Titles you don't get

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Are there any song titles that you just don't get the meaning of or the phrasing behind?

"Taking Back My Brave" by Carolyn Dawn Johnson was one for me. What does that mean? That's not a turn on an existing expression, and I don't know what it means in the context of the song.

Also, "He Broke Your Memory Last Night" by Reba. How, exactly, does one break a memory?

[someguy]

Feb 3, 2017 9:47:36 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

Are there any song titles that you just don't get the meaning of or the phrasing behind?

"Taking Back My Brave" by Carolyn Dawn Johnson was one for me. What does that mean? That's not a turn on an existing expression, and I don't know what it means in the context of the song.

Also, "He Broke Your Memory Last Night" by Reba. How, exactly, does one break a memory?

"Taking Back My Brave" refers to the narrator regaining her brave personality. She used to be an adventurous risk-taker (spending that first night in the cab of her pickup truck), but lately she has become more complacent and timid (she "kinda lost it for awhile" and "crawled back to her comfort zone"). She feels that deep down, she still is "that girl" who "likes a challenge" and "it's just not like me" to "come crawling back home". She is ready to "jump off a limb into a river of change and take back her brave".

In "He Broke Your Memory Last Night", the narrator has put the memory of a former lover up on a pedestal, and has been afraid to let anyone in. She has been "trying to save left of" the memory of her ex-lover, by not becoming intimate with anyone else. She goes on a date with someone new, and the new guy "breaks" the memory of the other guy by "holding her a little too right", meaning that she has such a good experience with the new guy that she is ready to move on and put her old lover behind her. The old memory "crumbles like a house made of sand", and she is now fully ready to move on.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

So "taking back my brave" is from the same kind of broken grammar that gave us "you stole my happy"?

I meant I don't get them in I don't get the wordplay or phrasing, even if I understand what the song is trying to say.

[bboat11]

Feb 3, 2017 9:47:36 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

"He Broke Your Memory Last Night" by Reba. How, exactly, does one break a memory?

So if breaking a memory does not make any sense, then how does breaking a heart make any sense? You can't literally break a heart either... And yet that metaphor is never questioned.

[Ten Pound Hammer]

Feb 3, 2017 21:57:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

Feb 3, 2017 9:47:36 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

"He Broke Your Memory Last Night" by Reba. How, exactly, does one break a memory?

So if breaking a memory does not make any sense, then how does breaking a heart make any sense? You can't literally break a heart either... And yet that metaphor is never questioned.

Because "break your heart" is an existing term. It just seems weird to me to randomly replace "heart" with another word.

[bboat11]

Feb 3, 2017 22:02:02 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

Feb 3, 2017 21:57:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

So if breaking a memory does not make any sense, then how does breaking a heart make any sense? You can't literally break a heart either... And yet that metaphor is never questioned.

Because "break your heart" is an existing term. It just seems weird to me to randomly replace "heart" with another word.

The title alludes to the metaphor around which the entire song is written. Every lyric in the song helps establish the metaphor of somebody protecting the memory of their ex-lover the way somebody would protect a fragile artifact. Like, if you understand the metaphor (which you claimed you do), there is not even anything to not "get" about why the title is phrased the way it is.

[sabre14]

Feb 3, 2017 21:57:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

Feb 3, 2017 9:47:36 GMT -5 Ten Pound Hammer said:

"He Broke Your Memory Last Night" by Reba. How, exactly, does one break a memory?

So if breaking a memory does not make any sense, then how does breaking a heart make any sense? You can't literally break a heart either... And yet that metaphor is never questioned.

To be a bigger pain, at least a heart is literally a physical organ that technically can break, lol. Memory is very real but it's something that isn't a solid element.

[bboat11]

Feb 3, 2017 22:17:07 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

Feb 3, 2017 21:57:58 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

So if breaking a memory does not make any sense, then how does breaking a heart make any sense? You can't literally break a heart either... And yet that metaphor is never questioned.

To be a bigger pain, at least a heart is literally a physical organ that technically can break, lol. Memory is very real but it's something that isn't a solid element.

Ah, so breaking a memory exists deeper within the realm of metaphors than breaking a heart! Okay, now we have a valid argument ;)

[sabre14]

Feb 3, 2017 22:19:52 GMT -5 bboat11 said:

Feb 3, 2017 22:17:07 GMT -5 sabre14 said:

To be a bigger pain, at least a heart is literally a physical organ that technically can break, lol. Memory is very real but it's something that isn't a solid element.

Ah, so breaking a memory exists deeper within the realm of metaphors than breaking a heart! Okay, now we have a valid argument ;)

For the record, I don't have a huge problem with the metaphoric title of Reba's song. lol

[.indulgecountry]

I saw the thread title and I already knew who had to have started it without even looking.