Carly Rae Jepsen starts out the song with “There’s a hole in your bucket,” which is an allusion for the children’s song “Dear Liza.” The allusion indicates right away that there’s a problem that someone needs help with that they can’t figure out, just as Henry could not figure out how to fix anything without Liza’s help.
The little boy is a metaphor for people you may have pity for. The little boy “throws his shovel” when “nothing’s really [goes] as planned.” The lines invoke pathos because everyone goes through frustrating times and knows how it feels. She doesn’t know “how we 're going to build a castle now,” which means she does not know how they are going to fix his problem, but she wants to help him “start again.” She promises she will