anonymous

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Jan 10th 2021 !⃝

I think you either fall into the "it's about beginnings" or "it's about ends" camp, and I think it's about ends. The end of a relationship, the end of addiction, the end of abuse, whatever lense you choose to view your life, and therefore the song, through. The song says as much: the dog days are over.
To me, this is written from the perspective of someone having been dumped, or ending a relationship they don't realize is bad or dangerous at the time. Abuse? If you choose to believe that, but this song isn't about any attacker, it's about her own journey. For once, it's about her.

Happiness, hit her like a train on a track/Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back

Getting hit by a train sucks, it hurts, sometimes making a decision that will eventually result in happiness hurts in the moment you have to make it. Leaving someone you love hurts, but it can also be the best decision of your life. It can make you happy.
The second line may imply it wasn't her decision, or maybe that this was inevitable.

She hid around corners and she hid under beds/She killed it with kisses and from it she fled/With every bubble she sank with a drink/And washed it away down the kitchen sink

Shes hiding from the reality that this is the right thing to do, the right decision to make, trying to repair feeling permanently broken with "kisses", or even clinging too tightly and only making things worse.
Drinking is a bad way to cope, but it sure feels right in the moment, and "washing it away" could imply a desire to cover up the disarray.

The dog days are over/The dog days are done/The horses are coming so you better run

Whatever thing that has ended, whatever thing she's lost, it better that it's gone and it's time to move on.

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father/Run for your children for your sisters and brothers

The trickiest lines to reconcile.
"Run" shouldn't necessarily be interpreted as running from or to something or someone physical as much as forward momentum in life. Some serious forward momentum after a period of stagnation caused by whatever bad situation "she" was in previously.
When you're in a bad place, you're constantly searching for things to keep you going. Often times the thing that has kept you going is that thing you have to give up, drinking, a drug, a bad relationship, they just hold you in place. Family, or the idealized roles of mother, father, child and sibling (being ones of love, kindness, support and stability) represent reasons to move forward. F+M are telling you to run "for" these things, as in champion these people or ideals above the ephemeral joys of addiction or unhealthy relationships.
I see these lines being about an urgency or need to move forward and reestablish what life is worth living for.

Leave all your love and your longing behind you/Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

Just good advice.
Love isn't always the right emotion to trust. Love can guide you to amazing places but it can also destroy you. Longing is what happens when your separated for that which you love. I believe there lines to convey the idea that if you want to move forward ("survive") you have to shed these emotions when they are born from unhealthy desires.

The dog days are over/The dog days are done/Can't you hear the horses/'Cause here they come

There are varying opinions of weather "dog days" are good times or bad times, but in order for this interpretation to work, the phrase refers to the later. And according to the lyrics, unrefutably they are over.
Horses are often used as a symbol of freedom. Wild horses and the like: purist freedom. If the horses are coming for you, it may be a way to say that freedom they represent is coming for you.

And I never wanted anything from you/Except everything you had/And what was left after that too, oh.

I think this is a really succinct way convey how quickly things can spiral out of control when it comes to addiction. How something that feels like an innocent love affair can suddenly become a situation where you get all your joy from one person or one thing: you're addicted. Honestly, a bad relationship can sometimes feel like an addiction, which is why so many artists have written about one as a metaphor for the other. That is what could be happening in this line.

Happiness hit her like a bullet in the back/Struck from a great height/By someone who should know better than that

These are the last lines of the song before it starts repeating. And while the first line is a reprise of the first line of the song, the last two are where things fall apart. The lines imply a sentience to whatever ales our main character. Drugs can't "know better than that", someone breaking up with her for their own health and happiness isn't something to "know better than", and her doing the breaking-up isn't really an external figure striking her down.
Personally I dislike the line as it is the only line explicitly not about "her" and removes all her agency and ownership over her own story and her own experience.

The best interpretation of the last line and therefore the whole song is that of an abusive relationship. Sure, that's all fine and dandy, but my own interpretation has helped me through a very hard time in my life. And isn't that the point? The true interpretation is vague, as most songs of this nature are. They're stories with just enough details that you can project your own world view on to them and cry silently at your desk at work, or maybe in the milk cooler while you pat yourself on the back for being strong in the face of addiction or heartbreak or abuse and moving forward.
I had heard this song years ago and liked it, but it didn't mean anything to me until just recently. Happiness hit me like a train on a track. Yes, I think you either fall into the "it's about beginnings" or "it's about ends" camp, but in reality, as Semisonic once said "every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." And hopefully it brings something better.

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