A Rush of Blood to the Head

A rush of blood to the head is that moment when emotions override all logic, causing you to do stupid and reckless things because you aren't thinking clearly.

The song is about a guy who just got dumped by his girlfriend. Now they either lived together in, let's say, an apartment (or house), or spent a lot of time there together. All the problems that led to the girl breaking up with the guy took place in this apartment, and the guy sees the apartment as a representation of all of their problems and all of his mistakes. As he desperately tries to think of ways to get his girl back, he decides that if he gets rid of the apartment, he'll erase all of his mistakes. He isn't thinking clearly because of all the emotions from just breaking up, so in "a rush of blood to the head," he goes back and buys the apartment and burns it down. He's calling to his ex-girlfriend to come see what he has done, come watch as all of their problems and all of his mistakes disappear in a blazing fire. He thinks that the apartment represents all of his mistakes for his ex also, so he wants her to stand and watch the fire until she's satisfied that all of their problems are gone and they can get back together again. At the end of the first verse, he's asking his girlfriend what can he do to get her back. The line, "He said I'm gonna buy a gun and start a war, if you can tell me something worth fighting for," is his way of saying, I'll go out there and destroy all of the problems you have with me, if you would only tell me what those problems are.

Now the song leads into the chorus, where the guy is saying to his ex-girlfriend, your movements away from me are causing me to break down ("honey, all the movements you're starting to make, see me crumble and fall on my face"). This guy knows the mistakes that he's made, and he's trying to tell her that he can make them all disappear by burning down the place where so many of their problems and fights took place. But his mistakes and his reckless actions are just giving her more reason to start moving on.

In the second verse he's still telling his girlfriend to come watch as all of his mistakes burn to the ground. The other people around him watching the fire might have lived in the apartment building or around their house, and some laugh and some cry as the building burns down. But his girlfriend just sits there and wonders why he's doing something like this. She wants him to see that he can't blame other things for the mistakes that he's made. Now the guy is really getting desperate, and he's for sure going to go out and destroy all of her problems, if only she can tell him what it is that he's fighting for. All of the reckless mistakes that he's making are because of one emotional moment of a rush of blood to the head.

At the end of the song the guy has realized that his girl has left, but he's still asking her to come back. He's wondering when he'll get to see her pretty face again, and he's still waiting by the burned out remains of their apartment, the destruction he caused because of a rush of blood to the head.