Lyric Breakdown: “(Every Slamming Door) Blown Away”

For the first time now, my sub-genre of Lyrics collides with one of the “real world” stories I’ve written about.

If you haven’t, go back and check out my piece on Oklahoma and where it really fits into American history.

One thing I only got to mention quickly in that was the fact that it’s the most prominent state within the area dubbed “Tornado Alley.”

That’s drastic to think about, so those of us that don’t have to usually don’t.

If you don’t know about either one, let me clear up the important difference between a hurricane and a tornado.

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A hurricane starts as a tropical storm out in the Atlantic Ocean, and it builds up gale force winds and drenching rain — growing as it goes.

While that may sound scarier, as it could torrent through huge swaths of land… it also has one of only several (largely predictable) paths to go. And, historically, it rarely can get north of DC before disappearing out into the ocean again.

A tornado, on the other hand, is a weather phenomenon that seems to come down from the sky. Imagine the clouds themselves get so worked up — so angry — that they come down to the ground in a swirling funnel.

Actually, you don’t have to imagine, do you? You feel like you’ve seen it… in a movie? Well probably at least a dozen movies. But one in particular… the classic of all classics… The Wizard of Oz.

See, where’s Dorothy from? Kansas. That’s another plains state, where these land storms form. So even if you thought you knew nothing about it, you actually did.

So that’s what happens. No natural warning, and no (non-professional) way of predicting its path. The 90’s classic “Twister” shows the adrenaline-junky profession they call storm-chasing. It’s people like that who give other residents a shadow of a chance.

So that’s was a long lead-up to discuss song lyrics, but we have to know what we’re really talking about here.

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This is about Carrie Underwood’s chart-topping hit “Blown Away.” This has nothing to do with the artist as a person, nor her politics. Let’s be clear about that.

I’m not spot-lighting or “glorifying” her, because she’s already been glorified by hundreds of millions around the world.

These lyrics, however, brought the grandeur and horror of tornados once again into mainstream consciousness.

** “Dry lightning cracks across the skies,/ Those storm clouds gather in her eyes./ Her daddy was a mean old mister/ Mama was an angel in the ground./ The weather man called for a Twister,/ She prayed… blow it down.”

So, we all can tell right away years of the family dynamic. The girl in this story lost her mom and wish she had her back instead of her “mean old” dad.

The allusion of storm clouds in her eyes is a poetic connection between the anticipated storm out there and the stormy state of her emotions.

You have to be very hurt and/or very angry — or in some way uncaring — to wish harm on your home. She could be all three at this point.

And hey, if no one will ever know — because it’s a natural disaster — so much the better.

** “There’s not enough rain in Oklahoma/ To wash the sins out of that house./ There’s not enough wind in Oklahoma/ To rip the nails out of the past.”

Again, there’s mixing of literal storm elements with figurative, emotional damage. While a good amount of her fans might believe in literal “washing away” of sin, I think even they would recognize that she’s probably just using that as a turn of phrase. Who knows, though?

“Rip the nails out of the past” is less straightforward. It seems to most likely refer to taking apart the past. Breaking it down so it’s no longer one big thing you can point to.

If you rip the nails out of something, you’re separating it into small enough parts that it’ll soon just be a pile of wood. That wood could then be used to make something else entirely.

Plus, it should go without saying by now that —besides grass or wheat — the two things they have way more than enough of over there is wind and rain. Think of how that only emphasizes the meaning.

** “Shatter every window/ Until it’s all blown away!/ Every brick, every board,/ Every slamming door… blown away!/

‘Til there’s left standing/ Nothing left of yesterday./ Every tear-soaked whiskey memory blown away!/ Blownn away…”

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These are the words we all know. Well, anyone at all familiar with the song, anyway.

Shattering windows is a poetic thing as well as a real one. Bringing the outer world forcefully inside. Or a means to escape into that outer instead of just seeing it through glass.

Then of course, bricks and boards speak to the real things we’d all be afraid of losing. “Slamming door,” though, brings it right back into the figurative.

A door separated from its hinges and flung up into the wind can’t slam, and maybe never will again.

For all the emotional turmoil it caused her, that would be her ideal fate for the door.

So all of this is to illustrate someone who’s not only unafraid of the destruction, but welcomes it.

Without quoting the rest, I’ll just say that while the warning sirens are going off, her dad is passed out. She goes into the cellar alone.

She notes that while others are taking shelter, “she called it sweet revenge.”

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