Well, in my opinion this song is about being a young & maybe a little naive &/or introverted girl and finding yourself loving a man who is at first very charming, carefree & outgoing, and seems at first to be without limits, as in
"There was a time
you opened up every doorway
you didn't mind if everything
wasn't your way"
then that man starts to gradually become more introverted & shows their more possessive/obsessive side to you as the relationship progresses, even while they keep up the appearance of being carefree & outgoing to everyone else,
"Don't pull away
that goes against what you told me
I look in your eyes
I realize what you've sold me
is love in a vacuum"
so you confront them about the way they're acting and of course they deny it,
"I think you've changed
but you insist that
that's not true"
quite possibly they are an addict of some sort, my guess would be cocaine, &/or showing very obsessive behavior towards you (early on in the video for this song we see the man hanging a picture up, it is a very large portrait of Aimee & it is prominently displayed in his/their apartment for the duration of the song), thus their "love in a vacuum",
"You look so strange, so distant
that you're hardly you
Now I can see
how you have been acting different
You say it's me
but I know
that it isn't
it's love in a vacuum"
but still you are in love with them and don't want to leave them and you know that they are truly in love with you and they don't want you to leave them either, maybe they are convinced you can save them from themself, maybe they are so broken that the possibility of an overdose &/or suicide attempt is very real and you want to get through to them that their behavior not only dangerous but it is also just pissing you off and if they don't wise up they run the risk of loosing you, as in the lines
"You will be lonely
if you leave me alone", so you want to save them but can't get through to them due to the addiction &/or emotional problems they have,
"Love in a vacuum
and that's not enough
love in a vacuum
You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
You will be lonely
if you leave me alone
You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
it's just not enough"
you want them to understand that the love they are giving you is not enough when it is filtered through the vacuum of their drug addiction &/or emotional impairment,
"You will be lonely
you'll be the only one who feels this way
it's just not enough
and just wait
you will be lonely
Love in a vacuum
Love in a vacuum
and that's not enough
Love in a vacuum".
'Love In A Vacuum' for me is a hauntingly truthful acute argument on the loneliness of obsession and almost inevitable loss of love that follows people who are broken in some way or another; the obsessives, the coke heads, the drunks, addicts or the just-plain-old emotionally broken; a razor sharp, lyrically driven, deceptively poppy, yet ultimately-depressing-in-the-best-way song.
Quintessential Aimee Mann.
Think about it, there must be higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I'll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Worlds are turning and we're just hanging on
Facing our fear and standing out there alone
A yearning, and it's real to me
There must be someone who's feeling for me
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring be a higher love
I could rise above on a higher love
I will wait for it
I'm not too late for it
Until then, I'll sing my song
To cheer the night along (bring it)
I could light the night up with my soul on fire
I could make the sun shine from pure desire
Let me feel that love come over me
Let me feel how strong it could be
Oh oh oh
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh oh (bring me)
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
I said, bring me
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh oh)
Bring me a higher love (whoa whoa whoa)
(Bring me higher love) bring me a higher love, oh oh
(Bring me higher love) bring me a higher love (bring it on)
There's that love, bring me higher love
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (I said bring)
Bring me a higher love (oh yeah)
Bring me higher love
Bring me a higher love (higher, high, higher)
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, I'll look inside mine
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Worlds are turning and we're just hanging on
Facing our fear and standing out there alone
A yearning, and it's real to me
There must be someone who's feeling for me
Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind and we try to see
Falling behind in what could be
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring be a higher love
I could rise above on a higher love
I will wait for it
I'm not too late for it
Until then, I'll sing my song
To cheer the night along (bring it)
I could light the night up with my soul on fire
I could make the sun shine from pure desire
Let me feel that love come over me
Let me feel how strong it could be
Oh oh oh
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh oh (bring me)
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh)
I said, bring me
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (oh oh oh)
Bring me a higher love (whoa whoa whoa)
(Bring me higher love) bring me a higher love, oh oh
(Bring me higher love) bring me a higher love (bring it on)
There's that love, bring me higher love
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love (I said bring)
Bring me a higher love (oh yeah)
Bring me higher love
Bring me a higher love (higher, high, higher)
Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love
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its amazing how far music can come.. 24 years after it released and its one of the most heartfelt songs ive heard
The Spy
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Like a lot of the other comments are saying, I think this mainly about voyeurism. If the song was about his girlfriend, then why would he use the word spy. If you are a spy it means you shouldn't be caught, that is kind of the whole point, and if you are a voyeur, the whole point of the pleasure you get from it, is the fact that the other people don't know you are watching them. See a bit of a connection there?
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Insane Ian
Insane Ian
The way this song speaks to me🥺🥺when I sing it I feel like I relate
Techno Ted
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Techno Ted may be a person who caused Chris incredible emotional pain & trepidation as well as moments of peace & happiness but now is removed and awaiting his fate. Darling may be a different person who is also free of him and can live her life free of Ted's tyranny. "In between all the laughing, and daydreams ... lies: a desert of truth" Lies are like a desert or the omission of Truth: Where there were Lies then Truth was absent. The song, "Techno Ted", may be a cathartic celebration of the downfall of this person.
This song was written by Steve's friend Will Jennings. In an interview he said the following:
"I was born in East Texas and my mother and father's families were from Arkansas and the generations before were from the Deep South. My father's father was a Methodist preacher, a circuit rider, in Arkansas. My earliest memories are of the music in church and of my aunts and uncles singing the beautiful old hymns. 'Higher Love' is a generation past that, when things were not so much taken for granted, so that one has to plea, 'Bring me a higher love,' and the lines are all trying to explain why there must be higher love. A modern hymn, you might call it."
Sorry, haters gonna hate, but this without doubt about God. Lyrics written by Will Jennings. Even the line "I could make the sun shine from pure desire" fits in. Scripture says that Christ views the Church as His bride, and that He loves the Church passionately, as a groom loves his bride. If you know that love, you know that the line fits perfectly with this song being about the higher love of God.
It's a song with a double meaning, one is about finding a person (romantic partner) who truly loves you and whom you really connect with. The other, larger meaning is that it is about higher power in the universe. I wouldn't say it is about God as in the Abrahamic god, or about any other deity in organized religions...but rather about some sort of abstract force, higher power, etc.
No, not about God. About a romantic partner.
It could be about God, but judging by this line, it's about romantic love, not religious love: "I could make the sun shine from pure desire"
Sounds romantic rather than religious. Still, it could be about God.
Did a romantic partner or God create the sun?
Easy song to translate. Its about that certain level of passion that is uncommon to most people. Most people take comfort as love whereas this "higher love" is so much more. Hence the "We walk blind and we try to see Falling behind in what could be" He knows that all the "loves" he has had in the past werent true and left him feeling empty and he is yearning for that Higher Love. The love that is hard to explain. The higher love that completes him
"I could light the night up with my soul on fire I could make the sun shine from pure desire Let me feel that love come over me Let me feel how strong it could be"
The most intense passion, romance, love, feelings all combined.
Definitely an awesome song. Very talented.
@acidsex “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in His love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." - JESUS CHRIST<br /> <br /> (John 15:9-13 NLT)
This song reminds me of doing Ham Radio in High school. It bought me Higher Geekness
I think a lot of it has to do with God. He is expressing how he is tired of the romantic love and is wondering if their is a "Higher Love" that goes beyond romance and condition. Uncoditional love, of which God is, if you put religion aside.
It's a great song and I think it gives a great perspective of God. Too often, religions including traditional Christianity, have made God out to be something it/he/she is NOT.
Winwood is also expressing how God, the REAL God of unconditional love, is also within us. That God is all of us and that we are "higher" than our physical body, but how it is also hard to realize that because we get caught up in this world all the time ("Where's that higher love I keep thinking of?").
I agree! I don't like to use the world "God", because it connotes a deity that demands worship, has an anthropomorphic personality, gets involved in people's lives, etc, that is connected with this world's organized religions. But the higher power out there that exists, I do not believe it is anything like that at all. It is not self-aware or has a personality, or feels emotion, it doesn't feel love, it IS love, it isn't conscious, it IS consciousness, and it's not out there, but inside all of us and everything that makes up the universe. It is indeed "down in the heart" AND "hidden in the stars above...because it is the very universe itself. I think the concept of the "Force", from Star Wars best describes it...it is in everyone and everything...and in each life people get too caught up in the world they're in and in the insular, limited, parochial concepts of that world to realize the much bigger picture out there.
Definitely about romantic love. Finding that person who brings you to the highest level in life where you feelings are so intense you feel invincible.
@PDXGuy96 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. <br /> <br /> Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and His love is brought to full expression in us. And God has given us His Spirit as proof that we live in Him and He in us. <br /> <br /> Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. All who declare that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in His love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. <br /> <br /> And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world. <br /> <br /> Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love. We love each other because He loved us first.<br /> <br />
Certainly could be about God on the other hand ...as he says in the line "Think about it ,etc, down in your heart or in the stars ", etc " Without it, life is wasted time " To me it seems to say Search inside think outside of this Life and this word and all its fears And you could find LOVE that is greater , stronger takes over and Elevates lifts your heart & soul to a new level .....A HIGHER LOVE
The writer is trying to reach out to God - asking for his love.