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says, in part, "It's true I always wanted love to be full of pain...I am so very, very happy, so come on and hurt me I am so very, very happy, so please hit me..." One critic wrote that "Cripple and the
Starfish" is an example of how Anohni informs "emotions with their opposites" and cited the
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Online references differ as to when
Hegarty sings "It will grow back..." or "I grow back..." or "I'll grow back..." It may be the case that Hegarty has varied this lyric in performance thus creating slightly different versions of the
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of this song stating that "since nothing is quite as fascinating as horror, I found myself returning repeatedly to "Cripple and the
Starfish", and to my utter surprise discovered that I was hooked." That same year a reviewer for
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While the song may have been featured in the above-mentioned stage production, the precise relationship between the two works—and whether they were created together or if one is derivative of the other—is not indicated.
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called this song "a majestic and poignant anthem about the unhelpful blindness of love in an abusive relationship" and said "It's about having your fingers cut off and them growing again, like a
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and "Already emotionally firm, songs like 'Cripple and the
Starfish' brimmed with intensity under a simmering arrangement." In a review of a 2008 performance of Antony and the Johnson at the
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mentioned this song as one which aptly demonstrates Anohni's "Disarmingly childlike" stage presence which "twines innocence to decidedly polymorphous perversity." A 2003 review in
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lyrics "I always wanted love to be / filled with pain and bruises" as a way in which the writer-singer "transforms songs into deliciously painful pleasures."
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praised the song's emotional impact by saying that it sounds "as baffling and as upsetting in its fuller CD context" as it did as a single.
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One of Anohni's first and better-known songs, "Cripple and the
Starfish" is often lauded by music critics and fellow musicians.
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named "Cripple and the
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beings, and the plot concerns the only two people left alive who still have hearts. “And they’re dysfunctional and
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center around the narrator's willingness to accept, and even encourage, abuse from a romantic interest. The
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magazine wrote that Anohni's older material was awakened with fresh vigor by the orchestra led by
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Current Ninety Three / Antony and the
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magazine said that Anohni "trills heartbreakingly" when performing this song.
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island at the end of the world, after the land has been washed away by the
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referred to "Cripple and the
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floods. At this point in the far future, humans have evolved into
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Live at Joe's Pub, the New York Public
Theater, April 11, 2000"
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intensity." In reviewing a 2004 appearance of the group at
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Antony and Current Ninety Three "Live at St. Olave's Church
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in 1996. A different recording subsequently appeared on
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News, 07 September 2005. Retrieved on 25 October, 2008.
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The New York based band will hit these shores in June
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62:Baroque pop
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284:In 2001,
264:Joe's Pub
208:,” says .
194:styrofoam
876:The Lake
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402:The Wire
278:The Wire
253:Lou Reed
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162:Origins
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272:single
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223:lyrics
169:Magnet
121:Anohni
90:Durtro
68:Length
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57:Genre
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221:The
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28:Song
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