The first sentence from Green Day's "Good Riddance" song:
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
It's been baffling me for more than ten years, first I thought maybe I was so not good at English to figure out its meaning, and now I've finished my masters degree taught in English and I find myself still not able to understand it.
Why there's a fork stuck in the road? is it some metaphor?
I know a fork can also mean
the point where something, especially a road or (North American) river, divides into two parts.
Is that the right interpretation?
I've looked up the Urban Dictionary and found
Any exceptionally stupid or illiterate phrase found in a pop song.
It says the right phrase to use is "a fork in the road", and it also makes reference to the "Good Is Good" song to show it is just another mistake made by the songwriter.
"Hey, somebody should tell Alanis that every time you hear the rolling thunder, it means the lightning already missed you. And read her a definition of ironic."
It makes sense to me, but it got three times more down votes than up votes.
So what does it mean "a fork stuck in the road"?
Best Answer
"Stick your fork in it and see if it's done."
To stick a fork into something can have a negative meaning, along the lines of 'I don't like it, it's terrible, it's not good', or, per definition 2 of the link, 'To be completely destroyed or defeated'. Or as in The Urban Dictionary (TUD) entry 3 'Indicating a losing or lost cause'.
So, being music and song, when lines can have many meanings, it seems a play on words of both "a fork in the road" as a decision or "another turning point" and to just stick a fork in the road, because I think the situation (or my life) is terrible or even a lost cause, and/or it shows that my attitude toward the turning point in life, or all of life, is negative.
But, as always, poetry and song lyrics are open to multiple interpretations, some of which may be unintended or even unknown to the writer(s).