Ben Folds Five: Brick Meaning
Song Released: 1998
Brick Lyrics
I throw some clothes on in the dark
The smell of cold
Car seat is freezing
The world is sleeping
I am numb
Up the stairs to the apartment
She is balled up on the couch
Her mom and dad went down to...
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The line "Can't you see, it's not me you're dying for" is pretty much his way of apologizing to the unborn child, because even though he wants the baby, he know that he and his girl cannot take care of it.
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This song is about a masonry expert who falls in love with a brick. He gets in a wreck with a frozen car seat, and throws some clothes on once he hits the lake, then he drowns. Off the coast, he heads nowhere. Its really beautiful because it goes so far in depth of describing the loneliness of a mason worker. Its not sick to love bricks. Its just natural. At least that's what it means to me. Either that or an abortion.
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Interesting how most feel that the "brick" is the girlfriend. I believe the brick in the song is the aborted baby. Not in a literal sense, of course, but that brick (thought) that weighs down and overcomes ben folds is his unborn child.
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Another aspect of this song that nobody's pointed out which really increases the melancholie is the fact that the abortion was the 'day after christmas.' You can imagine the pain and dread they had to endure over the holidays while having to put on a show of fake happiness for family.
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As it has been said, it is about Ben's girlfriend having an abortion. The thing is, a baby is something that can truly connect a couple, but after the abortion has taken place the couple seem distant and almost as individuals again, alone, single individuals. The lyrics tell of the male waiting in the parking lot, meaning that the woman was alone during the precedure, further indicating the seperated state of the couple and the differed reactions to the devastating situation.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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Ben Folds has said in interviews that, in fact, the lyrics were taken from his life. when his girlfriend at the time became pregnant, they (as teenagers, i believe) had an abortion performed without their parents finding out. They did, and later ben wrote a song about it and even sought out the ex-girlfriend to seek her permission. The chorus was written by a bandmate a number of years later, and seemed to fit with the lyrics ben had previously written.
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This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
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