NAPATSORN TREESAP

Lemonade is a song written by Nicole Dollanganger, a Canadian singer-songwriter. In both lyrics and official music video portrayed the toxic relationship and the duties of women such as being a domestic housewife who had faced her husband’s infidelity, so she decided to cheat on her husband in revenge.

The music video starts with a spouse; a wife in a bridal gown, and an immobile-emotionless husband who has a white lily in his pocket. Lily is the flower associated with the wedding and funeral, so it means that their love has gone deathly when the first verse introduces the story of her husband’s infidelity. As seen below,

“I’ve been home all day
My husband’s gone, they all say
He’s got a girl on the side
While I stay home all day”

Not only that, in the first and the last line, “I’ve been home all day. […] while I stay home all day,” show the duties of women manifestly such as being a domestic housewife who waits for her husband to come home which implied that her husband is the breadwinner of the family, and she has the responsibility to take care of the house.

As seen in the pictures above, we see the abandoned house in which the house represents the wife. Her husband did not take care of her enough. He cheated on her and left her all alone. The house that supposes to have love and caring seems empty reversely.

“So I make lemonade
Put on a dress and I go lay
Out in the dayroom
And I wait for you
To come on over
And give it to me”

“Lemonade” in this context consists of two meanings. Firstly, have you ever heard the idiom, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? Lemon represents trouble or sourness of life, so lemonade is like making those difficult things change into favourable or positive (“TheIdioms,” n.d). Secondly, it implies the duties that the wife has to take care of her husband.

“In the backyard full of dying flowers
In the kitchen on the pale pink counter
Give you a lap dance outside in a lawn chair
Drinking lemonade and playing with my hair”

In the chorus, “In the backyard full of dying flowers,” flower represents life, but in this context, it means that behind her marriage life that people think it is beautiful and happy, actually she felt dead. People only see things outside and do not know or understand the problem inside as the same as we could not see the backyard behind the house. Moreover, the kitchen, in the second line of the chorus, seems to implied on wifely things.

Number 275 is the angel number associated with wedding and separation that caused by love and death (“AngelNumber,” n.d). In this scene, she had an affair with another man just like her husband had an infidelity as seen in the lines in the second verse below,

“My husband’s gone, don’t need to worry
Take you upstairs to the swan bed
Let you fuck me hard as you can
The next time he kisses me
Want him to taste red ruby lips
And the love we made
And the lemonade
So come on over and give it to me”

She decided to has an infidelity in revenge. She wanted her husband to see that she had another man as in line, “Want him to taste red ruby lips, and the love we made,” in order to make him jealous and feel mad about her infidelity. As a consequence, their relationship became toxic just like in the picture below that blood symbolises the death of their love,

References
275 Angel Number – Meaning and Symbolism. Angel Number. (n.d.).
https://angelnumber.org/275-angel-number/. 
When Life Gives You Lemons. The Idioms. (n.d.). https://www.theidioms.com/when-life-gives- you-lemons/.