Todd Johnson
English 101
Christina Phillips
16 September 2015
Interpretation of “You Were You”
In Sandra Beasley’s “You Were You” the audience is shown how a previous relationship can strongly affect the life of an individual. My interpretation of “You Were You” takes the reader though an abstract dream of a woman. This dream takes place at a bar, the woman symbolizing a jukebox. This jukebox the woman is symbolizing witnesses her old lover making friends with another woman, the jukebox becomes jealous. The dream ends when she wakes up to people coming to help. The whole poem is very vague and lacks in details, meaning this poem can be interpreted in many different ways. By examining “You Were You” closely, one could understand that the man and woman were once together; the break up leading to a downhill disaster of a woman who once held meaning, but now resorts to drugs to escape the reality of her old lover moving on.
In this dream the woman imagines herself as a jukebox. This metaphor gives the reader a broader view of the situation at hand. The speaker is immobile and unable to interfere with her previous lover. His new woman forcing her to suffer through watching the man move on. By putting herself in the place of a jukebox, she tries to bring back the past by playing songs that her and her past lover once enjoyed. While she observes the man, she announces that she “played Sam Cooke for [him] but [he] didn’t look over once.” This statement implies that she is doing all that she can to be noticed and remembered by the man. This also proves that the woman knew the man well enough to know his tastes in music because she obviously thought playing this song would get him to look at her, but the man did not look over and this hurt her. The woman notices that he was “wearing [his] best smile and the shirt that makes [his] eyes green”. This is a clue that these two have had a past together. The first quote affirmed that this woman knew this man to the point of knowing his tastes in music but the second lets you know that their relationship was more than just a friendship. What she says in the second quote is flirty, letting the reader infer that like his music taste, she also knows his wardrobe and knows it well enough to pick out a single shirt that she recognizes make his eyes green. This is not what a person talking about an old friend would say. This man and woman had some type of relationship at one point in their lives and with the woman trying to get this man’s attention, the reader can infer that she still has feelings for him. A few lines later in the poem the woman says “I was loyal to you” and this makes it hard to deny that these two were once together.
At this point in the poem the reader can tell that the woman and man were once a couple. As the poem progresses the reader can see details that hint that this woman has since gone downhill. The woman started to describe herself in a negative light, saying “I weighed 300 pounds” and, “I glittered like 1972”. At first glance it appears she is describing her looks, however, she is saying she feels unattractive and old. Not old in the sense of being old in age but in being a part of his unwanted past. Witnessing the man she is in love with take interest in a new woman clearly brings down her self-esteem. With her former lover kissing and obsessing over a new girl right in front of her eyes it is easy to understand why this woman would be upset and believe she is worthless. The reader now knows this woman is lacking in self-confidence and suffers from depression. Due to her lack of self-worth, the woman copes by making bad decisions. This is shown when she states, “A man tried to seduce me with quarters but I could hear his truck outside, still running”. The imagery of the man seducing her with quarters implies that she has given in to prostitution. The fact that she is willing to give herself up for just a few quarters shows how little she values herself. This is most likely due to the fact that the man she loves has no interest in her. This makes it more prevalent that the woman is on a constant downhill spiral. This is demonstrated when she says she can hear the man’s truck still running. This statement backs up the claim; if the man were at the bar to stay, his truck would not be running. His intentions were to go in the bar and come back to his truck with the woman in little time. If the reader infers he is picking up a prostitute this would make sense, but how would he know that picking up a prostitute would be so quick? The only reason he would know how long it would take to pick up a prostitute is if he has done it before. The woman has lost all sense of self-worth because of her loss so she has dealt with the pain by almost freely giving herself away.
As another means of coping with her pain, the woman resorts to self-harm. After her old love leaves the bar kissing his new woman, the narrator says “later, I tried to make my own music, humming one circuit against the other, running the needle up and down.” She implies that she is using a drug that requires an injection by the mentioning of a needle. In this quote it is very prevalent that she is comparing her mind and body to the jukebox by stating that she is making her own music. The jukebox is immobile while the drugs she injects herself with make her immobile as well. She states that she tries to make her own music, trying to make herself feel better. She implies that the music she makes is “humming one circuit against the other” meaning that she is causing harm to her body – working with multiple circuits, the circuits are not supposed to touch. The drugs she is using makes the “bubbles in [her] blood [sing]”. It is clearly unhealthy and unnatural for ones blood to bubble, further proving that she is partaking in drug use.
This poem takes place in a woman’s dream. This dream could have been brought on due to her fear of reality or drug related problems. She frequently references herself as a jukebox because she cannot escape the good memories she had with her past lover. She replays songs that they had once loved, constantly remaining prevalent in her subconscious, showing her inability to move on from their separation. She does not want to believe that the man she loves has moved on and she knows of no other way to cope with it. By the end of the poem, she states that “In the morning, they came to repair me”. This implies that she was discovered under the influence of drugs and taken into rehab. This could signify a new beginning for the woman. By being found, she will have to learn how to move on and handle the situation without the use of illegal substances. The author’s use of diction through the use of the word “repair” signifies a new found hope for the woman. In the poem “You Were You” by Sandra Beasley the reader is taken though a dream. In this dream the narrator compares herself to a jukebox, indirectly informing the reader of her issues with accepting reality. Her old lover has moved on, because of this the woman goes on a downhill spiral. The narrator’s life falls apart as she can only sit and watch her past lover love someone else. She attempts to gain his attention by playing songs that once held meaning between the two. This does not work, the reader can assume the man has moved on due to the fact he is very intimate with another woman and does not care about the music being played. This does not work, showing the reader that this man has moved on yet she is still holding on to the past. The reader then learns how the woman has given herself up in the form of prostitution as a man tries to buy her with a small amount of money. This is a result of her sorrow and depression. Finally, the audience can infer she has been injecting herself with a drug to cope with the pain, landing her into rehab. “You Were You” shows how previous relationships can lead people on a downward path and cause them to lose sight of what is truly important in life.

Works Cited
Beasley, Sandra, “You Were You.” Blackboard. Blackboard. 5 April. 2010. Web. 21 Sep. 2015