The song lyrics were written by the band Van Halen, as they were asked to write a song for the 1979 movie "Over the Edge" starring Matt Dillon. The movie (and the lyrics, although more obliquely) are about bored, rebellious youth with nothing better to do than get into trouble. If you see the movie, these lyrics will make more sense. It's a great movie if you grew up in the 70s/80s you'll definitely remember some of these characters from your own life. Fun fact, after writing the song, Van Halen decided not to let the movie use it.
You were the mother of three girls so sweet
Who stormed through your turnstile and climbed to the street
But after conception your body lay cold
And withered through autumn and you found yourself old
Can you tell me why have been so sad?
He took a lover on a far away beach
While you arranged flowers and chose color schemes
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
The girls were all there, they traded their vows
The youngest one glared with furrowed brows
They tenderly kissed then cut the cake
The bride then tripped and broke the vase
The one you thought would spend the years
So perfectly placed below the mirror
Arriving late, you clean the debris
And walked into the angry sea
It felt just like falling in love again
And it felt just like falling in love again
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
Can you tell me why you have been so
Who stormed through your turnstile and climbed to the street
But after conception your body lay cold
And withered through autumn and you found yourself old
Can you tell me why have been so sad?
He took a lover on a far away beach
While you arranged flowers and chose color schemes
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
The girls were all there, they traded their vows
The youngest one glared with furrowed brows
They tenderly kissed then cut the cake
The bride then tripped and broke the vase
The one you thought would spend the years
So perfectly placed below the mirror
Arriving late, you clean the debris
And walked into the angry sea
It felt just like falling in love again
And it felt just like falling in love again
Can you tell me why you have been so sad?
Can you tell me why you have been so
Lyrics submitted by heartattack
Death of an Interior Decorator Lyrics as written by Benjamin Gibbard
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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
Light Up The Sky
Van Halen
Van Halen
The Night We Met
Lord Huron
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"
Dreamwalker
Silent Planet
Silent Planet
I think much like another song “Anti-Matter” (that's also on the same album as this song), this one is also is inspired by a horrifying van crash the band experienced on Nov 3, 2022. This, much like the other track, sounds like it's an extension what they shared while huddled in the wreckage, as they helped frontman Garrett Russell stem the bleeding from his head wound while he was under the temporary effects of a concussion. The track speaks of where the mind goes at the most desperate & desolate of times, when it just about slips away to all but disconnect itself, and the aftermath.
Amazing
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran tells a story of unsuccessfully trying to feel “Amazing.” This track is about the being weighed down by emotional stress despite valiant attempts to find some positivity in the situation. This track was written by Ed Sheeran from the perspective of his friend. From the track, we see this person fall deeper into the negative thoughts and slide further down the path of mental torment with every lyric.
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it.
“I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Transatlanticism (album) is a story in itself, 1.The New Year- He went to a New Years party to just follow a crowd, and he explains why he doesn't like it. 2.Lightness- He finds a strange attraction to a girl at the New Years party and he persuades her into a relationship. 3.Title And Registration- The break up scene for Ben and the girl. She thought he was holding her back, so she left him. 4.Expo '86- He keeps getting back into a relationship with her, and they keep breaking up. They keep thinking it would do good to get together, but they then figure it only did them harm. But they still do the same thing over, and over again. 5.The Sound Of Settling- Kind of self explanatory, he settles down, finally, and he feels it might be the wrong thing to do... 6.Tiny Vessels- ...So he goes out to find himself another relationship, and the "moving together in the dark" part is one of his greatest mistakes. He thought this would do him good to get back out there but he just made a mistake to scar himself by laying with a beautiful girl when deep down he had no particular interest in her. He also somewhat wanted to make his REAL love jealous. (Bad move) 7.Transatlanticism- He was just about to be done healing from his emotional scar (from Tiny Vessels) and go apologize to his REAL love, and she left. And pretty far at that, all the way across the Atlantic! And just when he needs her the most she is gone, just like that. 8.Passenger Seat- The "So come ON!" line of Transatlanticism was him getting her to come back, and she did. So she met him, (I imagine an airport is where they met) and she is driving him home. He is just in a state of ecstasy because of the relief that this gave him, that she came back, and the love they share, complimented by a nice drive on a peaceful night down a country road. It doesn't get any better. 9.Death Of an Interior Decorator- You may not notice it at first, but this is tremendously depressing. She thought she would be happy, (the one Ben loves) but she has doubt built up in her, and the wedding gone bad she helped decorate for pushed her over the edge. She committed suicide. And imagine the pain this would give you. 10.We Looked Like Giants- This is a flashback of Ben's college years, he was with a girl he loved, and he thinks of getting with her again to help him get over his deceased love. But he figures it would be the wrong thing to do. 11.A Lack Of Color- He now is angry with of all his past mistakes. So he is trying to talk to his love, and he says its "fact not fiction, for the first time in years" that he says he means he want NOTHING else but her. And he picks up his phone to call her, but he only finds more sadness.
I hope this helped you :)
I think the album is a much simpler concept than that. It's quite obviously just about the emotional stages he goes through when a girl he loved left him and moved overseas. He tries to fill the whole she left with other girls and drinking but in the end he regrets that he never gave her "a reason to stay." The songs aren't in a coherent story, they just all have to do with the feelings he has of being alone. Certain songs like Death of an interior decorator don't have anything to do with Ben. It's just a story that expresses similar feelings of loneliness. The girl in the story lost everything in her life that was meaningful much like Ben has lost the girl who went overseas and left him.
Shit, it makes sense. I stil bet there's no such releation among the songs, but it's a funny thing to think.
I don't know if this is what Ben intended for the album to be but this a really clever way of thinking about it and now when I listen to this album i think of it as a story. Very interesting
Except this doesn't check out with reality. The only person Ben ever married was Zoey Deschanel and that ended with divorce, not death
sounds like a stretch to me. what alexluber mentioned is correct, this is almost certainly a reference to woody allen's 1978 film 'interiors'.
I have heard the song is about Woody Allen's movie Interiors. Just to fill in some of the blanks (and oversimplify for sake of the song meaning): The movie is about three sisters ("You were the mother of three girls so sweet"), and their sad/crazy mother ("Can you tell me why have been so sad") who is an interior decorator ("While you arranged flowers and chose color schemes"). THe mother keeps waiting for their father to take her back after a separation. Eventually the father moves on and remarrys a new woman who he (kinda) met on a beach ("He took a lover on a far away beach, "). So the father gets married, and the night of the wedding, which the youngest sister did not approve of ("The girls were all there; they traded their vows. The youngest one glared with furrowed brow"), the new woman trips and breaks a vase that was a symbol of their mother and her interior decorating career ("The bride then tripped and broke the vase, The one you thought would span the years, So perfectly placed below the mirror "). Then the mother crashes the party after everyone has gone to bed ("Arriving late, you clean the debris") and after a heated discussion with one of the daughters, decides to commit suicide by walking into the ocean ("And walked into the angry sea")
Even though I can't really relate to this song I think it is absolutely beautiful.
It's obvious - the story this song is trying to tell. The interesting thing I've heard is that its all based on the plot of some movie---which movie? I don't know...still trying to find it.
it's based on the plot of the book "Death Of A Salesman" by Arthur Miller
It reminds me a lot of the book The Awakening by Kate Chopin. At the end of the book the main character walks into the sea and commits suicide for freedom from her husband and children. It's a lot like this because it doesn't seem like a cowerdly surrender but more like she is liberated by this action. Just like how the song says "and it felt just like falling in love again."
i feel like you misunderstood both this song AND that piece of shit book.
i agree with taylor, because i thought of that book the first time i heard this song. and please, newcoterierotary, how is that a misinterpretation of that book? thats exactly what happened, believe me, my english class analyzed it to death.<br />
that sounds about right, who exactly is he talking to? ... and tell me that movie if you find what it is.
Interiors. It was a Woody Allen movie from the late 70s.
in an acoustic session he says this song is about his favorite movie... whatever that may be.
Interiors by Woody Allen..great movie and the song makes much more sense now after seeing it.
i think this song is probably the best on the album-its flows and floats. and i love lyrics that tell a little story especially one as simply said but as emotionally affecting as this one. wow!
The movie this song is about is called "Interiors," and it's directed by the godly Woody Allen.
The movie Interiors is absolutely beautiful. Once youve seen the movie the song makes a lot more sense.