Ivy is a sapphic love song, an analysis
Two women in love with each other, and they married to different men. A secret relationship they know is perceived as wrong, but they will do anything to keep each other.
And the old widow goes to the stone every day
But I don’t, I just sit here and wait
Grieving for the living
“”Grieving for the living.” This line reminds me of all of the women who love other women but don’t get the chance to experience a real, true love.
Oh, goddamn
My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand
Taking mine, but it’s been promised to another
Oh, I can’t
Stop you putting roots in my dreamland
My house of stone, your ivy grows
And now I’m covered in you
“My pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand.” - The other woman’s hands are freezing, so she starts this “fire” mentioned later in the song. This symbolizes the narrator’s love for the other woman (we’ll call her Ivy) warms her, even if they both know it’s “wrong” because they are both in separate relationships.(And women.)
I wish to know
The fatal flaw that makes you long to be
Magnificently cursed
The narrator here may be asking the other woman: “I just want to know, are you afflicted by this? Are you cursed? Is this your fatal flaw? …Is being with me going to destroy you?” Basically, I think this is a delicate way of wondering if the other woman is gay, too. It’s their complication.
He’s in the room
Your opal eyes are all I wish to see
He wants what’s only yours
The other woman’s husband is there. The narrator is jealous of him. He only wants what Ivy can give him: whether it be money, status, some claim on her personhood. Meanwhile, the narrator wants nothing more than to look into Ivy’s eyes. She loves her for her.
What would he do if he found us out?
“What would your husband do if he knew you were in love with another woman?”
He’s gonna burn this house to the ground
How’s one to know?
I’d live and die for moments that we stole
On begged and borrowed time
So tell me to run
Or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become
And drink my husband’s wine
For better or for worse, the narrator wants Ivy. She knows what they are doing is wrong, but she would do it for anything, as long as Ivy is up for it.
“Or dare to sit and watch what we’ll become.” –> Even if everything goes to shit, if we lose everything, is it enough? She is tired of hiding, tired of pretending.
:And drink my husband’s wine.” / “He’s in the room, Your opal eyes are all I wish to see, He wants what’s only yours = This is a relationship between two women.
So yeah, it’s a war
It’s the goddamn fight of my life
She has been telling us her whole life. This is her fight. She has never been louder.
She has never been louder.
(I will update this in the morning when I can write more descriptively and in-depth with the other song connections lol. Wrote 12:50 AM 12/11/20 before seeing any other opinions/analysis on evermore)
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
gracieabrams
titsay
germansingergirl
vaporwave
theartofmadeline
discoholicmusic
