I really like Roberta Flacks interpretation of this song about a song. Although in real life “Killing me Softly” is based on Lori Lieberman’s experience of Don McLean’s “Empty Chairs”, here the song takes on an unknown mythical status (rather like Tenacious D’s “Tribute”). And this song has a profound effect upon our protagonist; it both reflects and destroys her, but also makes her grow as a result.
The protagonist was made to feel small, like her entire life could have been encapsulated in something as simple as a song. Hence the contrasts between “my pain/ his fingers” and “my life/ his words” as if the former was no match for the latter, even though the song was sung “softly”.
In the first verse there is an emotional distance between her and the singer: “I heard he sang a good song/ had a style”. These are very chill reasons for being at the concert. Also note the laid-back “to listen for a while” which could imply that she wasn’t even planning on staying for the whole performance. Describing him as a “young boy”, also implies a lack of life experience (as if he shouldn’t be so wise). All of this makes it easy to sing this entire verse with a bitter sarcasm (try it), but in Roberta Flack’s performance it feels like she is expressing the unexpectedness of what happened. She wasn’t prepared for this.
The second verse reveals that she felt a sudden need to explain her unexpected reaction to herself. She tried to defend herself from the revelations in the song, wishing he would stop, but she felt powerless against the onslaught. It’s like he was gently tearing up the “letters” she refers to. Letters which were very personal and meaningful to her were exposed to be some kind of cliché in his ability to replicate them.
In the last verse her defences were proved useless and she was exposed “in all (her) dark despair”. And yet while she felt so exposed, she also felt invisible when he “looked right though” her. This connects to what I was saying earlier about her feeling small. And yet she is the subject of his song in her mind. So at this point she doesn’t feel like her own person; she has been replaced by a song which has been sung many times before and could be written without her. Of course, being a person, she is more than this, at least in potential, but her old conception of who she is had to die before she could grow.
Once the verses are over, the last thing we hear before the chorus repeats is a long cry of pain and sadness. It is not shown in these lyrics but it is sang as a series of “Oh’s” and “La’s”. What I hear is the mourning of her old self. But she can grow because she has accepted this death instead of clinging to her old way of being. The song feels like it is sung by someone who has begun to mature and deepen due to this experience. So although it is a sad song it is one that lays the foundation of a new hope and a new life beyond the old one.
