“I started to look to Jackie and how that woman held the country together after she watched her husband get cut down right in front of her.” (Uncredited, Here. In My Head)
This song is a super-8 movie of suburban lawns in a line, each with an identical mother wrapped around a nascent daughter, together sending transmissions of prayer to Ms. Onassis.
All of those girls had pillbox dreams, and none of them turned out the way they had planned. Jackie never showed some more. But these girls, they just want to be real. They will hike up their skirts and show some more if that’s what it takes.
Each verse takes us back to the childhood narrative. Lunchboxes and sleepovers. Getting high and starving ourselves pretty. Just to be real.
There’s nothing real here; this is about masquerade. Girls masquerading as women. Skin masquerading as trust. Sex masquerading as magic.
Those perfect virgins get backstage while the rest of us are already busy spinning lies. Crystalline, candy lies. Trying to lie enough to sustain our love.
In the end, did it turn out so bad? Those virgins will learn. Eventually they’ll trade their mystery in to be real. Every single girl.
Except Jackie O.
(lyrics)(references)