Interpretation
The song lyrics 'Bag Lady' by
Todd Rundgren is about a homeless woman who wanders the streets carrying all her belongings in bags. The line 'Like a fly batters itself against a window, Time and again and again it senselessly blunders' describes how the woman desperately tries to improve her life but keeps failing.
The line 'Fifty cents rent goes pretty far, When you live in a subway car, One stop's the same as another' illustrates that the woman has no fixed home and lives in a subway station. It doesn't matter to her which station she is at, as they are all the same.
The line 'Sorrow, do they ever want to cry, Do they see us pass by' shows that the woman is often ignored and that nobody really cares about her. She is invisible to the people around her.
The song lyrics also address the question of where homeless people come from. The lines 'Where do they come from (simple answers), Do they come falling, Falling from the sky like rain, Crawling up the basement drain' raise this question and describe how they suddenly appear and seem like lost souls.
The lyrics also emphasize that there is no past or future for homeless people. There is only the here and now, and that hardly matters. The line 'There is no yesterday, there is no tomorrow, There is only now and that hardly matters' illustrates this significance.
The song lyrics also criticize the indifference of society towards those who are less fortunate in life. The line 'No one cares about sad old ladies, With bags full of tatters' shows that the people around her are not interested in taking care of the homeless women.
At the end of the song, it is hinted that the homeless woman may have died, but it also raises the possibility that she is just sleeping. The line 'But maybe she's only sleeping' leaves room for interpretation and leaves open what has happened to the woman.
Overall, the song lyrics 'Bag Lady' by Todd Rundgren address the sad reality of homelessness and the ignorance of society towards those who live on the fringes of society.