JOINING YOU - (ALANIS MORISSETTE)
Answers to Talking Points
Ad 1) A friend of the singer has announced to his mother that he wants to commit suicide. His mother is panicked and calls the singer. The singer tells us something about their relationship.
Ad 2) He had problems when he was a boy. He felt "uncomfortable in (his) own skin". He was scared of being "brainwashed" (psychotherapy ?). Other terms that suggest a psychosis: "obsession", "delusion" and "paranoias". He seems to suffer from "chronic" depressions. The narrator describes him not in terms of insanity, but as a person who questions everything, who "knew more than (he) thought (he) should know".
Ad 3) Yes and no. Yes, because they've been friends since their youth and know each other well. She seems to have a certain influence on him. No, because she is certainly not the perfect suicide preventer - on the contrary: she says she would join him.
Ad 4) I don't think so, because she enumerates a whole lot of conditions. The very last sentence suggests that he will not commit suicide.
Ad 5) I do not think so, because as an old friend he could have called her as often as he wanted to. If he should phone her, then she might even encourage him to do away with himself.
Ad 6.1.) "You and your chronic" "if we were our bodys" etc. is enigmatic. In Alanis Morissette's hit single "Thank you" it is left unsaid, why she thanks India. However, the words of her song "Ironic" can easily be understood.
Ad 6.2.) It might be chronic suicidal tendencies, chronic depressions, chronic fears.
Ad 7.1.) In this song, the boy is the neurotic, whereas is "Thank you" the narrator seems to be the one with personality disorders.
Ad 7.2.) "If we were (our/their)" is repeated many times, "you were" is repeated 5 times in the second stanza, the "and" is used 6 times in the third stanza