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Polly wants a cracker
I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like some food
She asks me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Polly said
Polly says her back hurts
And she's just as bored as me
She caught me off my guard
It amazes me, the will of instinct
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like some food
She asks me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Polly said
Polly says her back hurts
And she's just as bored as me
She caught me off my guard
It amazes me, the will of instinct
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Lyrics submitted by bonj, edited by manic4manics, TomTom20
Track duration: 03:16
"Polly" as written by Kurt Cobain
Lyrics © EMI Music Publishing, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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this wasn't about drugs.
polly was written about a girl 14 years old coming out of a gig, kidnapped by gerald friend. He tied her up in his mobile home [upside down] and raped / tortured her with a leather whip, razor, blow torch and hot wax, she gained his trust by saying the torture was boring her and such lies [ which would have been exetremely hard to do assfucks ] and while he stopped for gas she got out of the vehicle and made a scene attracting attention from surrounding people friend was arrested and rape me is believed as a polly hitback which Kurt says is just 'poetic justice' about a man who rapes a girl and goes to jail and while there he gets raped.
any more question shitheads you can't get anything right stop trying
p.s.
IS NOT ABOUT DRUG USAGE
&&
stop making shit up it isn't funny it's serious stuff dumbasses
The lyrics are about drug usage perhaps as an analog to rape. Perhaps turning himself/courtney into the victim and the drug into the rapist.
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Polly wants a cracker
I think I should get off her first
I think she wants some water
To put out the blow torch
Being ignorant of the real events that the first passage supposedly references you might be confused by these lyrics. I see "water" as a metaphor for heroin, and the "blow torch" as addiction.
---
It isn't me
We have some seed
Let me clip
Your dirty wings
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
This is the part where I think it's specifically about drug abuse and the metaphor of control and abuse that drugs like heroin afflict on the user.
We have some seed could be drugs, heroin of course.
Let me clip your dirty wings is an interesting line. It has a restorative, healing implication. Which is that the drug, heroin, will restore you, make you feel "right" again.
Let me take a ride could refer to the heroin induced high.
I want some help, to please myself, is a telling line. Heroin addicts often do drugs together, and even get assistance shooting up, sometimes having another person shoot them up. This is done because heroin is so fast acting that a user will literally pass out before they can take the needle out...
I've got some rope, You have been told, could refer to the use of a tourniquet to make veins "pop" so that they're easier to inject.
I promise you, I have been true, refers to the idea that two users using together will say some sort of parting words before they go off into never never land.
---
The first verse does imply this song might be about rape, but I think it likens the experience of being raped and abused to the experience of being a drug addict. The drug has total control, it takes and takes, it destroys, any happiness brought about by use is fleeting and an illusion.
Polly is a typical name for a parrot which is a bird. It alludes to the "I know why the cage bird sings" in which Maya Angelo is raped and molested/raped as a child. As the song "rape me" is the view of her being raped by Gerald Friend she had to pretend that she liked being raped in order to escape. To connect it to "Rape me" which is in the point of view from her instead of the rapist in this situation. "I am not the only one." She was not the only one that Friend raped he escaped many times and was released from prison then went back and raped a girl who got away. Sad very sad.
Often people train their parrots Polly wants a cracker and other things. Often when people are raped or molested especially throughout their life they are trained to just do what the rapist/molester wants ands sometimes they get a reward. Ie you might get a new handbag if you just first let the rapist/molester do something to you.. Like to say "Polly wants a cracker" before someone gives the bird a cracker or whatever is needed. youtube.com/… Or to him her cries or screams at first just sound like polly wants a cracker, polly wants a cracker. But it is not what she wants it is what he wants. Also the rapist is turning the girl into a bird instead of a human. He does not even see her as a person especially one that has needs.
Poily wants a cracker but I got to get off her first
Well lots of meanings when you know she is being raped. Either he gets off because she is hurt/upset or I could get her a cracker for my little birdie (the girl he is raping) but I would have to get off of her first/ie stop raping her and maybe that is not something that he is ready to do..
He knows that she wants some water to maybe defuse his power/libido so that eventually he will stop. Or she hopes that eventually he will come so that he can stop raping her.
Blow torch could be to mean the actual blow torch that was used against her or could be a sexual reference or phallic reference thus when he says I have some seeds it could be food, drugs (pot etc) or it could be semen. Just the idea that he is defiling her. Clipping her wings. Wings could be reference her hands being attached to a pulley rope as she was unable to use them. But also people clip chicken wings or other caged birds so that they cannot escape. He does not want to let her escape. He is trying his best to not let her go.
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
I've got some rope
You have been told
I promise you
I have been true
Let me take a ride
Don't cut yourself
I want some help
To please myself
Basically come one let me defile you, to get me off, do not fight it just let me do it. I want to tie you up with rope and do not fight or you will get cuts on your arms/wrists so do not fight. Just let me do it to get myself off. Also let me take a ride could be the connection that she hitch hiked and he gave her a ride in his car.
Polly wants a cracker
Maybe she would like some food
She asks me to untie her
A chase would be nice for a few
The girl in real life acted like she liked it and when he trusted her she asked him to untie her. He liked the idea of chasing her.
Polly says her back hurts
And she's just as bored as me
She caught me off my guard
It amazes me, the will of instinct
The girl goes by instinct and says things that might save her. She says her back hurts and that she liked it but this is getting boring. She lured him by saying lets do something new. So he is caught off guard then she runs away and frees herself. In real life she runs off after he unties her at a gas station and gets help.
Very sad song! Glad this is not on the nirvana Rockabye baby album they have!
There's a point in the song where Cobain sings only "Polly says..." before pausing and starting over. This was a mistake in the studio that the band as well as the recording team liked, and left on the album. As evidenced in live performances, the mistake was "written in" to the song.