Meaning of “Peter Pan Was Right” by Anson Seabra
As of this writing, about a year and a half after “Peter Pan Was Right” came out as a standalone single on 29 April 2022, Anson Seabra remains a social-media based musician. He currently has a following of almost a million subscribers on YouTube.
That said, he has seemingly been active since 2016. Furthermore, his songs have garnered an impressive amount of streams on streaming platforms such as Spotify for a singer who lacks mainstream notoriety.
Credits
Seabra, who reportedly hails from Kansas, co-wrote “Peter Pan Was Right”. The other credited writer of the song is its producer, Sarcastic Sounds. Anson appears to have an affinity for dropping songs with a fairytale-based motif, having previously released tracks with titles such as the following:
- “Welcome to Wonderland” (2018)
- “Robin Hood” (2018)
- “Gingerbread House” (2021)
The Lyrics of “Peter Pan Was Right”
The titular Peter Pan is a character who, amongst his known superpowers, never ages. And the reason the vocalist goes about referencing him in this song is to point to its thesis sentiment which, as Anson puts it, revolves around the notion of ‘growing up being a waste of time’.
That is to say that like Peter Pan, the singer also wishes that he never aged to adulthood. In the song, he mentions various reason why he feels this way. Primary amongst them is Seabra insinuating that he has grown lonely throughout the years including, upon entering his late 20s when this track was dropped, having yet to meet a soulmate, as he envisioned as a child.
Another notable superpower which Peter possesses is the ability to fly. And relatedly, we find the narrator also fantasizing about “fly(ing) away” towards “brighter days”. But physically, as depicted, he has found himself in a situation where he wants to leave his “small town” yet lacks the wherewithal to do so.
So obviously this song reflects the case of someone who, at least in part, is afflicted by age-based ideologies, i.e. being an adult but not conforming to certain norms which define this time in life, such as having a significant other and leaving home.
And that failure, coupled with the loneliness and a feeling of exhaustion, is exacerbating his desire to go back in time, when he didn’t feel this way. So what Peter Pan was right about, in the eyes of Seabra, was adopting a standard in which he is content with remaining a 12-year old into perpetuity instead of growing up.
