Lyrics Analysis: Birdy

The song begins with verse one ‘come on skinny love, just last year’. The phrase ‘skinny love’ can represent a person with an unhealthy love to food or can represent a relationship that lacks in love. She then wants to ‘pour a little salt’ which is used as a healing agent on some wounds. This suggests that the relationship, the wound, can be healed in Birdy’s eyes. However, when she says ‘we were never here’, it is a link to the old saying ‘salting the earth’ which said pouring salt on the ground eradicated cities etc. This could be referring to the fact that if the wound isn’t healed she wants to eradicate everything, life isn’t worth living. As the verse continues, emotive language is used to create a vivid image in the listener’s head. ‘staring at the sing of blood and crushed veneer’ creates an uncomfortable image in the listener’s heads. ‘Veneer’ is used in walls so the fact there is some in the sink accompanied with blood can be associated with someone punching a wall out of frustration or anger; to highlight the frustration she is feeling towards the relationship. She continues to say ‘cut out all the roped and let me fall’ as her way of saying don’t keep me hanging, just do it. The ‘fall’ representing the grief and feeling of being lost she will feel after he does. However, this could also be a form of cowardice, she’s asking to be freed from the pain instead of fighting for it.

As the chorus begins, the lyrics say ‘and I told you to be patient and I told you to be fine’, these lyrics continue through the whole of the chorus beginning each line with ‘and I told you’. The fact there is the use of anaphora emphasises how much she wants this but suggests they weren’t followed through. She is also asking something that is almost impossible, she says 'and I told you to be fine'. The fact she is saying something that can’t be fulfilled with one simple action makes her requests seem like a desperate plea. As the chorus continues, she completes a story that is almost a consequence of these requests not being answered. she says 'and in the morning I’ll be with you, but it will be a different kind'. The fact she says it will be a different kind suggest that the feelings will no longer be the same. Also the fact she uses 'morning' can be a metaphor for a dark period of time. It could also be ambiguous as a listener could interpret that as 'mourning' instead. She has come to the realisation the relationship is unfixable. As she continues she uses 'tickets' and 'fines' as a symbol of her time that he has wasted. However, because a fine has to be repaid, it’s as if she still has a slight ounce of hope that there will still be some sort of connection between them which she is relying on.

In verse two, he asks him 'what happened here?', whilst referring to him as 'skinny love' which is ironic as she has almost answered her own question. She is asking why the relationship is over almost as if she doesn’t want to accept it which is a continuation of what she said previously. She also began the song with 'skinny love' which suggests she has the answers to why the relationship wouldn’t last as soon as it started.

As the chorus starts again, she asks the same questions as previously. However, in this chorus the anaphora continues as she also sings, 'and now your love is wasted, and then who the hell was I? and I’m breaking at the britches, at the end of all your lines.' Here she is beginning to regret her time with her partner.' and now your love is wasted' suggests that she is regretting asking and expecting so much of him as it’s all been for nothing. She finishes the chorus by saying, ' and I’m breaking at the britches and at the end of all your lines'. Here she is creating the imagery of the relationship being held together by 'lines', as if she is saying she is keeping him from falling; if he doesn’t do anything to fix it, hell fall despite her efforts to save him.

Overall this song explores personal experience of an emotional breakup. Although this is what it seems like on the surface, this could also be interpreted as a cry for help for someone suffering from the mental illness anorexia.

how will this help me?
Researching these song lyrics has helped me because it has confirmed, again, my previous findings from other music video lyrics. It also makes it clear to me that when I create my music video I will have to choose a song with a deep meaning and be careful on how I represent the lyrics within the visuals so I don’t make any representational issues.