Severus Snape
Proud Member
I think we all agree that "Little Susie" is an extremely powerful song about a young girl who was brutally murdered. There have been several fan interpretations of the song. There's the one hypothesis about a real Susie existing who was murdered brutally. Then, there's some people's perspective that Susie is in fact Michael. I will be working with the latter interpretation for obvious reasons--it's more abstract, since we are not taking the song's literal meaning, but rather, treating it as a metaphor for Michael's lost childhood.
I must admit that my making this thread was inspired by the "Meaning of 'Susie' in Michael's Songs" thread (lol paraphrasing.) Prior to that thread being created, I never thought much about the significance of the name Susie, or about Little Susie as a song. I always thought it was either based on an actual event, or made up by Michael to be dark and creative. I never gave much thought to the Susie=Michael interpretation...until now.
Something another poster said, actually, really inspired me to look further into LS. That poster was Alma.
In any case, she said Susie was Michael's inner reflection of himself, killed by neglect, so that the song itself became a symbol of Michael's lost childhood with Susie, the central character, representing Michael. A lot of fans seem to agree with that interpretation. However, my two cents are...
...what if Susie isn't the only reflection of Michael in the song? Next to Susie, The Man From Next Door is the only other character who is given any sort of emotion. The other characters in the story are pretty static. Father leaves, mother dies, grandpa dies, the crowd comes only to observe after Susie has died--thus, being passive and present only after the fact. The crowd obviously represents the world at large, father, mother, and grandpa seem to be nothing more than absent archetypes, missing pieces of an emotional puzzle.
The Man From Next Door, however, is different. He was the only one who knew Little Susie, the only one who mourned her death. He was the one who closed her eyes, who thus brought closure about, with tears in his eyes. My question is...could the man from next door also represent Michael? The adult Michael, looking at his child self, mourning its death and realizing what the meaning of it was. Indeed, if you really think about it, he would be the only one who knew his childhood self like The Man From Next Door knew Little Susie, as we know ourselves best. He always said he felt so alone in his experience, so in the end, he would be the one who would know his childhood self and all its pain, more than anyone else in the world. He would be the one singing the tune as Susie, and knowing the tune and its absence as The Man From Next Door. So, Susie and The Man From Next Door, they seem to be two halves of a whole. When The Man From Next Door mourned Susie's death, he mourned the death of childhood, because Susie in all her innocence represents childhood. The Man From Next Door represents the other half of that, adulthood. He mourns the paradise lost of childhood represented by Little Susie.
So, is it possible that the two are one and the same, seeing the world differently through the same eyes? What are your thoughts on the subject? This is all just my hypothesis, and I have only posted it because I thought it was an interesting thought.
Discuss.
I must admit that my making this thread was inspired by the "Meaning of 'Susie' in Michael's Songs" thread (lol paraphrasing.) Prior to that thread being created, I never thought much about the significance of the name Susie, or about Little Susie as a song. I always thought it was either based on an actual event, or made up by Michael to be dark and creative. I never gave much thought to the Susie=Michael interpretation...until now.
Something another poster said, actually, really inspired me to look further into LS. That poster was Alma.
In any case, she said Susie was Michael's inner reflection of himself, killed by neglect, so that the song itself became a symbol of Michael's lost childhood with Susie, the central character, representing Michael. A lot of fans seem to agree with that interpretation. However, my two cents are......what if Susie isn't the only reflection of Michael in the song? Next to Susie, The Man From Next Door is the only other character who is given any sort of emotion. The other characters in the story are pretty static. Father leaves, mother dies, grandpa dies, the crowd comes only to observe after Susie has died--thus, being passive and present only after the fact. The crowd obviously represents the world at large, father, mother, and grandpa seem to be nothing more than absent archetypes, missing pieces of an emotional puzzle.
The Man From Next Door, however, is different. He was the only one who knew Little Susie, the only one who mourned her death. He was the one who closed her eyes, who thus brought closure about, with tears in his eyes. My question is...could the man from next door also represent Michael? The adult Michael, looking at his child self, mourning its death and realizing what the meaning of it was. Indeed, if you really think about it, he would be the only one who knew his childhood self like The Man From Next Door knew Little Susie, as we know ourselves best. He always said he felt so alone in his experience, so in the end, he would be the one who would know his childhood self and all its pain, more than anyone else in the world. He would be the one singing the tune as Susie, and knowing the tune and its absence as The Man From Next Door. So, Susie and The Man From Next Door, they seem to be two halves of a whole. When The Man From Next Door mourned Susie's death, he mourned the death of childhood, because Susie in all her innocence represents childhood. The Man From Next Door represents the other half of that, adulthood. He mourns the paradise lost of childhood represented by Little Susie.
So, is it possible that the two are one and the same, seeing the world differently through the same eyes? What are your thoughts on the subject? This is all just my hypothesis, and I have only posted it because I thought it was an interesting thought.
Discuss.
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