Flower Lyrics
Along her veins
Eyes a purple green
Treated like a queen
She was on borrowed self-esteem
A painful masquerade
Spinning you into her web
Along her vain parade
Studded brass and steel
Kissing napkin lipstick stains
And smearing sincerity
Along her veins
She's early gray
Her reflection looks concerned
And flowers hit her grave
its about a beautiful but shallow girl who needs to be a slut to validate her existence.
"treated like a queen she was on borrowed self-esteem": everybodys spoiled her all her life because shes beautiful, she gets all her confidence and self-esteem from too many people drooling over her
"she would do her dance a painful masquerade, spin you into her web along her vain parade" she flirts with guys and spins them into her web to fuck them. its a painful masquerade because shes going through all the motions for the sake of it, and all she wants is sex. her vain parade is just the line of guys she goes through to make herself feel beautiful and special.
"time crept up on her shes early gray" shes now past her prime, aging and deteriorating possibly due to an std or drug abuse from a partying lifestyle. the lyrics are almost mocking her, since she took it for granted that she was hot and would always have men obsessing over her.
"her reflection looks concerned and flowers hit her grave" it jumps forward, first to her looking in the mirror and realizing how fucked up she is now, and then to when shes dead. rather than flowers being placed on her grave, theyre hitting it, as if someones throwing them down angrily. nobody ever really loved her because all she had was physical attractiveness, and now that thats gone nobody cares anymore. this also ties up the flower theme of the song. the "flower" is also a metaphor for the girl herself for being beautiful but fragile and short-lived. as a side note flowers look like vaginas, so maybe thats where the title came from
I heard this song on "A-Sides" and fell in love with it. When I purchased "Screaming Life/Fopp," I noticed something interesting. In the song "Hand of God" is an introduction speaking by some preacher, and his sermon ends with "it is a vain parade....it has no meaning." Probably was the inspiration for that line in "Flower."
excellent song, i love it. very heavy yet peaceful.
"It's about a girl who becomes a woman and basically invests everything in vanity and then burns out quick." - Chris Cornell on Flower From their Facebook page today.
Also I think her eyes were "opal green" as opposed to "purple green"
What a great early Soundgarden tune this was - Just looking at the lyrics, they seem pretty straight forward; and the "flower" the song speaks about seems to have a double meaning - About how this girl grew and blossomed into a young lady, and eventually wilted and died, but also referring to the flowers on her grave, obviously. I'm convinced Chris paid attention in English class - He also uses the homonyms "vein" and "vain" - Sort of interesting, for early Soundgarden.
yes i completely agree with sommy except.. chris didn't make it very far in school, so its amazing isn't it, i think he got to grade 8 i'd have to check up on it but it doesn't really matter he is very good.
Yes it is amazing how poetic his lyrics were and still are even though he dropped out. So much about soundgarden just amazes me
Chris liked to write lyrics that seemed straight forward but always had a double meaning. Does anyone know what it could be in this case?
This song is about an underage stripper. She is also a drug addict due to the predicament she is in. Kind of a sad song if you think about.
Who would leave flowers on the grave of a drug addicted teenage stripper? I just think this song is critical of pretentious, materialistic women who play mind games.