On the surface, this song is an envious description of happy girls; a list of signs of their wholeness. But, the abstract way the girls are described surely doesn't make us see them. Rather, we see the speaker, who presumably is nothing of what they are. We should identify with her and feel miserably envious.
Biographically, it is easy to see Suzanne behind the speaker. Being a sickly child, different from the rest of her family, she was always "left of center" and saw her own body as "a collection of weird things". A hurt child who is missing something, not knowing what, and believing the other children to be whole and happy.
But the identification with the speaker is made difficult by the strange, mechanical, staccato quality of the song -- the words are only one syllable long and have a crisp, abstract sound. The music further strengthens this alienation effect. We hear the song in a different way.
Two words stand out because they are two syllables long: "intact" and "mercy". They are the quintessence of the song -- since those whole girls are intact (literally "untouched", implying the possibility of shattering hurt), they need no mercy. Still, as the last verse nags, they "run in grace", which the whole song exemplifies. Mark how carelessly they receive this grace that the speaker is so desperately lacking!
Thus, the strange form of the song not only makes the listener critical, but also emphasises the almost unbearable envy, and the paradoxical distribution of grace that is its cause. If it were not for the incessant repetition of the last verse, this would be an extremely unredeemed song.
"Run in grace" is repeated and repeated and repeated until it is faded out and the repetition is left to continue inside the listener. Slowly, the words lose their literal meaning and dissolve. At the same time, the envious feeling the words carry become more and more absurd and nauseating. (Try repeating any word in your own language, and note the effect! Even your own name will eventually turn into a sickening muddle of foreign sounds.)
The futility of envy becomes very clear as a reaction to the song. The happiness of those whole girls is, in retrospect, hollow. A somewhat Buddhist thought, perhaps.
This revelation is the listener's own, which of course is the only way it can ever be a revelation. The song has worked with great precision and transcended all biographical particularities.
Hugo Westerlund