Ashnikko - Nice Girl (Lyrical Breakdown)
As per usual, I explain all the bars, including the ones I feel like are blatantly obvious, because what is blatantly obvious to one person might not be as obvious to another, for multiple different reasons. This is also 100% my interpretation, as she hasn't been asked about these lyrics in interviews that much and I think I've seen maybe 1-2 reaction videos to this, if even that, and it's been a while.
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I'll hug the world, suffocate it with a pillowPat 'em on the head, make a boy feel little
Snuck out the side door, sly on my tiptoeHe said he's hard but he crumble like Nabisco
She just slept with a guy and is sneaking out without waking him up.
I could interpret this further into why, go all metaphorical on the bar, but... Contrary to how she usually writes her bars, I think this is only what you see at face value, there's no deeper metaphorical meaning.
There is a deeper societal meaning, though. She's genderfluid, but clearly felt more like a woman when writing this song than like a man, plus she does express herself quite femininely (especially through her outward appearance), so people who do not know about her identity or who don't care about it do see her as a woman.
Sneaking out after a one night stand is a thing most people associate with men, not women. She's challenging that gender stereotype by being a "woman" who acts in this way.
If a man is hard, that means his penis is erect, he's ready to have sex. He claimed it was hard.
Nabisco is a brand of cookies, i.e. Oreos and Ritz Crackers are their products. Despite his claims, he wasn't hard, he crumbled like a cookie.
If a person "crumbles", it implies they break down in tears.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, "that's the way the cookie crumbles" is "said when something slightly unlucky has happened that could not have been prevented and so must be accepted". Such as a man not getting it up.
Ash tried to have a one night stand with this guy, but instead of getting laid, he crumbled and started sobbing and venting to her, and she ended up listening to him and waiting him to fall asleep, and then snuck outta there.
Super sweet ice tea, apple pieWhat do you really mean when you calling me nice?
Ice tea and apple pie are sweet. If a person is sweat, they're nice.
Ice tea is also cool, where as apple pie is hot. If a person is cool, they're calm, confident and collected. If a person is hot, they're sexy, they're physically attractive. - So which one is it? What does he mean when he calls her nice? Is he genuinely complementing her or does he have ulterior motives?
Ice is also cold, and if a person is cold, they're emotionless.
The slang meaning of "tea" is gossip. "Spill the tea" means "You clearly know a piece of gossip about this person, tell me!"
Reading too much into it, but that's what we do here: When Ash, a person from the South of USA, says "super sweet ice tea, apple pie", I imagine a woman in a typical 1950s dress, perfect hair and makeup, wide smile, being the perfect housewife and serving men home-made ice tea and apple pie she made from scratch. Where as in if she spilled the tea, literally, that'd break the illusion that she's perfect.
You eat the peach, gotta check if it's ripeI know he want a salad and I know he not my type and
The peach emoji means the butt. He's eating her ass. The "apple pie" also gets a new meaning, when you know what this means: Urban Dictionary: sweet apple pie... So.. yeah.
If a peach is not ripe, it's firm, and when it is ripe, it gives in. Ash is tough, she doesn't give in. (?)
She was "ripe" in the sense of being an adult, though - she was 22 when this song came out.
She's also figuratively telling him to kiss her ass.
She's ready to get down and dirty, as we can see from the nature of these lyrics, where as in he's the stereotypically more feminine one of them two, who just has a salad when the other one has a proper meal. He is not her type, she needs someone who can match her energy.
Food schemes - Nabisco, ice tea, apple pie, peach, salad, and in the end of the second verse she also says ice cream.
Dust yourself off, girl, keep your chin upYou wanna hold a gun but they made you a pinup
Get up, dust it off, forget about the world pushing you down. Keep your chin up, stay confident and proud.
The girl wants to actively participate in the fight against something, to hold the gun, to be a part of it and make a difference.
Instead she's diminished to only her looks, to be decoration and entertainment for the soldiers.
A girl want fun and a girl wanna sin someI want the teddy bear, now a bitch gonna win one
She just wants to be herself, to have fun and be allowed to sin, to not the be the perfect pin-up girl or the Southern woman serving apple pie and ice tea, but to actually live and be a human.
If she wants something, she's gonna get it. She doesn't need a man or anyone else to get her the teddy bear, she's gonna win it on her own. And not just the teddy bear, it's just an example.
I know he wanna, know he wanna be next to meKnow he wanna, know he wanna be next to meKnow he wanna, know he wanna be next to meKnow he wanna, know he wanna be ne-
He wants to be her partner, by her side.
And he wants to be on the same level as she is, to be equal to her.
He says he wants a nice girlI'm that fuck up your life girlI don't wanna be a nice girlBad, bad, I ain't right, girlHe says he wants a nice girlI'm that fuck up your life girlI don't wanna be a nice girlBad, bad, I ain't right, girl
They're looking for different things. She's looking for someone who matches her energy. Being nice, sitting down and looking pretty ain't for her.
Pinkie swear that I might be niceHe says I'm a lost cause and he might be right
She might be nice, though. It's not an innate quality of hers nor something she tries to be, but it might happen accidentally. She might also be a lost cause. Either one is a possibility.
Fuck a faux pas, it's my time to shineI'm in the country club getting my card declined
A "faux pas" is a French expression for when someone makes a mistake of some sort, especially something to do with unspoken rules, manners or etiquette. She's saying "fuck that", she doesn't care if she does what people think she should be doing.
An example of a faux pas would be being at a country club or other "socialite" hang out place like that, where people spend time just to be seen there, for the social status. And then getting your card declined, exposing to other people you're broke. A typical socialite would be embarrassed, but Ash doesn't care.
What's he doing? I don't need a brave knightWe can sword fight, that doesn't mean I'll behave niceStick it to him like a stick of dynamiteCyanide on the side, ooh, I love the limelight
Her card got declined and a man tried to rescue her, and she was like "fuck that" and fought him. Not literally with swords, but anyway. She rejected his help.
He was acting like she was a damsel in distress and he was her knight in shining armor, saving her from public embarrassment. She elevates herself to his level, they're both knights, and they're gonna duel. An official duel has very specific rules of what you can and cannot do, it is to see who is better in sword fighting as a sport, not aiming for a kill but a victory of the sport match. But as we established earlier, Ash doesn't care about rules, she will fight dirty. She involves dynamite and cyanide into her fight and obviously wins, the other guy only has his sword and is playing by the rules.
"Stick it to someone" means "treat someone badly".
Limelight means the bright lights they use in theater. It's used to express someone's the center of attention.
Woah, woah, we're a lousy bunchTo tell the truth, role models weren't around me much
Ashton Nicole Casey grew up in North Carolina, USA, a Southern state among the Bible belt. Her parents were very strictly religious. They never talked about sex, for example, and they even restricted the music she was allowed to listen to. Her aunt disagreed with that and started sneaking her music by strong female artists, who quickly became her idols (Avril Lavigne, M.I.A., Nicki Minaj, Missy Elliott, Gwen Stefani, Björk, Dolly Parton, Lil Kim, etc). When Ash was 13 their family moved to Estonia, and a year later to Latvia. Because of her background, she grew up very shy and reserved, bottling up her emotions. She created her rap persona Ashnikko to express the anger and the suppressed sexuality she had and started writing songs and releasing them on SoundCloud at the age of 15. When she was 18 she moved to London alone to pursue her music career. She's 28 now and still lives there.
She's talked about her childhood and youth a little bit, like how she felt like she wasn't allowed to be herself (queer; raunchy and rowdy) and how she resented her parents for a long time for dragging her to the Baltics, where she never quite fit in. Moving so far away also made her feel rootless - in another song she refers to it as "an identity crisis". Technically, she's American, but she was a child when she moved out, but she isn't European, either, she's an immigrant.
On a bad day, you could say I'm sweeter than ice creamThey told me to be nice and I told 'em to bite me
She sees being sweet as a negative thing - on a bad day she's sweeter than ice cream. As we established earlier, she might accidentally sometimes be sweet or nice, but not intentionally or all the time.
If you try and tell her to be nice, behave herself, she's going to tell you to "bite me".
Also, if you bite into an ice cream, you're gonna get a brain freeze. She's too smart for them, too clever. Their brain is going to short circuit trying to understand her and her bars.
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