Control

Ah, "Control". One of her absolute best, from a fabulous album centred on the chaos of reaffirming the spirit.

I've always seen this song as the penultimate theme of taking back control in a circumstance where it almost seems impossible: abuse, especially abuse in childhood.

Here, the narrator declares her freedom from the tragic guilt and emotional blackmail. She is no longer a victim, but a survivor. And she wants her former captor to know that he's lost. Big-time.

I couldn't choose a single line or verse as they are all extremely apropos and full of gritty reality. It's an exquisite mantra and highly recommended for anyone trying to get out from under the thumb and take back their spirit.

The literalist gloss is obviously someone who is in a bad relationship (e.g. male/female) and manages to overcome it. An interpretation which might be a little more interesting is the concept of an inner conflict where the singer is fighting against the "little voice in her head" that tells her she isn't good enough. The battle is for self-control, and the battle has been won.

Don't you mess with a little girl's dreams Coz she's liable to grow up mean (While the meaning of these two lines are pretty obvious, I really do think it refers to her childhood – her father messed with her dreams by being too controlling and dominating, and now she's grown up mean.

I know I may be totally off-base here, but this line especially causes me to think that this song is partly all the negative feelings that she had against her dad. It's from the album "Haunted", and the entire album is about her father, and how she came upon some tapes of some of his lectures, and it shook her to her core to hear her father's voice again after he's been dead for so long. Anyone ever listen to the entire album in sequence? It tells the whole story of her relationship with him, the ups, downs, rebellions etc, until it ends in peace and love with "If you were here"

One of the reasons this song is so powerful for me, and prolly why I'm so sure it's at least partly about her dad, is because this song NAILS my feelings towards my step dad, and how I'd like to feel if I should ever run into him again.)

Surprise you to find that I'm laughing? You thought that you'd find me in tears You thought I'd be crawling the walls Like a tiny mosquito and trembling in fear (This would probably be what she'd expect her father (or abuser, if this song is not about the father figure at all) to think she'd feel upon encountering him again. He'd expect her to still be the fearful, powerless (like a mosquito) victim he made her to be).

Well you may be king for the moment, But I am a queen, understand? And I got your pawns and your bishops and castles All inside the palm of my hand (In my life, as a teenager living with an absolute horrible step father, this verse nailed my feelings completely and gave me strength and hope that things would change eventually.

So, the abuser is obviously at this point still in a position of power, but she, the victim, knows that it's only a matter of time before she's no longer dependant on him, and then she'll be the one calling the shots)

While you were looking the other way While you had your eyes closed While you were likcing your lips Cause I was miserable While you were selling your soul While you were tearing a hole in me I was taking control (She's saying that even while he was busy torturing her (in whatever way) and enjoying it and gloating over the pain it causes her, she was busy finding herself and her strenght, and he was too caught up in his pleasure at her pain to notice or do anything about it.)

Now I have taken control Now I have taken control Control

Well this is beginning to feel good Watching your squirm in your shoes A small bead of sweat on your brow And a growl in your belly you're scared to let loose (Now she's seeing him again, and he no longer has power over her. She is now strong and angry and she "grew up mean", and she can take him on. This scares him, and she's enjoying his unease.)

You thought you could keep me from loving Yeah you thought you could feed on my soul But while you were busy destroying my life What was half in me has become whole (She's stating what her destroyer's goals were, but once again that while he was too busy enjoying her pain, she was "becoming whole" and he was too caught up in her pain to notice)

While you were looking the other way While you had your eyes closed While you were likcing your lips Cause I was miserable While you were selling your soul While you were tearing a hole in me I was taking control Now I have taken control Now I have taken control Control

So this is how it feels To breathe in the summer air Feel the sand between my toes And the love inside my ear All those things you taught me to fear: I got them in my garden now And you're not welcome here (After breaking free, "taking control", she was able to do all of these things he taught her "to fear" through his actions, and she saw that the way he taught it to her was beautiful and precious, and she's cultivating them, and he can't come in and destroy them again)

This cannot be all that there is to life Because in our confrontation with an enormous and cold universe There's something comical to the idea That we can really force our… our will on humanity Power corrupts

(This is, for me, a reference to the fact that people try to get power over others, and they get corrupted by that power and start to abuse it. It's also ironic that it's her father saying it, while I suspect that the song is at least in part about him.)

This is a fantastic song. I love the image of the former victim siezing control of her life again, in a decisive manner.

Featured in the soundtrack of the film "How To Make A Monster".

damn this song is empowering. blast it.

This has always been such an anthem for me. People always see me as this saint that will never walk away or give up on something no matter how much it hurts me(which is true), or in most cases, how poorly someone is treating me. I'm always turning the other cheek and forgiving people no matter how badly they treat me. I came to a point though where I realized that it wasn't worth it.

I remember the first summer I was really having a bad time with a certain friend of mine, who I always happened to see in the summer, so the line about breathing in the summer air and all...it just says that without him, she can finally really enjoy her summer. Her freedom. Gives me flashbacks of driving in Vegas with the windows rolled down.

I also love the spoken bit about how comical it is to think you can enforce your will on humanity and all, because it describes how I view that friend of mine. He always thinks he controls everything, that he is infallible and his will is the law. Well, this song is how I felt when I realized his will was not the law, and that in fact I am so much more than he is by way of a friend that in the end, he's the one who loses out. I've got a lot in my garden now, and he isn't welcome there.

Fuck the naysayers, indeed!

Pretty self-explanatory. Revenge!

This reminds me of how this boy dumped me and feed off of my greff, and when i called him one time to ask him if he would sit with me for a few days wile i tryed to detox he told me he hoped i died. and i then relised how he treated me and only wanted me to be up set because he liked it i moved on, and quit smoking bad things...

This reminds me of how this boy dumped me and feed off of my greff, and when i called him one time to ask him if he would sit with me for a few days wile i tryed to detox he told me he hoped i died. and i then relised how he treated me and only wanted me to be up set because he liked it i moved on, and quit smoking bad things...

I love this song and Poe's work so much...as a rape and abuse survivor this song became my personal anthem and helped me to heal. I know many other survivors who see it this way also.