Originally Written Dec 9, 2018

Hey there everyone, hope you’re all doing well, today I want to talk music and the artist and song that i’d like to talk about today is Sara Bareilles and her song She Used To Be Mine. Just to give you guys a heads up, I actually wrote this post a couple of days ago, but didn’t really get around to finishing it, until now. I had the song in my head for two days and so I thought, let’s talk on it and while we’re at it, let’s see if we’re able to interpret the song as well.

So to kinda introduce Sara Bareilles a bit, just in case you aren’t completely sure on who she is, Sara is a musician well a singer/songwriter, you might have heard a few of her songs before, she had this one song that was pretty popular back in the early 2000’s called Love Song. I think that was actually her breakout hit, but i’m not sure, so don’t quote me on it. You might’ve also heard Brave which is another popular song from her, i’m sure there’s a lot of songs that are very well known, but for those of you who have heard the songs or they sound familiar to you, well she’s the one who sings them, in case you didn’t know.

She’s also an actress, but is known for musicals mainly, i’m not sure if she’s been in movies or anything, but I know that she has starred in a couple of Broadway musicals before. You might be aware of one, the most recent musical that she’s been in is called Waitress, I think she’s a writer to that musical, I don’t think to the play, but I believe she wrote a few songs for it.

She of course has her own music, I have two of her albums…….well one is her album and the other one is the soundtrack to the musical Waitress, the album that I have is called The Blessed Unrest which came out in 2013, you can find the song Brave on that one and as for the other song that I mentioned before, Love Song can be found on her album Little Things which came out in 2007, there’s a whole lot of other albums and songs that she has, but those are the two that I thought i’d talk on a bit since those are the two songs that most people might know from her.

Moving on though to the song that inspired me to write this post, now if you didn’t know or maybe you did, the song Used To Be Mine comes from the musical Waitress……..now i’ve never watched Waitress, but i’ve been wanting to watch it ever since I heard Sara Bareilles was gonna be apart of it, but it would only be for a short time and every time I would think of checking it out……I would always miss her, but I found out a few days ago that she’s coming back for a few more shows next month and will only be there until February, so I still have a chance to go see the musical and see her as well in it, I heard that it’s very good, so I really want to check it out.

Let’s go on with the song shall we!? Used To Be Mine is one of my favorite songs from Sara Bareilles, it’s a very beautiful song, when you hear it, it just grabs you and pulls you in, at least that’s what it does to me when I hear it. The lyrics are very deep and let’s not even forget the piano that brings it all together as well as the other instruments with it………..I can’t even describe it, it’s just amazing, we’ll just say that!! The song is just great as a whole and Sara’s voice with it, just brings the song to life in a way that……..is just hard to explain, it’s like………I don’t know how to describe it, all I can say is, you really feel the song and the emotion that she brings to it, if you haven’t heard the song, listen to it, really listen to it, you’ll know what I mean when you do.

Now I know that everyone will most likely interpret this song in many different ways, which is expected when listening to a song, even if the artist themselves tell you exactly what the song means, you’ll always have your own meanings for it. When I first heard this song, i’m sure it got to me, I can’t really remember my actual reaction of it, but every time I hear it now, the lyrics, reading it and the song in general, gives you that feeling of woah because you connect with it right away and for a lot of people like myself it’s relatable.  

Here are some of the lyrics to the song: 

It’s not simple to say
That most days I don’t recognize me
That these shoes and this apron, that place and its patrons
Have taken more than I gave them
It’s not easy to know
I’m not anything like I used be, although it’s true
I was never attention’s sweet center
I still remember that girl

She’s imperfect, but she tries
She is good, but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won’t ask for help
She is messy, but she’s kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone, but she used to be mine

I was originally gonna break down the lyrics to this song, but I decided instead I want to let it speak for itself, looking at these lyrics, there isn’t any other way to interpret them. I tried to break these lyrics down and I was having trouble doing so and that’s why I would rather the lyrics do the speaking then me try and break them down and my words end up all over the place you know!? That being said, my interpretation on this song, my meaning for it, is completely, different to it’s actual meaning. It might be the same, but it’s also very different………..In the song she’s pretty much reflecting on the way her life is and looking back on who she once was, compared to who she is now……..from the lyrics you can see that the reflection that she’s expressing, she isn’t all too fond of the way things are going, but also from a different angle you can also see the emotions that she’s feeling, is more on the scared side of town and being confused and just overall thinking about everything that has happened.

In the chorus you can see that she is aware of all the flaws that she carries with her from being imperfect, to saying that, although she says that she’s good, she isn’t truthful about her actual feelings, she’s her own worst enemy when it comes to wanting to get things right and even though she knows that she needs help and is broken inside, she won’t let people know that, because to her it’s being vulnerable and she’d rather pretend that she’s fine then have people see that she’s hurting and unhappy, so that’s the first part and chorus (Hook, to be more technical) of the song.

Here’s more of the lyrics from the song:

It’s not what I asked for
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person and makes you believe it’s all true
And now I’ve got you
And you’re not what I asked for
If I’m honest, I know I would give it all back
For a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two
For the girl that I knew

Who’ll be reckless, just enough
Who’ll get hurt, but who learns how to toughen up
When she’s bruised and gets used by a man who can’t love
And then she’ll get stuck
And be scared of the life that’s inside her
Growing stronger each day ’til it finally reminds her
To fight just a little, to bring back the fire in her eyes
That’s been gone, but used to be mine
Used to be mine

So this part of the song, i’m not even gonna break it down or interpret it, at least not all of them, certain parts I will, but only to interpret what I originally thought it was about. As you can see there’s a lot more emotion put into this part and you can probably figure out what it’s about or maybe you already know because you’ve heard the song already, but i’m not gonna tell you what the actual meaning to this song is, because I want to see if you’re able to figure it out if you don’t know what the actual  meaning to it is.

This part of the song always makes me want to get emotional, in this part of the song, it picks up and becomes a lot more intense to where you really feel it, you don’t even have to listen to it to feel it, just reading these lyrics, if you’re like me and love finding out the meaning to songs and pretty much everything else, you feel it……….not just the song, but you feel for the writer of the song as well, because they went out of their way to write this powerful, emotional and touching song that just leaves you speechless, they didn’t have to write any of it, but they did because although it was extremely personal, they still felt they needed to share it, which is incredible. 

Now here’s the part where I tell you my interpretation on the song, well certain parts of the song that is and what I thought it mean’t. In the second verse, if you look at the lyrics……..there’s a part in it where she talks about, the way life does things and how it presents you with something or someone in this case, pretty much throwing you off which is why she says to herself that if she could, she’d go back and change a couple of things and have it play out a different way to how it turned out to be.

In that whole part, you can kinda pick up that she’s self reflecting, whenever she sees and feels that she’s different and is completely disconnected from her old self in a way. She sees this new version of her and is having a hard time relating and embracing it in a way, which is why she sings the lines “You’re not what I asked for, if i’m honest, I know I would give it all back for a chance to start over and rewrite an ending or two, for the girl that I knew” Those lines right there, are one of the lines I relate to and i’m sure a lot of you do too if you know the song. 

I’ve changed a lot this year and I can’t tell whether it’s good or not, for me it’s half and half, but I know that a lot of us go through a change that we weren’t really expecting and sometimes we change and become a whole new person, which we know means that we’re growing and coming into our own in a way, but sometimes it’s hard because when you’ve been a certain way for so long and something or even a few things start to change with you or about you, it’s like you’re meeting and seeing this whole new person, but you aren’t exactly sure how you feel about it.

Being someone you don’t recognize, when you thought, you knew the kind of person you were, automatically you’re gonna want to go back and change a few things, but you know that you can’t, so it’s like you’re completely stuck with this new version of you that you really didn’t ask for and even though, you try to get back somehow, you feel deep down somewhere that, no matter how hard you try, you’re not gonna get  that version of you back, at least not in the same way you always had her or him.  

The last part of the song that I want to talk about is the part where she sings: “She’ll get stuck and be scared of the life that’s inside her, growing stronger each day, til it finally reminds her, to fight just a little and bring back the fire in her eyes, that’s been gone, but used to be mine” Now this part always gives me goosebumps and sometimes leaves me emotional, because I relate to it so much for a reason that is hard to explain, I love that line, it’s one of my favorites in the song, it’s just one of those lines that speak to you on a deeper level and that’s why I love this song so much, because there’s certain parts in it that I feel and connect with emotionally.

The actual meaning to it, knowing it now, when you hear it, it makes sense and you won’t be able to see it as anything else as much once you know the actual meaning, but for me when I first heard it, I interpreted it in a completely different way to how it is originally, the meaning I took from that part is a very personal one, but overall I looked at the song as her singing about self reflection as well as self discovery.

It’s amazing how you can listen to a song and even when you find out the actual meaning to that song, we still create our own interpretation for it. I can see why a lot of artist when you ask them what’s the meaning to a song that they’ve written, a lot of the time they won’t say because 1. they know even when they tell us the meaning, they know that we’ll just come up with our own and 2. sometimes their songs don’t really have a deep meaning behind it, sometimes the song just comes to them without having a specific backstory on it and if there is one, it’s just a random one.

That’s why a lot of them just say they’ll leave it up for interpretation so they won’t have to give it away or sometimes it’s just too personal that they would rather have people come up with their own meaning then have it be explained. So that is all I have for this post, let me know in the comments below, what your thoughts are on this song, have you heard it and if you have, feel free to share your interpretations on it. 

All The Love ❤ ❤ 

~Lexa~

Lyrics Source: https://genius.com/Sara-bareilles-she-used-to-be-mine-lyrics