36) Wrapped Around Your Finger

Hello and welcome to Learning English with Lyrics, I am your host Jake and today we're discussing the song "Wrapped Around Your Finger" by Post Malone. If you happen to hear some noises in the background, that is my baby daughter who is crawling around, and just having her own thoughts on things, umm so hopefully that won't be too distracting. I wanted to pause a moment to say thank you to everyone who is listening! I was shocked to find that people were still listening after being on hiatus for over a year. Thank you guys so much for supporting the podcast, and continue to tell your friends about us! That helps us out a lot.

Alright, let's get to the song.

If you haven't listened to the song yet, there is a link to it in the description of this video, so go ahead and pause the podcast and give it a listen.

Today I want to talk a little bit about the chorus to this song. The song actually opens up with the chorus, making it easy to find. It begins with the line "You keep me wrapped around your finger", which is conveniently also the title of our song. What does this mean?

To "keep" doing something means to continue doing something, or to maintain its state. Either someone is continuing to do an action, or they are stopping something from changing.

To "keep" "someone" somewhere, or keep someone doing something, or keep them in a particular state, means that you prevent them from doing anything different. For example, if I "keep" a murderer in prison, I am preventing them from leaving the prison. I am stopping their state (being in prison) from changing.

You can even "keep" yourself. For example, if I keep myself from talking, that means that I am stopping myself from speaking at all.

In our song, the singer is being kept "wrapped around" someone else's finger. The second part "wrapped around your finger", is an idiom. As a reminder, an idiom is a non-literal phrase. That is to say, the literal reading of it isn't what it truly means. It's an image, or a picture of something else.

To "wrap" something means to fold something over it, to cover it. The most common usage would be for a gift or a present. We use special paper to "wrap" the gift. We cover the gift with paper, folding it to cover the gift entirely.

Being "wrapped around" something is a little bit different. It doesn't mean that the object is fully covered, but simply that something has been folded entirely around the object. For example, if I wrap a ribbon around a present, I haven't covered the present entirely. But I have folded something to cover a part of it.

But what does it mean for someone to be "wrapped around" someone else's finger? Obviously that doesn't make a lot of sense, if we read it literally instead of figuratively.

If you are "wrapped around someone's finger", that means that you are willing to do anything that they tell you to do. You are under their control. Usually this is due to loving that person so much that you want to do whatever they tell you. This can be romantic, or it can be platonic love. For example, we might say for a grandparent, that their grandchild has them "wrapped around their finger". They'll buy anything that their grandchild wants, because they love them so much!

In this song, it seems to be romantic. And it seems to be a former lover perhaps. But, even though they are no longer together, our singer still feels "wrapped around your finger". He's still willing to do whatever they want him to do. He is still in love with this other person, though from the other song lyrics, it sounds like they don't have the same feelings for him.

Well, that's all we have for today! I want to encourage everyone to listen or read through the rest of the lyrics, and see if you can figure out more of the story of this guy and his former lover. There are some great phrases, and a few other interesting idioms in the song as well. If you have any questions, or just want to say hi, you can always reach out to us on Instagram, at lelpodcast, or by email, at [email protected]. We hope to hear from you and I'll talk to you all soon.