True Faith

this is from the songwriter, Bernard Sumner himself, during an interview for Q magazine in 1999.

"(True Faith) is about drug dependency. I don't touch smack but when I wrote that song I tried to imagine what it's like to be a smackhead and nothing else matters to you except that day's hit. There's a line in the song, 'When I was a very young boy, very young boys played with me/Now we've grown up together, they're afraid of what they see." The original was, 'Now they're taking drugs with me,' but Stephen Hague our producer made us change it because he said it wouldn't be a hit if we kept that line in. He was right. It was a very big hit, but we chickened out. I change it back sometimes live."

i can only interpret this song in a very personal manner. after a very bad childhood i feel extraordinary because i survived and my life now depends on MY day to day life (the morning sun) instead of what happened to me in the past.

for me it is a song of great hope.

i have very much enjoyed reading the other opinions, and can especially see how one could relate this song to drugs, even if it does not seem that way to me.

It has already been validated from Bernard Sumner himself that this song is about drug addiction. Here is the breakdown.

I feel so extraordinary Something's got a hold on me I've got this feeling I'm in motion A sudden sense of liberty

The singer is getting high.

I don't care 'cos I'm not there And I don't care if I'm here tomorrow Again and again I've taken too much Of the thing that costs you too much

The singer is quite carefree now, but the drug is costing him too much probably in both time and money.

*I used to think that the day would never come I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun My morning sun is the drug that brings me near To the childhood I lost replaced by fear I used to think that the day would never come That my life would depend on the morning sun

He never thought that his life would be totally dominated by drugs.

When I was a very small boy Very small boys talked to me Now that we've grown up together They're afraid of what they see

Actually, a neighborhood friend of mine turned into a drug addict and changed dramatically. He was no longer the same guy we knew, and the others was pretty shocked at what happened to him. It's quite a transformation.

That's the price that we all pay Our valued destiny comes to nothing I can't tell you where we're going I guess there's just no way of knowing

The price of drugs is that you have no future. There is no way for them to know precisely what their future is anymore ... if any.

Even though the songwriter has commented, it's important to remember that even the maker of a thing isn't in control of it's meaning; either the meaning it takes through nuance when it's first created, or the meaning it takes through time as different people interpret it. Or was everyone happy with George Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy?

It's kind of funny how no one's really tried to synthesize the two common interpretations- substance abuse and organized religion. The song is about addiction more than it's about drugs- and the highs produced by fervent religious faith are little different than those produced by chemical use. Really, any addiction or controlling behavior could apply to this song... or anything that takes away one's innocence and one's destiny. As much as anything, to me, this song is about growing up and trading away dreams for short-term happiness.

how could no one have commented on this yet? this song is so awesome.

what it's about..i don't know. i guess just how he had a rotten childhood and then someone came along and he became a stronger person...but then the person left(took my time and you took my money) but he's still a stronger person because he was left standing..

I find that this song has highly depressing undertones. The subject, possibly Bernard, has lived a life full of fear and emotional pain. The following lines seem to support this assumption-

"I used to think that the day would never come I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun My morning sun is the drug that brings me near To the childhood I lost replaced by fear"

"A sudden sense of liberty"

This person has lived in a prison of his own fears and has discovered a drug that finally makes him feel free and OK for the first time in his life. It could be ecstasy, but that's not the big picture. However, these lines make me think ecstasy:

"I feel so extraordinary Something's got a hold on me I've got this feeling I'm in motion A sudden sense of liberty"

Not only does taking ecstasy makes you feel euphoric, but it makes you feel like you're in motion, which is why people refer to the experience as "rolling". It gives you a feeling of emotional freedom and was used for psychotheraputic purposes before it was made illegal.

"Again and again I've taken too much Of the thing that costs you too much"

Clearly these lines can be interpreted to mean drug use. Bernard Sumner has said in interviews that this song is about drug use, and the lyric "Now that we've grown up together They're afraid of what they see" was originally, "Now that we've grown up together They're all taking drugs with me". This doesn't really change the meaning of the song though, it only serves to make it more subtle. These "boys" are in that prison of fear and they're using drugs in an effort to make themselves feel OK.

Clearly the drugs interpretation is right, but I had a different idea for the chorus. I hear it as: "I used to think that the day would never come I'd see the light in the shade of the morning sun My MOURNING SON is the drug that brings me near To the childhood I lost replaced by fear"

I understand it as a guy who sees the reaction of his own son to the effect drugs are having on him, and this is the thing that shakes him out of it. It's the one thing that reconnects him to the time before drugs were in his life. In this sense, thinking that "the day would never come" means that he never thought this day would come, where he finally gives it up.

Weird, eh? :-)

Wow, it seems obvious now that this was written about drugs, but I had no clue. I was crazy about this song but lately could not recall the name or the group, finally did just now. Back when this video was running on MTV, I somehow suspected it was about a person with emotional trauma getting to the source of his pain through therapy, the "morning sun" being a positive image, light at the end of the tunnel, etc. And the "I feel so extraordinary" part, I thought of as positive emotions related to an emotional breakthrough or recovery. At first I actually thought they were saying "my morning sun is the TRUCK that brings me here", but after I realized it was DRUG, I thought they were referring to a person undergoing a drug therapy to recover lost childhood memories. And I also thought the lyrics were saying "I took your time & you took my money" rather than "YOU took my time & you took my money" - I thought this might have referred to, the patient taking the time of his therapist, and the therapist took his money, with a sort of reference to being kind of left out there on his own, feeling abandoned in the big bad world that is "too demanding" now that the therapy is over. A friend went thru years of psychotherapy for serious childhood abuse issues, probably why I thought that - funny how you can read what you want into anything -

i think it's obvious what this song is about by the title alone. it's about the perception of faith in the world. does a supreme omnipitent being exist and does believing in him/her/it bring enlightenment during and after death.

the "I feel so extraordinary..." verse is feeling that feeling somehow and the chorus goes on into how he couldn't believe he of all people would feel whatever feeling it is described by others but he feels it now. and how that feeling he has now is carefree and enlightening, much like the feelings he had as a child.

the second verse talks about how the people around him have reacted to him differently because of his enlightenment. they don't know how to react. even he doesn't. he's not sure if there's infinite life after this feeling or if everything told to him is really true.

The last verse seems like a condemnation of organized religion and how his enlightenment didn't come from going to the church and adding to the collection plate every sunday. and all the rules established by the church have made him an outcast, even though he has experienced true faith.

of course that's just my opinion, i could be wrong.

Setting religion aside, picture faith as strength that comes when you do have to knock on wood, walk through the fire, or do have to walk on water as sheer means of survival, a "do or die" mode so to speak. I was born an autistic child, battered and beaten my my parents who couldn't grasp the reality of it all. At 3, dad broke my pelvis and two vertabrae in a profuse beating, at four crushed my head with a cobblestone. My morning sun was finnaly walking to a place where I finally felt safe, as safe as one can be in this intense world., and that time when they would rlease me from that locked closet. At 17 I entered into a terrible marriage that would last 22 years, filled with torture, control, and abuse. Takes a lot of guts to get to that morning sun, and then maybe though that sense of freedom is sweet, it also has a bitter side. My interpretation is about breaking free. Breaking free of that chick that holds you down, or a life of chains whatever they may be, or even from an addiction. The freedom and liberty that comes from that moment when you decide not to be there, and never care to return, sets you into motion. Not only is it about breaking free of the chains of flipping hell, but about the chains and demons that rule your mind by night, and the day itself that frees you from tormenting dreams and thoughts that plague upon the return of those endless nights that you fear. Any addict that has freed herself or himself knows these night torments all to well. What a hard walk it is back to the other side, and maybe the truth and light there iin reality ain't as sweet as it smells once you make it there, leaving behind the old life and the people in it. Next, it is about standing on your own without those crutches, and about crossing the bridge to where the grass IS greener, as in power, riches, and fame. When that day DOES come, and you DO stand on the hill with that greener grass all around, you see the farce that somehow all those things would make you happy, or make you more, or better, or bring admiration, when perhaps those you left behind see the monster you've become, and in this case, I think the monster's name is fame. I used to think that when I got there, I'd enjoy that morning sun, until I needed that shot of fame, power, or conceit to keep my bloated ego going. It's a hard walk back to sanity and reality when that fame vaporizes. Finally, when everything in life is gone, and it is you and the street corner and your shadow, who will you turn to when there is no one there, and all you ever knew or believed in has vanished. Like Ram Dass said, after that darkest night, then you'll know what God knows, and see as God sees, then and only then will you learn to depend on your maker as a child does his or her mother.