Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
you were fresh off the boat
from virginia
i had a year of new york city
under my belt
we met in a dream
we were both nineteen
i remember where we were standing
i remember how it felt
two little girls
growing out of their training bras
this little girl breaks furniture
this little girl breaks laws
two girls together
just a little less alone
this little girl cried wee wee wee
all the way home
you were always half crazy
now look at your baby
you make as much sense
as a nursery rhyme
love is a piano
dropped from a fourth story window
and you were in the wrong place
at the wrong time
and i don't like your girlfriend
i blame her
i never seen one of your lovers
do you so much harm
i loved you first
and you know i would prefer
if she didn't empty her syringes
into your arm
here comes little naked me
padding up to the bathroom door
to find little naked you
slumped on the bathroom floor
with my back against the wall
while you distill your whole life
down to a 911 call
now you bring me your bruises
so i can 'ooh' and 'aah' at the display
maybe i'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes
that makes everything okay
or maybe i'm supposed to be the handsome prince
who rides up and unties your hands
or maybe i'm the furrow-browed friend
who thinks she understands
here comes little naked me
padding up to the bathroom door
to find little naked you
slumped on the bathroom floor
so i guess i'll just stand here
with my back against the wall
while you distill your whole life
down to a 911 call
from virginia
i had a year of new york city
under my belt
we met in a dream
we were both nineteen
i remember where we were standing
i remember how it felt
two little girls
growing out of their training bras
this little girl breaks furniture
this little girl breaks laws
two girls together
just a little less alone
this little girl cried wee wee wee
all the way home
you were always half crazy
now look at your baby
you make as much sense
as a nursery rhyme
love is a piano
dropped from a fourth story window
and you were in the wrong place
at the wrong time
and i don't like your girlfriend
i blame her
i never seen one of your lovers
do you so much harm
i loved you first
and you know i would prefer
if she didn't empty her syringes
into your arm
here comes little naked me
padding up to the bathroom door
to find little naked you
slumped on the bathroom floor
with my back against the wall
while you distill your whole life
down to a 911 call
now you bring me your bruises
so i can 'ooh' and 'aah' at the display
maybe i'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes
that makes everything okay
or maybe i'm supposed to be the handsome prince
who rides up and unties your hands
or maybe i'm the furrow-browed friend
who thinks she understands
here comes little naked me
padding up to the bathroom door
to find little naked you
slumped on the bathroom floor
so i guess i'll just stand here
with my back against the wall
while you distill your whole life
down to a 911 call
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
I think this song is very clear and not at all open to interpretation while others on the album are (like swan dive, for example). The people on this thread discussing her sexuality are a little too caught up in it, I think. It seems to me that this song is more about love and disappointment, whether it be friendship or romance, and how she saw someone she came of age with in NYC end up ruining their life with drugs (not necessarily heroin, but obviously something you shoot up). There was a time when I thought it might be Tori Amos as I had heard that they were friends and that Tori had a drug problem -- the stanza that might allude to this is:
"you were always half crazy
now look at your baby
you make as much sense
as a nursery rhyme
love is a piano
dropped from a fourth story window
and you were in the wrong place
at the wrong time"
If you've ever heard Tori Amos in an interview over the course of her first 3 or 4 albums, she would often talk in tangents of these weird, abstract metaphors, so much so that I would wonder if she's at all sane ("nursery rhymes"), and the analogy/joke of a piano dropping on someone is perfect for that. More support for the theory that it's about Tori is the "fresh off the boat from Virginia", even though Tori had grown up in Rockville, MD, it's right next to DC (northern Virginia) which means to get to NYC she would have taken a bus (or boat) there. I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure Tori spent plenty of family outings in Virginia as well.
I had also heard at one point that the two had a falling out of sorts and later heard Tori in an interview say that she used to have a girlfriend that was really into her but she wasn't "into that kind of thing. I mean, I am, but I don't eat hair pie." LOL She could really have been talking about anyone, but it was around the time Choirgirl Hotel came out, which is also the time Little Plastic Castle came out.
So, people can argue Ani's sexuality all they want, but it's a known fact, if even from Ani's early lyrics alone, that she swung both ways ("sometimes the line I walk tends to deviate", and other lines from her early albums), and if everything I've heard and read about both of these artists over the years is even half-true, these two openly bisexual women were very close at some point. When Two Little Girls was released, I think it was Ani's disappointment in Tori Amos's life choices at that time. Another song that could be about the same relationship is Pulse.
Just my interpretation, but it fits, no?? :)
This relationship ended somehow, and her ex got involved with another woman who shot heroin (most likely: "syringes") and got her ex into heroin. This is why her friend is slumped on the bathroom floor; she over-dosed and needs medial attention Ani, still really caring for this woman, doesn't know what to do.
She expresses "i blame her/never seen one of your lovers do you so much harm/i loved you first and you know i would prefer /if she didn't empty her syringes into your arm" and is conflicted with either making a joke of the situation, taking up the role of lover again, or the role of friend ("maybe i'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes that makes everything ok/maybe i'm supposed to be the handsome prince who rides up and unties your hands/or maybe i'm supposed to be the furrow-browed friend who thinks she understands")
The end of the song doesn't resolve her conflict as she feels helpless to help this woman who is flushing her life away. ("so i guess i'll just stand here with my back against the wall/while you distill your whole life down to a 911 call")
This relationship ended somehow, and her ex got involved with another woman who shot heroin (most likely: "syringes") and got her ex into heroin. This is why her friend is slumped on the bathroom floor; she over-dosed and needs medial attention Ani, still really caring for this woman, doesn't know what to do.
She expresses "i blame her/never seen one of your lovers do you so much harm/i loved you first and you know i would prefer /if she didn't empty her syringes into your arm" and is conflicted with either making a joke of the situation, taking up the role of lover again, or the role of friend ("maybe i'm supposed to make one of my famous jokes that makes everything ok/maybe i'm supposed to be the handsome prince who rides up and unties your hands/or maybe i'm supposed to be the furrow-browed friend who thinks she understands")
The end of the song doesn't resolve her conflict as she feels helpless to help this woman who is flushing her life away. ("so i guess i'll just stand here with my back against the wall/while you distill your whole life down to a 911 call")
Get over it.
and I LOVE the line
"while you distill your whole life down to a 911 call"
the use of the word distill makes that line!!
I find this song really sad.
This song is definitely about niavety.
The first two lines clearly state that, "fresh off the boar from Virginia" and "a year of New York City under my belt."
The reference to training bras and nursery rhymes also cues you into the niave part.
In the girls niavety she turns to drugs.
I don't think the girlfriend is an actual person, just an addiction that the girl is treating like a lover.
"You were fresh off the boat from virginia
i had a year in new york city under my belt"
This metaphor for differing sexual experiences is amazingly clever. She is such a talented lyricist.
i love it when she sings "this little girl cries wee wee
all the way home..." and it sounds like a subway/ train horn. awesome touch. i always thought that it was "this little girl cried oui oui all the way home", as in screaming "YES!" all the way home?
No matter. awesome song. ani is a goddess.