The Story and Meaning Behind My Song Cactus

Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog. :)

I'm super excited to let you know that my song, Cactus, is now out everywhere!! Please watch the video and listen to the song on your preferred streaming platform! As an independent artist, your support and enthusiasm is the real reason I can make music, so thank you so much!!

Now then! I want to use this blog as a place to talk about what this song actually means to me. Maybe I will post about this elsewhere, like in a vlog on YouTube, or on patreon, but for now I think this analysis will just be on my blog. So here we go!

This song is basically about a friendship that I felt was dying, but the other person didn’t realize it. Instead of being super obvious and clear about the message of the song, I used a cactus as a metaphor for myself.

In the song, the owner of the cactus wants to take care of it. They even mean well and do their best, but they don’t really know what it needs. This was like my friendship, in that the other person would invite me to do things, and tried their best in the relationship, but I felt like we no longer connected in a healthy way.

So I'm going to dive into some of the lyrics now and tell you exactly what they mean to me. In the first verse, the first couple lines are: 

This cactus has little thorns

They're sharp and hard to see

These lines were about myself, meaning that I might look good on the surface, but if you looked more closely, you would realize that I'm a bit prickly. I felt like the other person in the friendship was making assumptions about my character, whereas there was more underneath that they weren't seeing. I guess I felt like I wasn't truly being seen.

So, I said this song was about a friendship, and for the most part it is about one particular friendship, but I do feel like the first and second verses are actually about two different people in my mind. The second verse starts with the line:

You mean well, of course you do

This line in particular brings me a lot of peace. The second friend did quite a few things that hurt me, but I think they did it out of being unaware. They meant well and it feels good to acknowledge the goodness in them, even though the outcome wasn't good for both of us.

The next few lines say: 

You give her water each day

This continues that idea of meaning well, because you might think that giving a cactus water is a good thing. Water is good for a cactus, but only in small amounts. If it's given too much, it will die, and it's very easy to overwater a cactus.

The chorus says “She needs to live in the sun,” as a way to say that the cactus would thrive better on its own, without the help of the owner. It also says how it's still alright, and that it's better to just let it be. The same was true for me and those friendships. I felt that it was better to let them go, and that I would feel happier without them. :)

My chorus is also inspired by "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles. Here's the comparison!

She needs to live in the sun

She needs to live in the sun

She needs to live in the sun

And that's alright, that's alright

Let her be

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun and I say

It's alright

So I think that's about all I have to say about that song! I'd be curious to hear what you thought the song was about, or what it means to you. I feel like songs can have different meanings to everyone, even if it wasn't the intention or the original inspiration. 

Thanks for reading!!

Abby

☀️☀️☀️

Thanks for visiting my blog! :)