I Know It’s Over by Steven PatrickSummary
This is a bleak, perhaps morbid, but sensitive and intelligent songlyric, which most critics see as being about the end of fictional orfantasy relationship. But the interpretation can be much deeper,indeed, a bottomless pit for those who are inclined to wallow inhelplessness and suicidal thoughts. There are four distinct sectionsthat are not entirely connected and this leads to a variety ofinterpretations in linking them, enabling the audience to projecttheir own feelings onto the words. And yet, the emotional intensityseems to produce elation[1] not depression (perhaps more in theperformance than the poetry). Speculation about the meaning of thelines (as long as it is not overdone) can lead to a satisfyingenjoyment.Structure
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The first section describes our hero’s immediate state of mind withthe image of his empty bed as a grave:
Oh Mother, I can feel the soil falling over my head
and as I climb into an empty bed
Oh, well. Enough said.
As if being buried alive, the melancholy protagonist feels that hislife may as well be over: I know it’s over – still I cling/I don’tknow where else I can go. Perhaps an intense relationship has come toan end, leading to thoughts of despair and suicide, but it may be lessobvious. He equates his imagined forthcoming death with a feeling ofutter helplessness, but it seems that death is not an option becausehe finds it difficult to act, as we shall see. So, although the seawants to take me/the knife wants to slit me, he does not seem to wantit. He does ask do you think you can help me? but of whom? His mothe…
…tates that love isNatural and Real: is he afraid that for such as you and I, my love itis unnatural and imaginary?Themes
Typically for this writer the themes are unrequited love, isolation,loneliness, helplessness, etc. The Wildean themes are, perhaps, in themind of the reader/listener. Indeed, the overall vagueness andambiguity, typical of this author, together with the complexity of thestructure allows for a dichotomy of interpretations.———————————————————————
[1] However, I acknowledge David Pinching, writing in his essay OscarWilde’s influence on Stephen Fry and Morrissey, when he says that”Wilde represents isolation within one’s own world and a grand set oftheories about the most irrelevant and absurd things.”
[2] All italics original
