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Build a fire for Val Jester
Build a room for your love
Take your time when you tell her
How she lives in your blood
You should've looked after her better
You should've looked after her more
You should've locked the door
Fill her coat with weapons and help her get it on
'Cause one day when she goes, she's gone
You should've held on to her better
You should've held on to her more
You should've locked the door
All the most important people in New York are nineteen
All the most important people in New York
All the most important people in New York
Build a room for your love
Take your time when you tell her
How she lives in your blood
You should've looked after her better
You should've looked after her more
You should've locked the door
Fill her coat with weapons and help her get it on
'Cause one day when she goes, she's gone
You should've held on to her better
You should've held on to her more
You should've locked the door
All the most important people in New York are nineteen
All the most important people in New York
All the most important people in New York
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You should've looked after her better
You should've looked after her more
Is almost word-for-word from Terry Malloy (Marlon Brando) speech in the car to Charlie(Rod Stieger) in the 1955/56? classic "On The Waterfront" .."You was my Brother, Charlie - you shoulda looked after me a little better, you shoulda looked after me a little more"
Again, could be coincidence but this struck me.
You have to let her go, she's in need of somebody her age.
It doesn't matter so much whether "she" is a daughter or a lover. You can be paternal to both, you can provide both with the weapons to stand a fight against the future men in her life. The struggle of the sexes, not rape or abuse.
There's a distinct progression from "you should have looked after her better" (that's always reasonable) via "you should have looked after her more" (would indiscretion and surveillance have helped or made it worse?) to "you should have locked the door" (that's crazy!) where this the hypothetic conclusion -- an act of irrationality -- betrays the hopelessness of the situation from the beginning.
It's nothing better care or closer attention could have prevented either and you know that. She realized that your romanticism that builds homes and lives in beautiful words is a shackle she now can freely slip out of. To meet other people.
"You should have looked after her better",
"Cos one day when she's gone, she's gone"
I took these as the person having passed on, and the first verse I took as like telling the person who has dies that they still live on in you... Or something like that, but one thing is for sure, it is Fucking beautiful.... =)
He blames himself for not being there when this happened to someone he loves. The coat of weapons is not a means of keeping his love as his own, but of protecting her when he cannot be with her. He says that he "should have locked the door" and feels an irrational sense of guilt for not preventing harm to his daughter/lover.
I am also drawing from personal experience. Listening to a song after different points in one's life can resonate with different experiences.
"Take your time when you tell her
How she lives in your blood"
"You should've looked after her better
You should've looked after her more"
He should have stuck around and been a parent to her?
"All the most important people in New York are nineteen"
Sounds to me like she's always on his mind, that line repeating again and again.