Halestorm: Innocence Meaning
Innocence Lyrics
Running toward the wall
See it from your blinds eye
Cause you don't know me at all
I've been here too many times before
And your tears don't mean a thing
I only come
When you scream
I told you
Child don't follow...
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1TOP RATED
#1 top rated interpretation:To me this song is about an older man, maybe early to mid-20s, who doesn’t tend to be in a relationship for the right reasons. He has a bad reputation for being a player and using people. (Especially teenage girls.)
In my opinion, what ends up happening is that he finally meets a teenager whom he ends up actually caring about.
She falls for him so hardcore that she’s willing to give it away to him because he means that much to her. She’s trying so hard to get him to take it away and he doesn’t want to, leaving her to misunderstand everything. She believes he just doesn’t think she is good enough because she’s heard that he will do it with ANYONE, and he wants her to “See it from the outside”. Meaning see him how everyone else does. (A player.)
“You ache for things you don’t understand...” She doesn’t truly understand what it means to give her innocence away because she’s so young and she doesn’t quite comprehend that it is a huge deal because she loves this man.
Though she is falling for his usual tricks, he turns it around because he feels bad and he wants to her to realize she is throwing so much away by staying with him. I think this because if not he wouldn’t be saying this straight up.
In the song, he is doing everything in his power to convince her that he isn’t what she needs because he doesn’t want to hurt her. The verse that goes “If you choose to stay, you’ll throw it all away!” describes the last thing he wants to say because he needs her to understand exactly why he is doing this. He believes that if she stays with him, she is just throwing it all away.
He tells her there is no such thing as fate and that if she sticks around there’s only herself to blame if she gets hurt because he’s warned her.
Though he does care, he is letting her know in advance that all he will do is hurt her. “Child don’t follow me home. You’re just too perfect for my hands to hold.” He wants to avoid playing her at all costs, because she is that perfect and means that much to him. He would rather be alone than take away this young girl’s innocence because he has finally fallen for real, and he isn’t playing around with this particular young lady’s emotions like he does everyone else’s.. It’s sad really. A tragically beautiful love story. -
Lizzy Hale answered this question for me awhile ago during one of her #AskLzzyAnything rounds on twitter. The song is about drug addiction among her friends when she was young. But, it is written from the perspective of the drug. If you analyze the lyrics, it make perfect sense. However, the great thing about this song, and many others, is how versatile it is. Her main intent was for us to find our own meaning from it.
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"An artist can't sing about wanting to rape kids."
Of course they can.
All these lines can be interpreted as a pedophiliac trying to justify his/her impulses (out of a sense of guilt):
Child...
I only come when you scream.
I just want to take your innocence.
You're just too perfect for my hands to hold.
I agree the other interpretations are possible (older adult with teenager, BDSM). But the song writer could have easily adjusted the lyrics to indicate the "child" wasn't a literal child. But she didn't. She's too good a writer to allow it to happen unintentionally.
This isn't glorifying pedophilia or other dark impulses. It's laying it bare. The grotesque honesty in the song is just like Halestorm's other stuff.
It gets to a truth, depravity in this case. That's what makes it art. -
I really can't understand what is everyone thinking...this is not about molestation. An artist can't sing about wanting to rape kids. I think this is about a really toxic relationship. It's obvious to me. One lover is so, so fucked up that in comparison, the other one is as innocent as a kid. It's about wanting somebody desperately despite how bad you are for that person. Yes, the fucked up one might be on drugs ("running towards the wall") and that is even worse. But it's lover doesn't see how toxic (s)he is and (s)he's being ripped apart between knowing that (s)he's not good for him/her and needing him/her to come back and run away as fast as possible in the opposite direction at the same time. At least that's how Lizzie is singing it, like a desperate plead (the mouth says "go away", but the soul cries "don't leave me!").
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I was thinking about Stockholm syndrome
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Why can't it be a boy propositioning an older woman?
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This reminds of a teenage girl pressured into get pregnant but then regrets it once she fully realizing what shes getting herself into.
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Four little letters - BDSM. Lzzy is singing from the perspective of a dominatrix with someone who is merely BSDM-curious.
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I think it is about a troubled person who decides to go to a drug dealer to receive drugs, so they can feel better. What they didn't realize is that the drug becomes their life.
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