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Her green plastic watering can for
her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
What she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber bands
to get rid of itself
It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out
She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyreneman
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him
She Looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out
If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time
her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
What she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber bands
to get rid of itself
It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out
She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyreneman
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him
She Looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love
But I can't help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out
If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time
Lyrics submitted by piesupreme
Track duration: 04:52
"Fake Plastic Trees" as written by Thomas Edward/o'brien Yorke
Lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song is absolutely brilliant. I think it's trying to say that the entire earth is made up of these fake plastic problems, except for the one girl he says is the "real thing". He inflicts self pity when saying that he doesn't deserve her and she is worth more than his fake plastic love.
read a bunch of the comments already on here and i agree with a lot, but here is my take....
this song is about depression, and how when in this state of mind, everything appears fake, plastic, made of rubber
there are three verses, with the perspective of three different people, but are all really encapsulated by the narrator, the person in the last verse. the first verse is that of a woman, which sets the backdrop of a world view in which something as simple and as natural as a plant is in fact fake, rubber. everything about it, the earth its in, the person it was bought from is false. the whole town has rubber plans that will lead it nowhere, its own plans will get rid of itself. this is the world view of the depressed. everything is false, and plans to the contrary lead nowhere.
in the second verse we have a man, the man who the woman lives with. this verse is about the futility and falsity of the man work. he is cracked, like a polystyrene cup that if broken and would easily crumble and burn up. his work is to try to preserve beauty (in a false manner), but gravity always wins. through all the verses, there is the repetition of "wears out". the hallmark of depression, all of this - the world, one's work, its all just so tiring.
the final verse is the most meaningful, as the music builds. this is the perspective of the narrator (though in reality the first two are as well). this is the main point of the song, that for the depressed mind, not even love can be trusted. it feels real, tastes real, but there is that nagging feeling it is false, and will therefore not last. previous comments discuss the idea of living up to some image, but it is actually simpler than that. the narrator feels inadequate, he can't shake the feeling that his love is fake so he should just turn and run. he feels he can't ever live up to who his love wants him to be, regardless of whether that's actually true or not. he feels maybe he can for a little while, but certainly not all the time. if he could just feel like he could live up to his own expectations of what he thinks she wants, maybe his love could be real. but that is the signature of the depressed, its not what she may or may not really think, but his constant perception of not being able to live up to her expectations. he will never feel he's lived up to what she wants, as the world seems fake to him, and he can never trust his own or anyone else's love.
"She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing, my fake plastic love". Everything should have been right, but it wasn't. When we were together I felt I never got to know the real her, and I think she felt likewise. She was my fake plastic love... so perfect to me that I could never fully open up to her. In the words of Noel Gallagher, "True perfection has to be imperfect", and this imperfection is what we were lacking. It wore me out...
Love and heartbreak come and go, but this song will remain as beautiful and meaningful to me as when I first stumbled upon it.
If this feeling resonates with any of you, 'Keeping Score' by Mick Flannery also captivates it beautifully
It wears me out, it wears me out
If i could be who you wanted
If i could be who you wanted all the time, all the time
I played this song while I was contemplating suicide. I was (still) facing a lot of heartache: my asperger's is a significant obstacle to my social life, my dad physically and verbally abuses me, and the women i love are nice but are shallow, materialistic and don't love me back. By august 26, these things wore me out and i finally tried to kill myself because i felt like no one will ever love me enough to stop hurting me like my dad or love me for who i am. If i could be who she wanted me to be, i feel that women would finally accept me. this shallowness of our society just destroys good hearted people who may not be gorgeous but have a lot to offer. this song is easily one of my favorite songs but it is also one of the saddest songs for this reason.