So, this song is very straightforward to me. Does anyone have a different take on it than, "it's about an underage hooker"?

"Come in, come in
Come into my world
I've got to show, show, show you
Come into my bed
I've got to know, know, know you
I have dreams of Orca whales and owls
But I wake up in fear
You will never be my -
You will never be my
fool
Will never be my fool

Floaters in my eyes
Wake up in a hotel room
Cigarettes and lies
I am a child, it's too soon
I have dreams of Orca whales and owls
But I wake up in fear
You will never be my
You will never be my fool
Will never be my fool

A little bag of cocaine
A little bag of cocaine
So who's the girl wearing my dress?
I figured out her number
It's on a paper napkin
But I don't know her address

I wade/wait downstairs
The porter smiles to me
A smile I've bought
With a couple of gold coins
A sign that I've been caught
I have dreams of Orca whales and owls
But I wake up in fear
You will never be my -
You will never be my dear
Will never be my dear, dear friend

dear, dear friend"

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Be like the water, people.,

wow, i never even thought about it, but that makes perfect sense! i believe you are correct. also, i always thought it was "i figured out her number, its on a paper napkin" rather than "inside a paper napkin." Is that wrong? how can something be inside a paper napkin?

I actually agree with you about the lyrics haha

i just copied them straight over from the Begin to Hope lyrics thread.. didn't bother to check 'em... I'll change them now

this song always confuses me

I think there are 3 POVs in this song:

a teen boy
a hooker
the boy's girlfriend

these are the boy's lines:

I have dreams of Orca whales and owls
But I wake up in fear
You will never be my fool
Will never be my fool
Floaters in my eyes
Wake up in a hotel room
Cigarettes and lies
I am a child, it's too soon
I wade downstairs
The porter smiles to me
A smile I've bought
With a couple of gold coins
A sign that I've been caught



These are the hooker lines:

Come in, come in
Come into my world
I've got to show, show, show you
Come into my bed
I've got to know, know, know you
You will never be my dear
Will never be my dear, dear friend



and these are the girlfriend lines:

A little bag of cocaine
A little bag of cocaine
So who's the girl wearing my dress?
I figured out her number
It's on a paper napkin
But I don't know her address



So, the main idea is:
the boy and his gf are staying in a hotel. They are too young and never have spoken about sex. Maybe he tries to convince her to have sex with him, and she doesn't want to, so he leaves in an angry mood.
Then, the boy calls a hooker. The hooker comes, and that's when the song begins.
He has sex with the hooker, have fun with cocaine, etc., and when they finish, she says "you will never be my friend", implying that hookers never have sentimental relationships. And then she leaves wearing a dress of the girlfriend (I wonder why, lol).
He feels guilty then (he realizes he is still a child, has dreams of orcas and owls... It was so soon...). So he tries to leave the hotel, and meets the porter. he tries to bribe him to keep quiet. in the meantime, the girlfriend come back to the hotel and she meets with the hooker, who is leaving, and is wearing her dress. Quickly she goes upstairs and confronts the boy. They go back to the room, and she found the cocaine, the phone number and realizes he had sex with a hooker. Angrily she realizes the girl with her dress was, in fact, the hooker, so maybe she wants to punch her in the face... but she doesn't know her adress!

I assume the girlfriend and the boy broke up after this incident



I'm Sorry, I got carried away... I can't control my creativity! Lol

hmm... your interpretation certainly clears up some lines that mine pretty much left in the dark, E.J.!
however, i still think there's a single POV: a youngster-at-heart who is a prostitute:

"come into my world! i have to show you!
come into my bed i have to know you!"

these sound like naieve requests from a young girl to her boyfriend; she's pressuring him to have sex with her, so that they'll be better acquainted. She thinks that sex is the way to get to know someone.

"i have dreams of orca whales and owls"
deep down she's a very young soul; her physical age has little to do with the song.

"but i wake up in fear"
she's unsure of where she'll wake up; she lives a dangerous life.

"you will never be my fool"
i don't know if the fear line hooks in with this one, or if they're separate. If they're supposed to go together, she wakes in fear that, even after having sex, she and her partner will never be in love.
If separate- (which i think ia the case; waking up in fear is used to contrast her "dream life" with reality, not to illustrate her feelings about not being close with him) -this line is her realization that sex doesn't make people love you.

"floaters in my eyes, wake up in a hotel room"
pretty self-explanitory. This time, she wakes up in a hotel room...

"cigarettes and lies"
i think this sums up her general surroundings pretty well (note that she pays off the porter to keep his mouth shut. This is one of the lies she referrences)
"i am a child"
like in Prisoners, this character considers herself to be young at heart. Just a child, an innocent.

"it's too soon"
she walked into this life without understanding that she wasn't cut out for it. now that she's waking in fear and, more physically, hotel rooms, she sees that she's made a mistake.

"i have dreams...
...be my fool"

same as before, except now it's been established that she's not some innocent girl in middle school who encourages her boyfriend into bed. She definitely has freer reign of her life than any child would.

"oh, little bag of cocaine
who's the girl wearing my dress?"
never done the drug myself, but as most mind-altering substances are, by nature, mind-altering, it's no surprise that confusion about her own identity follows a skippy little line about coke...

"i figured out her number, it's on a paper napkin, but i don't know her address"

during this part of the song, i've always assumed she was under the influence (hence the change in music (?), so this line is just more identity confusion. (i rather like your approach to this part, E.J.. it's not as far-fetched as mine!)
Another possibilty is that, unhappy with her own life, this woman sees someone who is presumably living the life /she/ wants to live. Being jealous, our hooker lays claim to everything she can find out about the mysterious woman: she finds her number on a napkin, wants her dress. But knows nothing about where she lives.

OR "i don't know her address" is a fancy way of saying, "i'm homeless". she lives on the street, and while there's a number you can call to get her services, she has no home.

"i wade/wait downstairs the porter smiles to me
a smile i bought with a couple of gold coins, a sign that i'd been caught"

caught? Apparently, she's continually doing something secretive in this same hotel. She's had to pay off the porter to keep his mouth shut about it, and in return, receives smug sideways smiles from him every time she passes.
Any thoughts about why they're gold coins? is this song set in a different era?

and that's all there is to my lyrical annalysis.

About the music: it's sooo happy, it falls in with my theory that happy-sounding songs tend to not be very happy songs.. if the mere sound of a regina song makes you want to smile, the lyrics will probably make you want to cry.

i don't know if i've said this before, but there's a part of me that thinks regina uses prostitutes in her songs to illustrate giving her songs up to the public (in Bon Idee, while there's no hooker, sums up the sentiment quite well.).. Like she feels like a prostitute making her songs available to others/strangers.
I don't know. Just an unsubstantiated concept that's been floating around in my head for a while, i guess.

Well I've always seen the song as being about prostitution, but not necessarily about a young girl. I see her in her late 20s. She's been "in the business" for a while, and is starting to realize that she's lost touch with who she is. She's less than amused by the hotel porter teasing her by offering her money ("a smile I bought. A couple of gold coins, a sign that I've been caught."), she lives in painful awareness of how dangerous her lifestyle is, ("I wake up in fear.") and she longs for a more intimate relationship ("Come into my world... show you... Bed... Know you.")

Worst of all, she no longer knows who she is. "Who's that girl wearing my dress?" She internally makes fun of her identity crisis with the discussion of her phone number and address. I find these few lines very clever for some reason.