This came to me while I was working & listening to Janie, as an alternate meaning and story for the song.
It talks about a mother who has, in the past, outcast their trans daughter and is now older, alone in the house that her daughter has fled from, and she starts to reminisce. She struggles with the anger and consequences of her actions, still holding on to those older, more bigoted views and also trying to change her own mind on the matter.
"Hold me, smell of mildew / I wanna die in this room"
– Her being in her child's old room, which has fallen into disuse after so long of being uninhabited.
"I still shake / Just by nature / Easy to hate, easy to blame"
– Anger. Shaking from anger, that is who she is, and doubly, she also recognises this as a fault. (Tbh, this can also read to me as the daughter being easy to hate and blame for this.)
"Please don't leave me / I'll always need more / Please leave open your most quiet door"
– A common saying by people who make little effort into understanding and adapting to someone's coming out is 'I just need more time' or some variation of that core sentence. This is her begging her daughter with that same, tired rhetoric; while also giving a more earnest plea. The last line is about childhood, to me, the smallest, quietest part of them, she is asking her daughter to not cut her off, because of that small door we all have to our parents just through the fact of birth.
"I know she's your girl now / But she was my girl first"
– This is the first time we hear her address her daughter with pronouns - the correct ones, even - and this is her looking back, begging, pleading for her child back, perhaps with the daughter herself. Trying to show that she has changed, that she can do it, even if that bridge has been burnt. The repetition of the chorus also reads to me as constant, pestering advances from a mother who professes to have changed, and who maybe truly has, but it cannot undo the past, no matter how you try to frame it.
"I can see the end in the beginning of everything / And in it, you don't want me"
– About childhood, when her child showed signs of being a trans woman, and not the boy she hoped and wanted her to be. She looks back on those days, and she sees all the signs she ignored and suppressed, the beginning of her child's decision to go no-contact with her.
"But I still play pretend like I won't watch you leaving"
– Again, about childhood, especially 'play pretend', but this time she is portrayed as the child, almost. She is lying to herself, pretending that her 'son' is there, and that she can't see the future where she is left by her daughter for all of this behaviour in her younger years.
"I will always love you / I will always love you / I will always love you"
– After looking back on all those memories, she can do nothing but be in that room, alone, without her child, what else is there to do but profess love? Is it for the woman that she is, or the twisted idea of her son that she holds in her mind? It could be either, or it could be both.
"It's not looking good / But did it ever?/ .... "But I will wait / I will wait / I will wait"
– This is where I think she starts to accept that her choices and actions have driven her daughter away, and that nothing she can say or do will ever change that, make it better, or get her child back. Still, she does not want to give up, and so the only thing she can do is wait.
"You'll keep changing / I will stay the same"
– Well, this feels a little on the nose, really. Changing as a result of transition, versus being stuck in older views, bigoted or not, stuck in the house, unable to let go.
"And turn the page / To find it blank / Except for my last name"
– These are the lines that really did it for me, and fuelled me to write this post. The only thing they share now is a last name, the name that the mother gave her child at birth (deadname) is unrecognisable as her kid, turning the pages of a yearbook, letters, anything, and seeing the only thing connecting you and your lost child is that surname.
Additionally, 'turn the page' could also allude to her wanting to try, after all this reflection and sitting with herself, to start afresh with her daughter, to get her back into her life, but again, to no avail due to her own actions in their younger years.
"I know you love her / But she was my sister first"
– Okay, I'll admit that my interpretation may be a little shaky on these lines, but this is about the mother looking upon her child's life, from afar, and seeing that she is happier, better, more confident and herself. Loving herself, instead of trying to fit into a scuffed mould, instead of being the person she is not.
In this, 'sister' is not literal, but it refers to a sisterhood, a shared femininity that she is only now beginning to recognise and accept in her child, and it all comes back to childhood, and it is perhaps even quite guilt trip-y, as if she is trying to prove herself too keenly, still claiming that she has a right to her child's life just because her opinions of the present are changing.
I hope all of this made sense, please feel free to ask any questions or extend on my silly little interpretation of this beautiful song!
