What is freshman by the verve pipe about

I had my guitar with me. In fact, my guitar was a source of punishment always. Because they would take my guitar away if I was insubordinate, or whatever, late for formation. They knew — they were like my parents, they knew that was a sure-fire way to teach me a lesson. But it got taken away quite a bit. I used to have a tape recorder, too. And one of those old fashioned recorders. Mine might have been army issue, I know my notebooks were army issue notebooks.

I love that confluence of creativity in the army. And thinking about you writing without the instrument — that must have been tough? Yeah, well, the melodies have always come easy. The lyric is always the tough thing because, you know, I like a linear story.

And I try not to be too ambiguous about things, either, lyrically. But melodies have always come pretty easily to me and they usually stick to me. So, just getting my guitar back and being able to put it together to record it in my jam box was a real treat.

The melody came to me probably in or , well before the song became a hit. But I started humming the melody and then I had this idea of a short story that pertained to me and a friend of mine who had dated the same girl and kind of went back and forth with her — I dated her for a while and then we broke up and he dated her and then I dated her again. And then one of us got her pregnant and she had an abortion. Neither one of us knew who the father was. And poetic license took over and had her commit suicide.

So, the very heady, very tragic story — a little over-tragic, you know. But I felt like the melody and lyric had come together pretty easily. Everything rhythmically was working. But I was missing two elements. I worked on the song for six months, I think. And I was missing two elements after six months.

Gotta quit my day job! And it was the perfect thing, the perfect moment. It makes it sexy. And I got it right in that song. So, those were the two last puzzle pieces. Then I remember I got so excited about it that I had a show a couple nights later and I played this song before I was ready to play it.

From there, it just took off. You sang the song with this rugged vocal. This is why this song is not that strong literally - it's confusing. HIS girl is MY girl. The same girl that had the abortion has now killed herself. He has the same guilty feelings that I do about the abortion and death. We rarely spoke after the incident - we just tried to forget it. We never spoke of her or the fact that we can't have a decent relationship with anyone since then.

No matter how careful you might be, there are other perils out there. The girl is real, the abortion is real. The death is not.

It's poetic license--to make the story more interesting. Ok, the person that interpreted at the time, you are an idiot.

The person who wrote the song just explained what the song means. Thanks for the interpretation from the writer, I have always wondered what the hell it was talking about when it says; "cause she was touching her face. It took me A few years to figure it out but I believe the song is about his girlfriend having an abortion and then overdosing on pills. He is trying to not feel guilty about it, but he does.

Wow- that second interpretation was really good I've always wondered what the heck was going on in that song and your description made a lot of sense. This song isn't literally about being a freshman, it's referring to that time when you felt indestructible and thought you had the world figured out when in actuality you didn't know shit. It's trying to alleviate the overwhelming feelings of guilt by justification. So in order to move on with his life he's trying to convince himself he can't be held responsible for things he did when he was so young and stupid.

The guy in the song had a girlfriend back in high school who he broke up with and went on a vacation to forget her and she over dosed and killed herself on valume. He knows what he did is wrong so he attempts to justify it to himself.

At the height of the The Freshman success, Vander Ark told reporters that the song was based on bits and pieces of a conversation he'd overheard at a party. Now he admits that the song was more personal than he previously led the public to believe, and that his actions in covering the truth were cowardly.

It's funny because The Freshmen was written about a situation that had happened to me and I said it was about somebody else," Vander Ark says.

So, I thought, Okay, I'm successful now because I wrote a song about this. That's basically exploitation. Then I thought, screw it. Because I wrote this song, I made so many people happy and so many people could identify.

It was therapy for those people. So, I thought, I'm a jerk but I want to be a hero. But, for the most part, yeah. General Comment "stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice" I believe means that they got pregnant and were told to get married but instead the aborted the baby and therefore no wedding. Especially since in the third verse he it states: "for the life of me I cannot remember what made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise for the life of my I cannot believe we'd ever die for these sins we were merely freshmen.

The "Baby's Breath" can also be a play on words because it is used in weddings and can have a double meaning as a symbol of a wedding and an abortion. I believe this is so simply because the word "stop" is in front of of the whole line. The latter verses are about his friend having some break up or falling out with a girl where he hurt her enough to make her want to commit suicide, except that he didn't care for her as much as she did for him, which is partially why he feels so guilty because he probably used her.

Now together he and his friend are trying to forget the abortion and the suicide, but they can't which is what the line "we never talk about our like of relationships" means. And they know that they are to blame as much as the girls they hurt but they make excuses saying that it was her fault that she fell in love and that they were merely freshmen so they were too young to take responsibility for it.

And I do not believe the analysis about the song being about two guys using a girl that committed suicide because they hurt her because when he talks about his friend's situation he refers to his friend's girl as "his girl.

Good catch with the baby's breath. Question She was touching her face? It's the last line that I don't get.

IbbyVK on September 23, Link. IbbyVK Sometimes women drag a finger down their lip seductively and somehow it works. I don't understand why or how. VelvetAesthetix on January 17, Maybe it could mean Like, something goes terribly wrong - - - Example: when u put your hand over your mouth and gasp-- oh no, kind of moment??

That is what i've always imagined. Gr on July 02, IbbyVK I visualise someone brushing away tears, but trying to be subtle about it. People who are that depressed, enough to be seriously contemplating suicide -- well, there are things you might see, but sometimes you have to be looking carefully, because they often try to hide it.

In the '90s this was even more the case, because although the stigma is still out there, it was much worse then. GwiberWyrdd on April 04,