricless advice. Sarcasm, hello. Watch the video, Santa Clause is on the Cross and it's about time. Notice at the end of the video he's inside of a coffin. DUhhhhhhhh Courtney love is not that important to be in a song. Sunbeams are never made like me. Peace

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  13. JoeyVal
    click a star to vote
    Jan 17th 2006 !⃝

    The term "Heart Shaped Box" means that there is no love inside that particular heart. It refers to something that's empty (not literally) in the shape of a heart. "Locked inside" means that he can't help how he still loves with all his heart yet the other heart is empty.

  14. Degenerate19893
    click a star to vote
    Jan 2nd 2006 !⃝

    Basically I think its a combination of things, it goes on about lust and relationships but also hating the person for introducing heroin into his life. The phrase 'ive been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap' refers to falling in love. and 'forever in debt to your priceless advice' refers to him bieng sarcastic, he actually hates her for getting him into the stuff. and one of the people above is right when he talks about 'broken hymen of your highness'and 'meat eating orchards' refers to sex spot on dude.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
  15. anonymous
    click a star to vote
    Dec 18th 2005 !⃝

    The song Heart-Shaped Box speaks fairly simply about one's self-hate for compulsive attraction to female sexuality!




More Nirvana 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)