Old world underground where are you now?
Subtract my age from the mileage
On my speeding heart, credit cards
Accelerate, accumulate
Looked for you downtown
Wound up in a movie with no story
Now it's late and you are nowhere to be found

Hesitation's always mine
Hesitate outside the times
With all I don't say
With all I don't do
I'm sending you
Invitations to hesitate too

Every ten year-old enemy soldier
Thinks falling bombs are shooting stars sometimes
But she doesn't make wishes on them
When she wishes, she wishes for less ways to wish for
More ways to work toward it
Ten year-old enemy soldier
Our falling bombs are her shooting stars

Hesitation's always mine
Hesitate outside the times
Oh call me or drop me a line
Say you've been with me
Say you've been with me
Say you've been with me
This whole time

Old world underground I never knew you
But I've seen your face everywhere
There was a farm before we tore
The small town down
Multiply divide


Lyrics submitted by tine17

IOU Lyrics as written by James Shaw Emily Haines

Lyrics © BMG Rights Management

Lyrics powered by LyricFind

IOU song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

16 Comments

sort form View by:
  • 0
    General Comment

    wow everyhing about this song is great. Emily Haines is amazing, and not to mention reeeeeaaaly hot haha.

    positive_tensionon February 15, 2006   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
Fast Car
Tracy Chapman
"Fast car" is kind of a continuation of Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run." It has all the clawing your way to a better life, but in this case the protagonist never makes it with her love; in fact she is dragged back down by him. There is still an amazing amount of hope and will in the lyrics; and the lyrics themselve rank and easy five. If only music was stronger it would be one of those great radio songs that you hear once a week 20 years after it was released. The imagery is almost tear-jerking ("City lights lay out before us", "Speeds so fast felt like I was drunk"), and the idea of starting from nothing and just driving and working and denigrating yourself for a chance at being just above poverty, then losing in the end is just painful and inspiring at the same time.
Album art
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines: "Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet" So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other: "I had all and then most of you" Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart "Some and now none of you" Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship. This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Album art
Mental Istid
Ebba Grön
This is one of my favorite songs. https://fnfgo.io
Album art
Bron-Y-Aur Stomp
Led Zeppelin
This is about bronies. They communicate by stomping.
Album art
When We Were Young
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.