Here's the track, Parentheses referred to in this excerpt (via hypemachine)
and the interview excerpt:
DELI AISLE MAKES YOU CRY…”
MJ: Another beautifully sad lyric on that record is the one that goes, “If something in the deli aisle makes you cry…”
KM: What’s funny is that I made that up in my head around you.
MJ: Really?
KM: Yeah, we were in the Whole Foods, when I was visiting you in Portland one time, and I was staring at the overwhelming mass of all the food, kind of personal but really so impersonal. I had that really overwhelmed feeling; just wanting someone to come up and see that, and see me, and see that they should walk me outside.
MJ: Right, but I guess I didn’t walk you outside, did I? That’s not the punch line: you were waiting and then I walked you out? You probably didn’t even tell me.
KM: I don’t think I would have taken the risk to expect that from you at that point. I think my eyes were a little watery, and I was like, “Do you ever want someone to walk you out the door? Just put their arm around you and walk you out?”
MJ: I was probably like, “Get it together, Khaela!”
KM: You were just like, “We need food.”
MJ: That’s so funny, because I’ve imagined those two women in the deli aisle. So just say the lyrics so we have it.
KM: [in a normal speaking voice] If there’s something in the deli aisle that makes you cry / You know I’ll put my arm around you and walk you outside / through the sliding doors / Why would I mind?
MJ: OK, but you sing it much less flip. I love the “why would I mind?” part. It implies that someone else is saying “Do you mind doing this for me? Is this OK?” That’s the part that breaks my heart, because it’s very female to feel like that’s too much to ask.
KM: Yeah, yeah, totally.
MJ: Even in your fantasies there’s an implicit apology. That’s the extra part that you probably don’t even think about, I’m guessing. I don’t, when I’m writing. When people ask me, “Is there a female point of view in your work?” I’m always like, I don’t know. I’m just me, and am I even human? But when I heard that line, I was like, Oh, no guy would have that fantasy of someone saying, “Why would I mind?”
KM: It seems like a lot to ask.
MJ: Yeah, it’s so much to ask! [Both laugh]
KM: That’s the first song I ever really felt like I was trying to write from, like, “I love you.” All the other songs I have written on most of those other records are like, “I tried to love you! I’m trying to love you!”
MJ: “I’m trying to figure it out! Give me a second!”
