Push Pull

Push Pull by Purity Ring

The Core Idea Behind the Song

The meaning of Push Pull Purity Ring centers on emotional conflict that feels both intimate and unsettling. The song describes a bond where desire, fear, and surrender all happen at once. Rather than telling a simple love story, Purity Ring present closeness as something that can heal, overwhelm, and even consume.

The title itself points to that tension. A person resists, then gives in. They move closer, then try to retreat. When the chorus repeats push and you pull, it sounds like the emotional rhythm of a relationship where one person cannot fully accept what is happening, even as they are already inside it.

Watch the official Push Pull music video

A Relationship That Feels Like a Spell

Purity Ring often write in dream language, and this song follows that pattern. The speaker seems to address someone younger or more innocent, someone who begins with wonder and openness. Early lines about reverence, staring, and climbing suggest curiosity and attraction before fear enters the picture.

Then the song turns darker. The repeated idea of tell yourself no suggests resistance, but that resistance does not stop the connection. Instead, the other presence keeps spreading inward. When the singer says I crept up in you, the image is not casual romance. It sounds invasive, like emotion entering the body before the mind can name it.

Interpretation: That makes the song feel less like a breakup track and more like a portrait of being changed by love, obsession, or longing against one’s will.

How the Verses Build Fear and Desire

One striking thing about the lyrics is how they move between body imagery and sky imagery. The song talks about limbs, veins, folds, air, thunder, and stars. That mix makes the relationship feel physical and cosmic at the same time.

The recurring image climb up in the air can be read two ways. On one level, it suggests escape from fear. On another, it suggests surrender to a strange, elevated state brought on by attraction. Purity Ring often blur the line between transcendence and danger, and that happens here too.

The storm imagery deepens that feeling. Darkness, plains, thunder, and stillness in fear all make the world outside match the world inside. The song is not just about two people. It makes their emotional state feel like weather.

There was no light and I swear
We sat still in our fear

These lines capture the heart of the track: intimacy in a moment of dread. They are together, but that does not make things safe.

The Chorus as the Emotional Key

The chorus is the clearest guide to the meaning of Push Pull Purity Ring. It describes a cycle of refusal and attachment. Someone tries to stop the feeling, but the feeling grows anyway. The comparison to veins growing slowly suggests that this bond becomes part of the body’s hidden structure.

That is why the hook feels so eerie. It is not just saying, “You like me even if you deny it.” It is saying the connection has already rooted itself beneath awareness. By the time the listener reaches the line wouldn't let go, the song sounds less like persuasion and more like inevitability.

Interpretation: The chorus may describe mutual desire that scares both people. It may also describe obsession from the speaker’s side. Purity Ring leave room for both readings, which is part of why the song lingers.

Symbols, Bodies, and Constellations

The last verse pushes the song into surreal territory. The image of a constellation lair made from moles on a body turns skin into a night sky. That is a classic Purity Ring move: they transform small physical details into huge symbolic worlds.

This matters because the song keeps asking what happens when intimacy becomes total. A body becomes a map. A mark on skin becomes a star. Fear becomes shelter. Even pardon becomes something that must be built.

There is also an undercurrent of creation here. The speaker does not just feel; they shape, carve, and build. That suggests a possessive kind of love, where one person imagines remaking the other through attention and desire.

Why the Sound Matters So Much

Purity Ring are an electronic duo known for pairing Megan James' delicate vocals with Corin Roddick's detailed, bass-heavy production. On their 2012 debut Shrines, “Push Pull” fits the album’s style: glittering synths, deep low end, and beats that feel both soft and threatening.

That production helps explain the song’s meaning. James sings in a near-whisper, which makes the words feel secretive rather than dramatic. Underneath, the synths pulse and expand like something alive. The track does not explode; it coils. That slow pressure mirrors the lyric idea that emotion spreads gradually and takes hold over time.

Critics often noted how Purity Ring mixed sweetness with menace on Shrines reviews. “Push Pull” is one of the clearest examples. The song is beautiful, but it never sounds fully safe.

A Clear Reading of the Song's Meaning

So, what is the meaning of Push Pull Purity Ring in plain terms? It is about the struggle between resisting connection and being overtaken by it. The song presents intimacy as a force that enters quietly, grows slowly, and changes how a person sees their body, their fear, and the world around them.

Interpretation: Listeners can hear it as a dark love song, a song about obsession, or even a metaphor for anxiety and intrusive feeling. The lyrics support all three because they never fully explain whether the speaker is comforting, haunting, or possessing the other person.

That uncertainty is the point. Purity Ring make emotional experience feel strange, sensory, and hard to control. “Push Pull” turns that style into a vivid portrait of wanting something that also frightens them.

Final Take

“Push Pull” remains memorable because it does not separate tenderness from danger. It treats love as a force that can lift someone upward and trap them at the same time.

That blend of beauty and unease is what gives the song its staying power.

Disclaimer: This article offers informed interpretation based on the lyrics, sound, and available artist context. Song meanings can remain open, and different listeners may hear them differently.