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Dido - This land is mine

I’m not sure what got me listening to Dido today, but this song got me curious. I said to myself, what does it mean Rich? Is it the power struggle in a relationship? Is she talking about an ultimately futile attempt to tame a domineering partner?

No..clearly this is a song about a couple of women who work in a call centre. Probably for Sky or maybe British Gas. The reference to walls is literal and refers to those cubicles they have to sit in and poor Dido is being bullied.

This is the story of a fat bitchy woman, who has seven cats at home and lots of pictures of children dotted about her workstation. They’re not her kids obviously cause no one would be sick enough to impregnate such a ghastly woman, rather, they’re her sisters kids or something,

Her life revolves around her working day. This is her domain, the only place where she feels she has any sense of control over her destiny, it is her domain and bitch, you better understand that.

She’ll pretend to be nice, she’ll pretend to respect her co-workers, but poor Dido has found out that this pretence is masking nothing but contempt for her and the source of this contempt in her case is because she has a nice bottom and the male employees are constantly seeking her attention; Miss Dido would you like a coffee? Translation: would you like a fuck? Miss Dido, I’ll do that filing for you (and I’ll fuck you too if you want) and so on.

In the final verse though our fat bitch is wrestling with her conscience. She wants to change. She wants to lose weight and be pretty and receive the same attention from the chaps as young Dido. She has realised before others can love her, she must learn to love herself. She does step aerobics on Tuesdays and Pilates on Thursday evenings and has lost nearly 4 lbs and her previous self loathing and loneliness was the price she had to pay for her enlightenment.

That’s what I think it’s about anyway. I’d have added a final verse though where she realises that losing 4lbs means jack shit when you weigh 300lbs and her desire to be beautiful again will always remain subordinate to her insatiable appetite for cake and if there was time I’d have added something about her developing a rare fatal case of Toxoplasmosis.