Interpretation
Two weeks ago, I posted about intention and its relevance in homicide law. We spend a great deal of time and effort on criminal trials with the goal of ascertaining a person's intentions when they caused the death of another person. In different areas of the law, a certain intention can mitigate the severity of the punishment while other intentions can exacerbate the severity of the punishment. In other areas of the law, intention matters nothing at all. Nevertheless, intention undoubtedly plays an important role in how we go about our lives. We often excuse mistakes if they were made unwittingly – that is, "on accident" – but we are less sympathetic to harmful actions if they were committed with the intention of doing so. There is an aspect of this world, however, where intention is important, but in a different way. That aspect of the world is interpretation.
The definition of "interpretation" is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the action of explaining the meaning of something. Interpretation permeates our lives, perhaps more so than intention. Think of all the things you might interpret (explain the meaning of): the law, the recipe for that cheesecake you love, that text you got from your partner telling you to "come over quick", the facial expression of your daughter when she comes home from school, the tears rolling down the face of a boy who has just reunited with his Air Force father after a long war, the tears rolling down the face of a father who has just lost his son in an automobile accident. From meanings of joy to devastation, interpretations are everywhere.
Say the recipe for that cheesecake calls for "a touch of sugar" (Okay, let's make this clear here: I am the diametrical opposite of a culinary expert. I don't know how much sugar you put into cheesecake. But for the sake of argument, bear with me here.). When you interpret the phrase "a touch of sugar", you explain the meaning of that phrase, and of course, the true meaning behind a phrase is not necessarily literal. A literal interpretation of "a touch of sugar" would have you taking a sugar cube from a jar, literally touching the cheesecake with it, then putting it back into the jar. I might not be a chef, but that doesn't sound like it will do much of anything. Adding a "touch of" an ingredient is an English idiom that means simply to add a small amount of that ingredient. Like all other idioms, it must be interpreted figuratively in order to be understood.
When you are freaking out about what your partner wants when they're texting you to come over, you are, in your mind, thinking of ways to explain the meaning of their text: are they in trouble? am I in trouble? is something broken? is there something cool that I'm missing? Naturally, the true meaning of your partner's text would be dictated by what your partner intended it to mean. But here is where it gets interesting: we do not know – at least right away – what your partner intended the text to mean. Until we do, we are left to reason from what we do know and make a guess. In this instance, interpretation becomes subjective. The "correct" interpretation of the text would be the one that correctly identifies the text's true meaning – that is, what your partner intended the text to mean – but until we know for sure what that true meaning is, multiple interpretations of the text are valid (but not necessarily correct).
But does intention always dictates what the correct interpretation will be? In this case, it would be foolish to suggest otherwise – if the true intention of your partner's text was to have you see the shiny new computer they just bought, it would be absurd to suggest that the correct interpretation of their text was really to tell you that you are in trouble. In the case of the text, yes, intention does dictate the correct interpretation.
When courts adjudicate the law, they decide what the correct interpretation of the law is. If the correct interpretation of the law is derived from what the framers intended the law to mean, the courts would spend a great deal of time hearing arguments about how a law was framed, perhaps even having the lawmakers themselves come and testify. Alas, "original intent" is not always the prevailing factor in court. Occasionally, there are cases in which we know full-well what the framers originally intended a law to mean, but courts identify something else as the "correct interpretation".
The epitome of this is the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) [pronounced "oh-berg-uh-fell"]. In a 5-4 opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court declared that the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited states from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 U.S. states. Prior to Obergefell, only 38 states had legalized same-sex marriage to some degree. Also worthwhile to note is the Court's decision two years earlier in United States v. Windsor (2013), where the Court held that the federal definition of marriage under the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, greatly expanding the recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level.
The legitimization of same-sex marriage is a very new social change. In the Court's majority opinion, Justice Kennedy admitted that for millennia – literally since ancient times – marriage has consistently been defined as a union between one man and one woman. The changes to this definition occurred only within the last few decades. The first modern country to ever change the definition of marriage to accommodate for same-sex unions was the Netherlands in 2001. Indeed, same-sex marriage is a twenty-first century legal concept.
The Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection clauses read:
But what does this have to do with marriage? Firstly, I need to point out that in the preceding paragraph, I explained the meanings of the due process and equal protection clauses from my point of view – so by definition, I have interpreted the clauses. I do not have the authority to do that. It is the role of the judicial branch of government to interpret the law. Indeed, these are exactly the clauses that the Supreme Court interpreted in Obergefell to effectively legalize same-sex marriage in the United States. The question before the Court is whether legal recognition of same-sex marriage is a fundamental right. If it is, then does the due process clause mean that the Court can force the states to uphold that right (this idea is called "substantive due process")? What is the "correct interpretation" of the Fourteenth Amendment in this case?
If we stay true to our previous idea of what constitutes a "correct interpretation" – that an interpretation is correct if it aligns with the originally intended meaning – then we have to look back on what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment originally intended the Fourteenth Amendment to mean. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, at a time when homosexual acts were a criminal offense in the United States. The idea of gender equality was budding, but certainly not widely accepted. Same-sex marriage in 1868 was, to say the least, a ridiculous proposition. It not only went against public censure of homosexuality, it also shattered the then-widely-accepted distinct roles of the husband and the wife in marriages. With this in mind, what reason would we have to believe that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the amendment to guarantee to same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry?
And yet, in Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy wrote on page 28 of the decision:
Of course, there are some who disagree with this approach. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissenting opinion, castigated the majority in Obergefell, not for their opinion on same-sex marriage, but their liberal use of judicial interpretation to allegedly force their opinion of same-sex marriage on the entire nation:
More to the point, critics argue that opening the door to liberal interpretations of the Constitution such as that in Obergefell can lead to judicial activism, or when a court decides a case based on personal or political preference rather than the law.
Obviously, we want judges to be deciding the "correct interpretation" based on the law and not personal preferences, but the point stands that it is possible for interpretations to be made based on personal preference. The law might not be the appropriate place to do it, but there are indeed cases where original intent, new insights and societal understandings – where none of these matter as much as one's personal, individual feelings. Yes, this is something I've actually talked a LOT about on this blog: the realm of art.
Art is any human creation which the artist intends to be beautiful or to make the audience feel a certain way. I talk a lot about this idea in my post about the meaning of music. When determining the artistic value of a work of art, we direct our attention to how the work makes us feel emotionally. As a result, the determination of a work's value is inherently subjective. What to you might feel like the most beautiful thing in the world might feel to me like the most repulsive. Art encompasses way more than paintings and sculptures. It includes film, music, literature, photography, design – some might argue that it even includes mathematics and sports.
We can interpret art. By definition, we do so when we try to explain the meaning of a work of art. In my meaning of music post, I end with the assertion that
The initial inclination is, perhaps, to use intention. That is, if the artist originally intended a work to have a specific meaning, then the correct interpretation of the artwork is that which explains the meaning of the work exactly as the author intended it to mean. I mean, this makes sense. If you and your friend disagree on what a lyric in a song means, what better authority than the person who wrote the lyric?
However, I think that if you ask a lot of experienced, published artists, you'll find that they might hesitate to agree with this. Their works are like their children. As they're raising them, nurturing them, developing them, artists have a specific idea in mind for how they intend others to interpret their work. But once the artworks are all grown up, the artists must let them go and be consumed by the world. The works will always be theirs, but the works are no longer dependent on the artists. They will go out and affect their audience's lives in ways that the artists could never have imagined.
If you know me at all, you probably know my favorite musician is Adam Young, the artist behind the electronic musical project Owl City. (Why Owl City? Here's my post on the subject.) Some of his songs are quite interesting to me because you can't really be sure what they mean. They're ambiguous – open to interpretation.
There is an Owl City song called "Vanilla Twilight". Right away, we have the classic Owl City practice of juxtaposing unrelated words to create vivid imagery. What do you suppose "vanilla twilight" means, just from reading the title? I think of the actual twilight – that is, the time of day – just as the Sun touches the horizon at sunrise, the brightness of our star enveloping a chilly morning with a vanilla-colored greeting. That's my interpretation. Let's see if the lyrics of the song itself shed more light on the meaning of "vanilla twilight":
Ever since I first heard "Vanilla Twilight", I have interpreted it as a song about someone who is finally accepting the death of his loved one. The first stanza implies that whomever Young is singing to is among the stars while he lies in bed on Earth, wishing they were here. He describes the concept of twilight – watching "the night turn light blue" – as he sadly recalls good times spent watching the twilight, whispering to each other, and holding hands with each other. He says that he'll find "repose" but for now, he hasn't slept for several days as "cold nostalgia" (a bitter longing for the past) takes over him. As he's drenched in "vanilla twilight", he declares that he'll spend the whole night on the porch, thinking about his loved one, as it makes him feel less alone. The last stanza is the most profound, as he sings with renewed exuberance, talking about a burden lifted off of him as he forgets that depressing world. He insists, however, that he will never forget his loved one and that he will always wish they were there with him.
This is my interpretation. This is what the song means to me. I choose to assign the song this meaning. But it is not the meaning that Adam Young intended the song to mean.
According to genius.com, "Vanilla Twilight" was written about Young's high school girlfriend, who unfortunately had to move away. The concept of the song is fundamentally the same as my interpretation – Young is coping with the departure of a loved one from his life, just that the loved one is still alive. I have seen posts on social media thanking Adam Young for his music, especially "Vanilla Twilight", for helping his fans cope with their own struggles of loss. Young always replies so graciously, thanking them, his fans, for letting him know of the story, reinvigorating him with a motivation to continue producing music. Frequently in interviews, he'll mention how blown away he is at how his fans will take something he wrote somewhere he never would have envisioned.
Is my interpretation "wrong"? I'd like to think not. I believe that in the realm of art, the most important interpretation is one's own. Personal interpretation is what directly affects our emotional response to an artwork, and it has the power to shape our lives. Artists who pour their souls into their work – their interpretation of their own work is certainly important, indubitably special, for it is a representation of themselves. Their artwork represents their individuality. Likewise, the audience that receives the artwork has the exciting and inspirational power to decide for themselves what that artwork means for them.
This dynamic of interpretation, intention, and individuality is so beautiful to me – it's like a work of art in itself. Beyond art, interpretation is deeply ingrained throughout all of life. And it is ingrained within the very essence of life itself too. How do you interpret your life? That is, by definition, how do you explain the meaning of your life? Do you use original intent? Is your interpretation open to change through new insights and understandings? Or do you perhaps feel empowered enough to decide for yourself what the meaning of your life will be? Whatever you do, I am awestruck by you. Keep the world open for interpretation. If we all do that, I think we can all be awestruck together.
* * *
The definition of "interpretation" is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the action of explaining the meaning of something. Interpretation permeates our lives, perhaps more so than intention. Think of all the things you might interpret (explain the meaning of): the law, the recipe for that cheesecake you love, that text you got from your partner telling you to "come over quick", the facial expression of your daughter when she comes home from school, the tears rolling down the face of a boy who has just reunited with his Air Force father after a long war, the tears rolling down the face of a father who has just lost his son in an automobile accident. From meanings of joy to devastation, interpretations are everywhere.
Say the recipe for that cheesecake calls for "a touch of sugar" (Okay, let's make this clear here: I am the diametrical opposite of a culinary expert. I don't know how much sugar you put into cheesecake. But for the sake of argument, bear with me here.). When you interpret the phrase "a touch of sugar", you explain the meaning of that phrase, and of course, the true meaning behind a phrase is not necessarily literal. A literal interpretation of "a touch of sugar" would have you taking a sugar cube from a jar, literally touching the cheesecake with it, then putting it back into the jar. I might not be a chef, but that doesn't sound like it will do much of anything. Adding a "touch of" an ingredient is an English idiom that means simply to add a small amount of that ingredient. Like all other idioms, it must be interpreted figuratively in order to be understood.
When you are freaking out about what your partner wants when they're texting you to come over, you are, in your mind, thinking of ways to explain the meaning of their text: are they in trouble? am I in trouble? is something broken? is there something cool that I'm missing? Naturally, the true meaning of your partner's text would be dictated by what your partner intended it to mean. But here is where it gets interesting: we do not know – at least right away – what your partner intended the text to mean. Until we do, we are left to reason from what we do know and make a guess. In this instance, interpretation becomes subjective. The "correct" interpretation of the text would be the one that correctly identifies the text's true meaning – that is, what your partner intended the text to mean – but until we know for sure what that true meaning is, multiple interpretations of the text are valid (but not necessarily correct).
But does intention always dictates what the correct interpretation will be? In this case, it would be foolish to suggest otherwise – if the true intention of your partner's text was to have you see the shiny new computer they just bought, it would be absurd to suggest that the correct interpretation of their text was really to tell you that you are in trouble. In the case of the text, yes, intention does dictate the correct interpretation.
When courts adjudicate the law, they decide what the correct interpretation of the law is. If the correct interpretation of the law is derived from what the framers intended the law to mean, the courts would spend a great deal of time hearing arguments about how a law was framed, perhaps even having the lawmakers themselves come and testify. Alas, "original intent" is not always the prevailing factor in court. Occasionally, there are cases in which we know full-well what the framers originally intended a law to mean, but courts identify something else as the "correct interpretation".
The epitome of this is the Supreme Court of the United States' decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) [pronounced "oh-berg-uh-fell"]. In a 5-4 opinion authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court declared that the due process clause and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited states from denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, effectively legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 U.S. states. Prior to Obergefell, only 38 states had legalized same-sex marriage to some degree. Also worthwhile to note is the Court's decision two years earlier in United States v. Windsor (2013), where the Court held that the federal definition of marriage under the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996 violated the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, greatly expanding the recognition of same-sex marriage at the federal level.
The legitimization of same-sex marriage is a very new social change. In the Court's majority opinion, Justice Kennedy admitted that for millennia – literally since ancient times – marriage has consistently been defined as a union between one man and one woman. The changes to this definition occurred only within the last few decades. The first modern country to ever change the definition of marriage to accommodate for same-sex unions was the Netherlands in 2001. Indeed, same-sex marriage is a twenty-first century legal concept.
The Fourteenth Amendment's due process and equal protection clauses read:
... nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.The clauses make sense. A state cannot take your life, your liberty, or your property on a whim. There needs to be order, a due process in which your fundamental rights are recognized. At its core, due process requires the government to respect your fundamental rights. Without due process, you can claim that you have all the fundamental freedoms of the world – freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment – but the government would not have to respect any of them. Moreover, the equal protection clause requires that laws must equally protect the fundamental rights of everyone. States cannot draw unreasonable distinctions between categories of people – e.g. when states provide public education to whites, they must equally provide such education to African Americans.
But what does this have to do with marriage? Firstly, I need to point out that in the preceding paragraph, I explained the meanings of the due process and equal protection clauses from my point of view – so by definition, I have interpreted the clauses. I do not have the authority to do that. It is the role of the judicial branch of government to interpret the law. Indeed, these are exactly the clauses that the Supreme Court interpreted in Obergefell to effectively legalize same-sex marriage in the United States. The question before the Court is whether legal recognition of same-sex marriage is a fundamental right. If it is, then does the due process clause mean that the Court can force the states to uphold that right (this idea is called "substantive due process")? What is the "correct interpretation" of the Fourteenth Amendment in this case?
If we stay true to our previous idea of what constitutes a "correct interpretation" – that an interpretation is correct if it aligns with the originally intended meaning – then we have to look back on what the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment originally intended the Fourteenth Amendment to mean. The Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, at a time when homosexual acts were a criminal offense in the United States. The idea of gender equality was budding, but certainly not widely accepted. Same-sex marriage in 1868 was, to say the least, a ridiculous proposition. It not only went against public censure of homosexuality, it also shattered the then-widely-accepted distinct roles of the husband and the wife in marriages. With this in mind, what reason would we have to believe that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended the amendment to guarantee to same-sex couples a fundamental right to marry?
And yet, in Obergefell v. Hodges, Justice Kennedy wrote on page 28 of the decision:
No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right.The Court explained to the nation that the meaning of an 1868 amendment to the Constitution does guarantee same-sex couples the right to marry. Why? Justice Kennedy explains:
The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
The right to marry is fundamental as a matter of history and tradition, but rights come not from ancient sources alone. They rise, too, from a better informed understanding of how constitutional imperatives define a liberty that remains urgent in our own era (18-19). ... Indeed, in interpreting the Equal Protection Clause, the Court has recognized that new insights and societal understandings can reveal unjustified inequality within our most fundamental institutions that once passed unnoticed and unchallenged (20).Indeed indeed. Interpretation is not limited to the original intent of the framer. As new insights and understandings are reached, they can uncover nuances of a subject unnoticed by the framer – these new insights and understandings can be and are factored into interpretation in addition to original intent. In the case of your partner's text message, there simply are no new insights and understandings to reach – the complexity of the three-word text message is in no way comparable to that of the equal protection clause – so original intent is all we need to consider to determine the correct interpretation. However, what this ultimately means is that the "correct" interpretation of something can change.
Of course, there are some who disagree with this approach. Chief Justice John Roberts, in his dissenting opinion, castigated the majority in Obergefell, not for their opinion on same-sex marriage, but their liberal use of judicial interpretation to allegedly force their opinion of same-sex marriage on the entire nation:
Those who founded our country would not recognize the majority’s conception of the judicial role. They after all risked their lives and fortunes for the precious right to govern themselves. They would never have imagined yielding that right on a question of social policy to unaccountable and unelected judges. And they certainly would not have been satisfied by a system empowering judges to override policy judgments so long as they do so after “a quite extensive discussion.” (25)The late Justice Antonin Scalia agreed wholeheartedly. Scalia was considered the champion of the "originalist" theory on the Supreme Court, believing that the meaning of the Constitution depends solely on the original intent of the framers – in other words, the Constitution's meaning does not change even as new insights and understandings about injustice arises within our society. We must interpret the Constitution today the same way it would have been interpreted in 1789, Scalia said, and if you don't like what the Constitution says, fret not, because we have a mechanism for amending what the Constitution says! But first you have to convince others of the change you want to make. The incorrect approach, said Scalia, is trying to change the interpretation of the Constitution to fit what you think the Constitution should read.
More to the point, critics argue that opening the door to liberal interpretations of the Constitution such as that in Obergefell can lead to judicial activism, or when a court decides a case based on personal or political preference rather than the law.
Obviously, we want judges to be deciding the "correct interpretation" based on the law and not personal preferences, but the point stands that it is possible for interpretations to be made based on personal preference. The law might not be the appropriate place to do it, but there are indeed cases where original intent, new insights and societal understandings – where none of these matter as much as one's personal, individual feelings. Yes, this is something I've actually talked a LOT about on this blog: the realm of art.
* * *
Art is any human creation which the artist intends to be beautiful or to make the audience feel a certain way. I talk a lot about this idea in my post about the meaning of music. When determining the artistic value of a work of art, we direct our attention to how the work makes us feel emotionally. As a result, the determination of a work's value is inherently subjective. What to you might feel like the most beautiful thing in the world might feel to me like the most repulsive. Art encompasses way more than paintings and sculptures. It includes film, music, literature, photography, design – some might argue that it even includes mathematics and sports.
We can interpret art. By definition, we do so when we try to explain the meaning of a work of art. In my meaning of music post, I end with the assertion that
... a listener is never required to ever feel a specific way when listening to music. Instead of waiting for a meaning to present itself spontaneously, a listener should approach the music with an open mind, for it is ultimately the listener that provides the context and decides the meaning to a piece of music, not the music itself.Throughout this post, I've tried to express how we can determine what the "correct interpretation" of something is, be it the law or a text message. But if it is true that the audience of art is never required to feel a specific way, and that it is the audience that decides for themselves what the meaning of the art is, then is there really a single interpretation that is deemed "correct"?
The initial inclination is, perhaps, to use intention. That is, if the artist originally intended a work to have a specific meaning, then the correct interpretation of the artwork is that which explains the meaning of the work exactly as the author intended it to mean. I mean, this makes sense. If you and your friend disagree on what a lyric in a song means, what better authority than the person who wrote the lyric?
However, I think that if you ask a lot of experienced, published artists, you'll find that they might hesitate to agree with this. Their works are like their children. As they're raising them, nurturing them, developing them, artists have a specific idea in mind for how they intend others to interpret their work. But once the artworks are all grown up, the artists must let them go and be consumed by the world. The works will always be theirs, but the works are no longer dependent on the artists. They will go out and affect their audience's lives in ways that the artists could never have imagined.
If you know me at all, you probably know my favorite musician is Adam Young, the artist behind the electronic musical project Owl City. (Why Owl City? Here's my post on the subject.) Some of his songs are quite interesting to me because you can't really be sure what they mean. They're ambiguous – open to interpretation.
There is an Owl City song called "Vanilla Twilight". Right away, we have the classic Owl City practice of juxtaposing unrelated words to create vivid imagery. What do you suppose "vanilla twilight" means, just from reading the title? I think of the actual twilight – that is, the time of day – just as the Sun touches the horizon at sunrise, the brightness of our star enveloping a chilly morning with a vanilla-colored greeting. That's my interpretation. Let's see if the lyrics of the song itself shed more light on the meaning of "vanilla twilight":
The stars lean down to kiss youThe interpretation of "vanilla twilight" being the Sun glimmering during the twilight is probably not the best one, since Young sings that he is drenched in vanilla twilight as he is sitting on the front porch all night. If you look at the music video for the song, you'll notice it is set in a very wintry environment – perhaps the "vanilla twilight" is the snow. This is the interpretation that genius.com (the self-proclaimed online authority on musical interpretation) promulgates.
And I lie awake and miss you
Pour me a heavy dose of atmosphere
'Cause I'll doze off safe and soundly
But I'll miss your arms around me
I'd send a postcard to you, dear
'Cause I wish you were here
I'll watch the night turn light blue
But it's not the same without you
Because it takes two to whisper quietly
The silence isn't so bad
'Til I look at my hands and feel sad
'Cause the spaces between my fingers
Are right where yours fit perfectly
I'll find repose in new ways
Though I haven't slept in two days
'Cause cold nostalgia chills me to the bone
But drenched in vanilla twilight
I'll sit on the front porch all night
Waist deep in thought because when
I think of you I don't feel so alone
As many times as I blink
I'll think of you tonight
When violet eyes get brighter
And heavy wings grow lighter
I'll taste the sky and feel alive again
And I'll forget the world that I knew
But I swear I won't forget you
Oh if my voice could reach back through the past
I'd whisper in your ear,
"Oh darling I wish you were here."
Ever since I first heard "Vanilla Twilight", I have interpreted it as a song about someone who is finally accepting the death of his loved one. The first stanza implies that whomever Young is singing to is among the stars while he lies in bed on Earth, wishing they were here. He describes the concept of twilight – watching "the night turn light blue" – as he sadly recalls good times spent watching the twilight, whispering to each other, and holding hands with each other. He says that he'll find "repose" but for now, he hasn't slept for several days as "cold nostalgia" (a bitter longing for the past) takes over him. As he's drenched in "vanilla twilight", he declares that he'll spend the whole night on the porch, thinking about his loved one, as it makes him feel less alone. The last stanza is the most profound, as he sings with renewed exuberance, talking about a burden lifted off of him as he forgets that depressing world. He insists, however, that he will never forget his loved one and that he will always wish they were there with him.
This is my interpretation. This is what the song means to me. I choose to assign the song this meaning. But it is not the meaning that Adam Young intended the song to mean.
According to genius.com, "Vanilla Twilight" was written about Young's high school girlfriend, who unfortunately had to move away. The concept of the song is fundamentally the same as my interpretation – Young is coping with the departure of a loved one from his life, just that the loved one is still alive. I have seen posts on social media thanking Adam Young for his music, especially "Vanilla Twilight", for helping his fans cope with their own struggles of loss. Young always replies so graciously, thanking them, his fans, for letting him know of the story, reinvigorating him with a motivation to continue producing music. Frequently in interviews, he'll mention how blown away he is at how his fans will take something he wrote somewhere he never would have envisioned.
Is my interpretation "wrong"? I'd like to think not. I believe that in the realm of art, the most important interpretation is one's own. Personal interpretation is what directly affects our emotional response to an artwork, and it has the power to shape our lives. Artists who pour their souls into their work – their interpretation of their own work is certainly important, indubitably special, for it is a representation of themselves. Their artwork represents their individuality. Likewise, the audience that receives the artwork has the exciting and inspirational power to decide for themselves what that artwork means for them.
* * *
This dynamic of interpretation, intention, and individuality is so beautiful to me – it's like a work of art in itself. Beyond art, interpretation is deeply ingrained throughout all of life. And it is ingrained within the very essence of life itself too. How do you interpret your life? That is, by definition, how do you explain the meaning of your life? Do you use original intent? Is your interpretation open to change through new insights and understandings? Or do you perhaps feel empowered enough to decide for yourself what the meaning of your life will be? Whatever you do, I am awestruck by you. Keep the world open for interpretation. If we all do that, I think we can all be awestruck together.