Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
Against Me!
This song is a remnant of Grace’s original plan for the LP that would become Transgender Dysphoria Blues, before she came out to the rest of Against Me! as trans. She originally presented new songs as a concept album about a transgender sex worker:
A lot of that was feeling uncomfortable with what...
[Verse 1]
She could hear them fucking through those thin hotel walls
She heard babies crying, she heard laughter, she heard sirens
Red and blue lights flashing through those cheap hotel drapes
Blood spilled out on the porcelain
The bathtub's overflowing
[Chorus]
Paralytic states of dependency
Our waking life's just a living dream
Agitated states of amazement
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
[Verse 2]
Spread out face down on those stained cheap hotel sheets
She spent the last years of her life running from the boy she used to be
Cut her face wide open
Shaved the bone down thin
Pumped her lips up exaggerated
A fucked up kind of feminine
[Chorus]
Paralytic states of dependency
Our waking life's just a living dream
Agitated states of amazement
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
[Verse 3]
Night time at the hotel
There was fighting in the hall
Thin chain lock to keep the world out
She held her breath till it was gone
Standing naked in front of that hotel bathroom mirror
In her dysphoria's reflection, she still saw her mother's son
[Chorus]
Paralytic states of dependency
Our waking life's just a living dream
Agitated states of amazement
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
Never quite the woman that she wanted to be
[Outro]
By the time the ball dropped, it was already over
By the time the ball dropped, it was already over
No resolutions for the new year beginning tomorrow
Paralytic States was written by Laura Jane Grace.
Paralytic States was produced by Laura Jane Grace.
Against Me! released Paralytic States on Tue Jan 21 2014.
[Paralytic States] was probably the first song written for the record. That song is about a transgender person dealing with addiction and dysphoria and killing themselves in a hotel bathtub. Obviously I’m not dead in a hotel bathtub, but all the experiences of existing that way, being in that hotel...