Suzanne explaing the real meaning of the chorus:
"I wanted to tell you what is about, before I sing it. Because the chorus goes "What's so small to you, it's so large to me, if it's the last thing I do, I'll make you see". Now it's a song that was meant to be written from the point of view of David, of David and Goliath. And I would think that would be obvious. You know, one would think: David? Rock in this pocket? You know, you think well of course that's what it is. But the reason I like to explain this is because I did a show in London a while back and I read in the newspaper the next day that the chorus seemed to be about the size of someone's penis. So I just wanted to clear up this understanding in case there was anyone here that might think that."
In concert: Cinerama Hall, Tel Aviv, Israel, July 8, 1999

"I must have had about three or four pages written out of the storyline before I finally boiled it down to the three verses that it is...
...99.9F° is a polite record, and it is a strange way of threatening someone, this song here. To say "excuse me, if I may, turn your attention my way" is a terribly polite way of saying I'm going to kill you with this rock...
...It's a very simple version of the story of David and Goliath. It's the moment where he's trying to get Goliath's attention, you might say. Maybe Goliath in his mind is saying, well you're too small. You're just too small for me, I can't even look at you because you're too small. David is saying, well, it's this small thing that can bring you down, that will cause your fall."
...I'm very interested in that power of te small. The idea that small things have their own voice and their own will and their own life and their own dignity in the world. That is very often trampled on by people who feel they are bigger...
...Goliath is not a specific man. Sometimes I feel like it's the world. Sometimes I feel it's the way I approach the world or the audience even, I stand on the stage and I say, "Excuse me, if I may." That's the thing I want. I want their attention for that moment and somehow by the end of the show I will have made them see something. So sometimes I feel that it's my way of approaching the world or the audience, sometimes it's a way of approaching someone I feel to be bigger than myself. And it's not usually a man that I'm involved with but someone that I perceive as having authority. It's a song about authority. It's a song about striving to get that authority to know you, to know a person...
…There is an element of that kind of challenge that says "See, you've underestimated me" in respect to my career, a song that almost every artist has...
The Suzanne Vega - Leonard Cohen Interview, October 1992 (http://www.vega.net/cohnint1.htm), transcribed by Eric Szczerbinski

Suzanne on the relationship with power:
"On a track like "Rock In This Pocket", which is about King David, that's not about me and a man, necessarily. It's about a small person against an institution. I wrote this song beforethe riots happened in LA, but there's that sense of powerlessness and you want to get the attention from someone... and so you have a rock in your pocket and the urge is to throw it. It's not necessarily against a man, especially not a man whom I'm equal to. It's about someone in power, someone mich bigger than I am."
Interview with Martin Townsend, Vox, October 1992

"It's one of those character songs and the character in this song is the character of David - though it's the character I was thinking of, although as usual you can put yourself into it if you want. Some people might identify with it and other people might not. […] If I weren't to tell you that it was David of David and Goliath you'd probably figure out some other way of...it doesn't have to be David but it's what I was thinking of."
In Session on the Nicky Campbell Show, Summer, 1992 Suzanne Vega - in Session on the Nicky Campbell Show, BBC Radio 1, c. August 1992 [The transcript starts just into the interview] http://www.suzannevega.com/about/1992/nickycampbell.htm

The story of David and Goliath can be found in The Bible, Book of Samuel, Chapters 16-18. [Ed.]