How do you interpret these lyrics?

I’d say the girl is optimistic, but foolishly.

I think you have to listen to the whole song, for the music and the lyrical context and the refrain.

The music is rather plaintive, definitely not upbeat.

The second stanza has a boy on a hill with a hammer waiting for ?lightning (couldn’t hear everything), and then there’s one more stanza that uses the word “tragedy” three times. I couldn’t catch the rest.

The refrain, “It’s just not just, it’s just wrong,” tells the rest of the story.

This song is about not necessarily getting what you want and what you hope for, even if you think you deserve it and have done everything you ought to do to get it. It says “Life isn’t fair” (which is certainly true; fairness doesn’t enter into it—it’s not one of the components of life). Maybe you will and maybe you won’t, but there’s no guarantee when success depends on elements not under your control: the wind, the lightning, the love of another.

It’s neither hopeful nor pessimistic nor in between; it isn’t on the hopeless-to-hopeful scale at all. It’s a quasi-lyrical statement of a fact of life.

@LostinParadise, thank you so much for introducing me to a new group. I really like the song.
I wouldn’t say it’s optimistic, but it doesn’t feel completely hopeless either. I, in comparison with @Jeruba, found the music kind of uplifting, but then again, I have an odd sense of the cheerful.

The song is saying that just wishing does not always make it so.

I think it’s a little more than that, don’t you, @Marina? The girl and the boy are not just daydreaming. They are actively going after what they want. She’s working for it: the kite, the math, climbing the hill. She’s got the right attitude: the light heart. She’s also covering her bets: the prayer. But none of those things will influence the wind at all. It will come and take her up, or it won’t.

A million adolescent girls want to be Hannah Montana, but only one of them is.

Well, that is one way of looking at it. I was looking at it that wishing to be able to fly is not possible, no matter how nice the wax wings you build are or the kite or the light heart.

Well, I see what you mean—certainly there is wishful thinking in it. And wishing alone never makes it so, except in stories. Sometimes doing everything right can make it so (both Daedalus and Icarus did get off the ground, and Daedalus completed the flight), but you still have no control over some things.

I think that what threw me is that the girl at first seemed very passive, waiting for the wind. But what @Jeruba said makes good sense. The girl did climb the hill and do the math, so she does make an effort. Maybe the point is that you can only do so much and then you have to trust to chance, which is where the unfairness of life kicks in.

Pessimistic. She wants to be blown away, due to some sort of jilting or unrequited love experience. She’s shrieved her soul, she’s made up her mind, she’s waiting for finality.

sorry for the buzzkill

@Knotmyday, did you listen to the whole song?

Only the depressing parts (i.e, whole thing) :^)

i haven’t finished listening to the song, because my firefox is being a brat today. but from what i’m gathering, either this girl doesn’t get carried away by the wind, or she is, but the ending isn’t pleasant. and he thinks it’s tragic that someone with such a good intentions could be let down or hurt by their innocent hopes and plans.

i’m not positive, but that’s how i interpreted it.