Fairytale by Sara Bareilles Lyrics Meaning – Shattering The Glass Slipper of Romantic Expectations
Lyrics
Crush on the guy at the liquor store
‘Cause Mr. Charming don’t come home anymore and she forgets why she came here.
Sleeping Beauty’s in a foul mood for shame she says
None for you dear prince, I’m tired today.
I’d rather sleep my whole life away than have you keep me from dreaming
I don’t care for your fairytale
You’re so worried ’bout the maiden,
Though you know she’s only waiting on the next best thing
Snow White is doing dishes again cause what else can you do
With seven itty bitty men?
Sends them to bed and she calls up a friend, says will you meet me at midnight.
The tall blonde lets out a cry of despair says
Would have cut it myself if I knew men could climb hair
I’ll have to find another tower somewhere and keep away from the windows.
I don’t care for your fairytale
You’re so worried ’bout the maiden,
Though you know she’s only waiting on the next best thing
Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom, man made up a story
Said that I should believe him
Go and tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight
But I don’t want the next best thing
So I sing and hold my head down and I break these walls ’round me
Can’t take no more of your fairytale love
I don’t care for your fairytale
You’re so worried bout the maiden,
Though you know she’s used to waiting spent her whole life being graded on the
Sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation
The story needs some mending and a better happy ending
‘Cause I don’t want the next best thing no no I don’t want the next best thing.
Sara Bareilles has long been the siren of complexity in simplicity, using her potent lyrics and soul-stirring melodies to weave narratives that speak to us on an almost cellular level. ‘Fairytale,’ a track from her 2007 debut album ‘Little Voice,’ is a prime example of how she distills the essence of human experience into a four-minute song.
The song’s infectious piano and upbeat tempo shouldn’t fool the discerning listener. ‘Fairytale’ is a poignant deconstruction of the classic stories that have colored our understanding of love and life. With Bareilles’s lilting voice as the guide, we embark on a journey through the looking-glass of fairytale tropes, only to find that the reflections staring back are all too human.
A Melodic Awakening from Enchanted Slumber
Unlike the passive heroines of traditional fairytales, Bareilles’s characters are keenly aware and astutely critical of their circumstances. From Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty, each woman finds herself disillusioned with the cards they’ve been dealt. Cinderella, symbolizing the dream-chaser, is stuck in a cycle of desires unmet. Meanwhile, Sleeping Beauty, emblematic of complacency, rejects the notion of needing a prince to save her.
By flipping these characters on their heads, Bareilles calls into question our own complacency in narratives we’ve accepted as truth. The song acts as a wake-up call, suggesting that it’s not just the maidens of these tales who have been dozing, but all those who believe in the sanitized love stories peddled by popular narratives.
The Spellbinding Chorus – A Modern Maiden’s Manifesto
Clap along to the beat, but listen to the defiance in every note – the chorus of ‘Fairytale’ echoes like a rallying cry. ‘I don’t care for your fairytale,’ Bareilles sings, a straightforward dismissal of the false ideals and expectations that have been inherited from the days of old. The ‘maiden’ will no longer passively wait for her story to be written by someone else’s pen.
Each repetition of the chorus grows more insistent, with Bareilles rejecting not just a single fairytale’s premise but the entire catalogue of them. Her refusal to accept ‘the next best thing’ is a declaration of agency in a world obsessed with settling for the ‘safe’ options – be it in love or in life.
The Enchanting Subversion of Happily Ever After
Sara Bareilles isn’t content to simply pluck at the threads of time-worn tales; she unravels them with precision. In ‘Fairytale,’ she strips the glamour from our cherished happily-ever-afters, revealing grit beneath the glitter. The little girl who once marveled at ball gowns and princes becomes a woman who knows that love is neither a prize nor a destination, but a journey fraught with realities.
The song promotes an alternative ‘happy ending,’ one that might not involve knightly rescues or grand gestures, but instead hinges on self-respect and personal growth – a narrative arc that demands a redefinition of what it means to be content.
Sara Bareilles’s Labyrinth of Lyrics – The Intrigue of Hidden Meanings
While ‘Fairytale’ may dazzle with its clever feministic twist on folklore’s damsels, it’s in the subtler shades of the lyrics that Bareilles plants her most potent seeds of revelation. Take, for example, the line ‘Spent her whole life being graded on the sanctity of patience and a dumb appreciation.’ Here lies the keen indictment of a society that still, in too many ways, measures a woman by her willingness to endure silently.
These lines cut deep, suggesting that the paralysis of these fairytale characters, their ‘dumb appreciation,’ reflects the muted inertia felt by many as they navigate the tension between expectation and self-realization. There’s a hard wisdom in accepting the real over the ideal, and Bareilles extols this virtue through her incisive songwriting.
Memorable Lines that Echo in the Halls of the Heart
‘Go and tell your white knight that he’s handsome in hindsight,’ Bareilles croons, a nod to the post-mortem of love and the clarity that often follows its conclusion. The notion that we can only appreciate certain aspects of a relationship once it’s in our rearview mirror is a poignant observation that permeates through the optimism of the music.
The narrative Sara Bareilles constructs with ‘Fairytale’ stays with you long after the song has ended. Its memorable lines act as refrains for the thoughtful, for those who search for meaning amidst the melodies. With every note and word, ‘Fairytale’ deconstructs not only the stories of our childhood but the very fabric of our romantic idealism. It is a masterpiece of modern reflection on the oldest of tales, teaching us that the true love story begins only when we start authoring our own narratives.
