As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
'Til the pain is so big you feel nothing at all [While my mother "fawned" over me and was overprotective, trying her best to keep me sheltered, my father paid little attention to me. He was not an emotive man].
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
'Til you're so ****ing crazy you can't follow their rules [It hurt me that my parents argued so much, my sisters teased me a lot (I was the youngest), my brothers were in the navy. I was a smart kid (graduated h.s. #6 of 300, got several awards), I was a "Young Sheldon", though paradoxixcally I was naive (it was that sheltering from my mother). I didn't know what to feel or do, be, do be, do (apologies to Ol' Blue Eyes ; I still got **** on at my jobs even as an adult because of the mixed signals I'd send)].
When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function, you're so full of fear [I was confused, didn't really know what I wanted to do or be .. no I'm not going to again ... I was adrift school-wise and career-wise for a few years].
Keep you doped with religion, and sex, and T.V.
And you think you're so clever and classless and free [Raised Catholic, scared ****less by the nuns and priests, ran to confession every time I touched myself; I swear the priests knew me by my voice in the confessional; obsessed with the fear of sex and women (hmm, I wonder why!? ) I didn't get laid until I met my now-husband at 38 years old (finally breaking the chains of guilt). Yet I thought I had it all "together"].
Btw, the (approx.) 10 seconds at 1:36 - 1:46 has a different sound on the guitar because the recording is a splice of two takes. I have no idea why, what I read didn't say (or I just don't remember). JL was kind of weird that was. I Want You (She's So Heavy) ends aburptly and jarringly because the band was arguing how to end it. So JL grabbed a scissors and just snipped the tape and said something like "there's the ending".