VEGANGELICA

Hi, Shivs,
I decided to start by reviewing your song, "Nectar," especially since I like riddles!

In answer to your question, I think the song describes a woman prostitute in a brothel (she is trapped inside the "old soup tin"). The "Big queen bee will now sell fake lust" is the madam who controls the women in the brothel (I'm imagining one in India). The woman forced to be a prostitute has to fake the lust to get the nectar...perhaps the money/drugs that are payment by the man.

"My family is trapped" reminds me of a movie I saw about a woman prostitute in India whose little girl lived with her, having to leave the room whenever a customer came (ahh, no pun intended). The "old tin can" metaphor stands out most strongly in my mind, because this sounds like the brothels I've seen (in movies). These are no lovely honeycomb hive out in some flower-filled meadow, but, like you describe, a place of destitution and dirt...an old tin can.

Assuming I am correct, then I think the imagery of the hive, in which female workers (the bees) do their repetitive work for the sake of the Queen (who in prostitution gets most of the money) is an appropriate metaphor for a brothel. "I'm trapped in the hive, survive for the nectar" succinctly describes the hopelessness and desperation of the situation in which the woman can't leave but also needs to stay (especially if addicted to a drug, for example).

I assume the predators at the beginning are the men? One question I have is whether in the song the perspective changes from that of the man to that of the woman, or if it is always that of the woman? Do these lines

mean that the woman is forced to choose among the men for the one she will perform fake lust for? This confused me somewhat, because I always thought the reverse happens...the "clients" search among the women. This made me wonder if there was a shift in the observer/speaker within the song, or if I simply am misunderstanding this portion of it. Now, thinking as a biologist, the flower offers nectar to lure the female bee to it, and the bee picks up pollen (serving as a reproductive vector for the flower) while getting the nectar in a symbiotic relationship. Your song shows how this flower/bee symbiotic relationship is warped by people into a relationship that harms both flower and bee.

If this song is indeed about a woman forced to be a prostitute, then her searching for a flower (the man, the source of nectar or money/drugs) sets up an interesting contrast between the man as the flower and the flower of the woman, since women are often described metaphorically as "flowers" (as in "deflowered," "wallflower," etc.).

Now that I've considered the subject matter, I'll move on to the structure.
I see you use a lot of assonance, the rhyming of vowel sounds within words. I've underlined them in your song above. Almost every word at the end of a line rhymes partially with another word at the end of line, and sometimes to words internally. Like Awwsugar said, I think the rhyming helps build the cohesiveness of a song.

You also structure the song as follows:

4 line stanza
6 line stanza
6 line chorus

4 line stanza
6 line stanza
6 line chorus

This internal structure, I feel, will help make the song more memorable than, say, a song in which there is no repetition...simply because it is easier for the brain to latch on to some lines if one hears them several times.

So, I am curious to hear if I have the "correct" interpretation (not that there is an incorrect interpretation of any song, but I mean I'm trying to see how closely my view of the lyrics matches your intention).

--Erica